Intern James Bright attended today’s talk by Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst at D World Headquarters. And he has a bone or two to pick with the lieutenant governor on illegal immigration:
David Dewhurst stopped by D’s office today to let us know about his perfect plan to solve any and all immigration problems: increase border patrol. Well, since this idea has been put out there pretty much forever, and virtually every opinion writer in the nation has given their two cents on the idea, I figured why not throw my thoughts into the mix.
According to Dewhurst, there are approximately 7,000 miles of border and roughly 19,000 current border patrol agents protecting our land. He says that tripling the number of security personal will effectively solve the issues of illegal immigrants, drug traffickers, and people with passports from “terrorist countries” like Libya and Syria coming into the United States.
OK, maybe increasing border patrol agents would stop illegal immigrants from crossing the border at less populated areas across the border. But where’s the money to fund these agents going to come from? We are currently paying billions of dollars a week to service the needs of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. I have no interest in paying more taxes to keep non-dangerous people from crossing the border and working jobs that I frankly have no interest in.
Then there’s the drug war. Dewhurst says whenever there has been a surge of agents in an area, illegal activity has declined dramatically. Well, the thing is, the Los Zetas and La Familia cartels are operating primarily out of border towns, and have been successfully doing it for some time. El Paso and Laredo have plenty of protection, but drug trafficking has not stopped there. I don’t see how throwing more people into a war zone is going to solve this issue. Members of these cartels have no fear of authority–whether it’s a police officer or a Navy Seal.
Lastly, there are those pesky terrorists. Now I’ll admit there have been reports of members of terrorist organizations being caught on the Texas/Mexico border. But Dewhurst’s sentiments that pointed out countries like Libya and Syria are downright racist. These two countries are in upheaval, so of course people are leaving. They’re called refugees. And, yes, they’re going through Latin and South American countries, because immigration policies there are a bit less strict than ours. My problem is with the implications of Dewhurst’s statements. Not all of these people are terrorists. In fact the large–and I do mean large–majority, are not terrorists. To preface this problem with the statement, “people with passports from terrorists countries,” is not only ridiculous, it’s racist.
Truthfully, I’m not sure why any of this surprised me. I mean, Dewhurst has been Gov. Rick Perry’s buddy and cabana boy for some time. I just hope he’s not the post-Perry governor, because right now the only thing that seems worse than a Texas run by Perry is one run by Dewhurst.
