Great news as cross posted from The Uncooperative Blogger
A few minutes ago, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a stand-alone border security and fence bill (H.R. 6061).
H.R. 6061 was introduced just this week (as a result of the special hearings) by Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King (R-NY).
VOTING YES
GOP—-219
DEM—–64
———————-
Total—-283VOTING NO
GOP——6
DEM—-131
IND——1
———————-
Total—-138See how your own Representative voted.
Probably the most encouraging news in this vote was to see 64 Democrats vote for the fence.
That is up from the 49 who voted for a fence amendment last December.
End of post from The Uncooperative Blogger.
This is good news without a doubt, now to fund it and with a "tip of the hat" to Michelle Malkin, how are we to feel about the new educational exchange program agreed to by President Bush and Saudi King Abdullah.
According to Fox News the new exchange program:
"will quintuple the number of Saudi students and scholars here by the academic year's end."
It was my understanding there would be no math, however according to the article this will bring the number to 15,000. Considering that 15 of the 19 pantloads/*sshats (whichever you prefer) involved in the 9/11 attacks were from Saudi Arabia; one has to wonder why bother going through the backdoor, when the front one is wide open.
One concern to my paranoid and sad mind is that Tom Farrell, deputy assistant for academic programs at the State Department said:
"This is a critically important bilateral relationship. It's an opportunity to increase understanding of Saudi Arabia for the United States and of the United States for Saudi Arabia."
Famous last words from the bastion of the status quo, which brings me to the second "tip of the hat" to Ms. Malkin; which is the GAO study that details millions of visa overstays and tracking program deficiencies highlights (and we're not talking hair):
-- Weaknesses in DHS' tracking of visa overstay enables illegal immigration and impacts domestic security as these illegal aliens find work at secure facilities and airports under fraudulent names, often using someone else's identity information including a stolen or fraudulently obtained Social Security number.
Elvira Arellano anyone?
More highlights:
-- Several "special interest alien" overstays have been arrested on charges related to terrorism since 9/11. One was convicted of providing material support to Hezbollah and another was killed in the act of shooting the El Al ticket counter at Los Angeles Airport.
-- DHS says that for FY 2002, the risk of arrest for all visa overstays was less than 2 percent.
-- Of over 13,900 "special interest" aliens who were notified of possible deportation proceedings last year, only 350 have been removed from the U.S. so far.
-- Overstays affect domestic security because they obtain jobs with fraudulent identity documents on airport tarmacs, U.S. military bases, nuclear facilities, the Super Bowl stadium, and other sensitive locations making efforts to secure these venues more difficult. Post-9/11 operations identified thousands of cases where (because of limited background checks) these workers were able to obtain sensitive-access jobs.
Overstays with "fraudulent identity documents..." and some of our elected elite wanted to skip any kind of punishment for the use of illegally obtained and used social security numbers. Talk about special interests; do we really expect Washington to do anything that would be considered right? One good reason to ease off on any kind of incomprehensible, I mean comprehensive reform, no?
The rest of the highlights:
-- Over 4800 security breaches in airports involved overstays and other illegal workers' procurement of security badges through identity fraud. DHS officials told GAO that badging procedures and background checks were similarly vulnerable at other critical infrastructure sites.
-- In 25 of 26 airports reviewed by GAO, overstays were arrested for fraudulently obtaining security badges for employment with access to secure areas.
-- In DHS' other critical infrastructure sweeps, overstays were found to have similarly gained access to the secure areas of two thirds of the sites checked.
-- While the DHS estimates the resident overstay population figure at 2.3 million as of January 2000, this estimate does not include long-term overstays of Mexican and Canadian citizens who are not required to fill out the Form I-94 which is vital to foreign visitor tracking.
I like the "2.3 million" estimate. It's kind of like the estimated number of "undocumented" immigrants/workers/whatever (undocumented doesn't really imply illegal does it) in the country right now.
And the final highlights as "highlighted" below:
-- Weaknesses in the Form I-94 tracking program come from failure to update a visitor's authorized period of admission or immigration status; lack of reliable address information; and missing departure forms. The use of fraudulent documents (bearing a name other than their own) that pass inspection record a name other than the visitor on the Form I-94.
-- For fiscal year 2001 arrivals, the overstay tracking system yielded a list of 6.5 million "apparent overstays" for which DHS had no departure record that matched the arrivals. This system also yielded a list of a half million other visits that ended after the visitors initial periods of admission expired.
The press release highlighting the deficiencies is dated 6/2/2004, my guess is all that has been done to this point is more "studies." We vote for and pay these people for what again? Hell in a handbasket kiddies.
Look to see me slightly more perturbed and less bland or urbane. I've had enough of the games.
Hey, be sure to visit Debbie at Right Truth to find out about how "DHS trains local cops to arrest illegal aliens."
**This was a production of The Coalition Against Illegal Immigration (CAII). If you would like to participate, please go to the above link to learn more. Afterwards, email the coalition and let me know at what level you would like to participate.**
