I will faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States
by Glenn R. Jackson
On June 18th House conservatives in the Immigration Reform Caucus met to ask President Bush pointedly to secure America’s borders by using U.S. military forces to control them. Controlling the nation’s borders during wartime is clearly a duty of the government. The open and porous U.S. borders are an open invitation for those who mean the U.S. harm to cross them to get to us. And yes the open and porous U.S. borders are also an open invitation to a multitude of others who wish to enter this country illegally.
The President’s response was that there were “historic and cultural” reasons not to use the U.S. military on the borders. Asked to provide those reasons, the President and his White House staff have been silent.
Historically the U.S. southern border with Mexico has been a trouble spot. Today it is used for entry into the country at an estimated rate of nearly 80 people per hour. Those using the southern border are entering the country for a number of reasons, from economic to drug trafficking. At the turn of the last century things were not much different.
During the years between 1910 and 1916 Mexico was embroiled in a violent revolution and a great struggle for control of the country. Violence toward Americans across the border was occurring with an increasing frequency. Both Presidents Taft and Wilson stationed U.S. Army troops at positions along the border. In 1913 those U.S. Army troops were under the command of General John “Blackjack” Pershing.
In March of 1913 Mexican Army troops attacked U.S. troops in the vicinity of Douglas, Arizona. By the next year a new Mexican President was in control, with one exception. He was opposed by the bandit/revolutionary Pancho Villa.
In March of 1916 a large band of Villa’s men crossed the border and attacked the town of Columbus, New Mexico, and Pershing mounted a punitive strike across the border into Mexico in pursuit of Pancho Villa. There were a number of skirmishes; even some with regular Mexican Army units before Pershing retired across the border having never captured Villa.
Historically when a bordering nation has been unable to provide a stable political environment and control of the mutual borders, the U.S. has used its military forces to maintain control and protection. When citizens of another nation violate their nation's laws as well as ours, then the U.S. military has been used to control this nation’s borders.
There is increasing documentation of cross border incursions by armed men. U.S. Border Patrol agents have been fired on by men wearing the uniforms of Mexican Police or Mexican Army personnel. The border has once again become a lawless frontier.
The history and culture of our southern neighbor has not been one of political stability. Both President Bush and Mexico’s President Fox are clearly aware of that fact. The argument is strong that it is the recognition of that historic instability, Mexico’s inability to solve its economic woes, and the need for a cultural safety valve that fuels our current open borders debacle.
By all accounts President Bush has a strong personal commitment to his “friend” President Fox, and is committed to helping the Mexican President retain his Presidency. The President is doggedly determined to continue lobbying for 245i amnesty, and avoids any discussion of controlling the southern border. President Bush has met more frequently with President Fox then any other world leader, although Putin and Sharon are moving up fast.
I am sure there are Republican’s who wish the President took that much care and concern with their political survival.
The President is playing a dangerous game. For what appears to be strictly a personal commitment, the President of the United States is avoiding the logical choice. While an army in the thousands is regrouping to attack American citizens, and an Army in the hundreds of thousands floods onto the ill prepared budgets of towns and municipalities, the President hesitates. While this nation continues to grapple with societal problems that we have spent untold Billions of dollars in an attempt to correct, a new societal problem in massive numbers is crossing the lawless frontier. And the President haggles over deploying U.S. military forces.
There are only two possible outcomes to the President’s current inaction on national borders. Either someone will smuggle a very large bomb across the open border into a U.S. city, or the societal bomb that is being assembled at the rate of 80 people an hour will detonate. It may take a year, or it may take 10 years, but just as surely as September 11th went off in our collective faces because of government failure, so too will one of these catastrophes. It is inevitable unless we act.
Mr. President, stand by your oath to the people and the Constitution of the United States…protect our borders.
Glenn R. Jackson is Chairman of the American Reformation Project, former State Chairman for Buchanan Reform and former state Chairman of the Georgia Freedom Party. Glenn also served on the Executive Committee of the Reform Party USA. Glenn holds an MA in Philosophy from Georgia State University in Atlanta.
© Glenn R. Jackson