Bush's impeachable offense

Glynn Custred:

There are limits as to the number of people a country can take in and absorb, thus the need for a rational immigration policy. This includes standards as to who should be allowed to enter and who should be kept out. After 9-11 such standards have become an especially important consideration. Illegal immigration violates both of those imperatives as well as the rule of law, and in the process compounds social problems within the country. Yet the president has not only refused to deal with the issue, except for some vague talk of an amnesty under the rubric of a "guest worker" program, he has actually moved to insure the continuation of illegal immigration by shutting down immigration enforcement.

This process began during the term of the first President Bush and continued under Clinton. Congress also contributed to the process by pressuring enforcement agencies not to enforce the very laws they had enacted in response to special interests. Bush, however, has taken the process to its logical conclusion. When Congress authorized 2,000 new agents for the Border Patrol the Bush budget allocated only enough money for 210, not even enough to cover attrition. When asked about the allocation, outgoing Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge called it "fool's gold." The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which is charged with interior enforcement, has been denied adequate resources to the point that its agents refuse to pick up deportable criminals held in local jails when notified by local authorities.

Also, the Livermore sector of the Border Patrol in the San Francisco Bay Area has been closed down – a station described by a former Border Patrol supervisor as "man for man the most productive in the country." More recently, a directive was issued ordering the Border Patrol to cease sweep operations in areas with high concentrations of illegal aliens. Agents, who have authority in all states and territories of the country, are now restricted to the border itself or to stationary points, ending the internal enforcement component of its operation. Rich Pierce, executive vice president of the Border Patrol union (the Border Patrol Council) says such a policy gives illegal aliens "a free pass," for now they "know no one is actively looking for them once they make it past the border." Such knowledge rapidly spreads through the network created and maintained by chain migration, sustaining, even increasing, the flow of illegal entries into the country.

Poll after poll indicates that the American public want something done about illegal immigration. Also, influential opinion leaders in the conservative media increasingly discuss the problem with their audiences who form the heart of the Republican base. As a result, some Republican insiders worry about a split in the party over the issue. Yet Bush stubbornly shields the massive influx of illegal aliens by abandoning enforcement and starving the agencies of resources and encouragement.

Why is he doing this? Some say it is a political pay-off to consumers of cheap, exploitable labor; others that he hopes to gain Latino votes, a constituency that the administration believes will vote Republican if American immigration laws are ignored; and still others say Bush's willful subversion of the laws, through deliberate non-enforcement, is in line with his vision of a globalized economy. Since Bush himself is unlikely to tell us why he is doing this, we are left to draw our own conclusions. Whatever the reason, however, George Bush is demonstrating malfeasance in office and thereby showing contempt for the Constitution he is sworn to uphold, thus committing impeachable offenses. This is indeed a sad thing to have to say about a president who has otherwise shown willingness to accept the responsibilities of leadership.

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