U.S. Border Control

After four years of ignoring illegal immigration, Bush promises "significant progress" in a year

October 23, 2005

Last week President Bush made a speech in which he announced a new, get-tough policy on illegal immigration.

"We must improve our ability to find and apprehend illegal immigrants who've made it across the border," Bush said on Tuesday as he signed a bill toughening immigration enforcement. "If somebody's here illegally, we've got to do everything we can to find them. We've got to work to ensure that those who are caught are returned to their home countries as soon as possible."

Now, that's news. There are at least 10 million people in this country illegally. After four years of ignoring the problem, Bush is finally going to do something about it.

That's quite a reversal. Until last week, the Bush people were pushing such highly questionable measures as the issuance of special driver's licenses for illegals. But now George W. is cracking down. Now the only place those illegals will be driving is toward the border.

And they'd better get there before Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff gets his hands on them. Earlier on Tuesday, Chertoff told a Senate hearing that his department's goal is to "return every single illegal entrant, no exceptions."

He added, "It should be possible to achieve significant and measurable progress to this end in less than a year."

Oddly, this historic change in policy barely made the papers. TV news largely ignored it as well. The only reason I noticed it is that I like to stay up late drinking beer and watching C-SPAN.

What accounts for the lack of news coverage on such a big story? I suspect it's simply that no one takes Bush seriously anymore. Is there a single, trusting soul out there who believes that a year from now there will be fewer illegal immigrants in the United States? Two years? Three?

As I sipped my suds and sat back on the sofa, I wondered if even Laura buys George's b.s. anymore. I already knew what he was going to say. He was going to spend the first two-thirds of the speech talking tough about the few minor improvements in border security embodied in the bill. Then he was going to make a pitch for an immigration amnesty.

Sure enough, there he was behind the microphones giving us that goofy, squint-eyed grin that is supposed to convey determination.

"We're going to get control of our borders," he said. "We're going to make this country safer for all our citizens."

Better fences and more border- patrol agents are coming, Bush assured us. Then came the bait-and- switch: "Family values do not stop at the Rio Grande River," he said.

Uh-oh. Family values. That's a code word for amnesty. Sure enough, what followed was the standard Bush pitch for his "guest- worker program." Chertoff may want to return "every single illegal entrant, no exception," but Bush wants to ignore their illegal activity and hand them guest-worker documents.

So there was no news, just spin. And it was lame spin at that. Karl Rove is like a pitcher who has lost a few miles an hour off his fastball, an aging boxer who telegraphs his punch.

In this case, Rove was lucky the media ignored the story. Any journalist who looked into it would have come across that fax sent to Rove last month by U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith suggesting the strategy that emerged last week.

"Enforcement of immigration laws, current and new, should come first to satisfy the increasing public demand for border security," wrote Smith, a Republican from San Antonio.

"Liberals can easily and accurately be painted as opposing enforcement," Smith added. "Only then, as enforcement begins to gain traction, should the twin programs of guest workers and long-term illegal residents begin to be addressed."

Brilliant. Except that someone in Smith's office dialed the wrong number and sent the fax to a Democrat. Before long it was posted on the Internet, where it outraged both liberals and conservatives. The liberals were upset for obvious reasons. The conservatives were upset because the fax showed that they were once again being taken for fools by a bunch of Texans too dumb to dial a phone.

But that's the Bush/Rove era in a nutshell. As that era winds down to what seems an inevitable conclusion, conservatives have to ask themselves how they were ever fooled in the first place. How did a proponent of big government and internationalism manage to convince so many people he was a believer in small government and nationalism?

I don't really know. I confess I am unable to explain the rise of George W. Bush.

I have some interesting theories on the fall, however.