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Napolitano: ‘You’re Never Going to Totally Seal That Border’

Ok... here's where we differ :

If you're willing to accept that he would have said 'I don't want to address border security until we have a comprehensive plan' WHEN he was there asking for help on the issue... at the very least is a deriliction of duty.

He wasn't asking for beaurocrats to sit on the issue for 6 months while cops as well as citizens are being killed. He wanted ACTION. But in order to have Obama take action, you needed to have the paperwork filled out 6 months before the election.

Frankly, this situation really is one where it would be legal to call a vote towards a declaration of war. Do YOU, even if you are hispanic, want illegal immigrants coming into the country and further driving down wages??

Deriliction of duty, war, citizens being killed... These are all extremely overly dramatic ways of thinking about any of this... Obama is doing the same thing every president has done about illegal immigration for decades. We're spending $36 billion on preventing it. And, the number of illegal immigrants in the US has been going DOWN for 3 years in a row... The problem is less severe than it was 3 years ago. It isn't like there is some big new crisis and Obama is refusing to act. What happened here is that some politicians and pundits on the right decided, more or less out of the blue, that they want the situation escalated and Obama is saying that first we need to have a decent plan rather than just reacting wildly to the somewhat hysterical demands of the right wing. He is absolutely right. Just ramping up enforcement to historically unprecedented levels to address a problem that has been shrinking for years without having any kind of plan in place to actually resolve the root issues is just a waste of money and would very possibly mean civil rights abuses. Personally, I would consider throwing caution to the wind and leaping in with a poorly thought out plan just because some pundits decided they want you to a deriliction of duty. His job is to protect the constitutional rights of the people living here, to be plan things properly so we aren't just flushing tax money down the toilet. Seems to me that is what he is doing.
 
Deriliction of duty, war, citizens being killed... These are all extremely overly dramatic ways of thinking about any of this...

Umm.. they aren't putting signs up telling AMERICANS to NOT got into national parks because THERE ARE DRUG SMUGGLING ILLEGAL ALIENS THAT MIGHT KILL THEM. To not respond in kind, when Obama has given an OATH to follow and protect the constitution... it's one of the FEW DUTIES that's ACTUALLY part of his oath.

Sitting on an issue that's running rampant IS a deriliction of his duties... and is an impeachable offense, and if it goes as far as him supplying aid to this enemy then he would be openly treasonous.

War is ALL ABOUT protecting the tribe. It's not about occupying distant lands in ambiguous justifications of necessity... it's about STOPPING ARMED MEN from coming into your home, smashing in your skull, raping your wife and then taking your children into slavery.

Ok, so we have ORGANIZED drug smugglers, that are ARMED and are openly KILLING people that get in their way... ON FOREIGN SOIL. They are BY DEFINITION an invading force which makes them by DEFINITION an ENEMY of the US.

According to just war theory, if you have forces invading your territories you can declare war and start shooting them down. It's called protecting the homeland.

Obama is doing the same thing every president has done about illegal immigration for decades. We're spending $36 billion on preventing it. And, the number of illegal immigrants in the US has been going DOWN for 3 years in a row... The problem is less severe than it was 3 years ago.

Yes, fewer benign migrant workers that overstay their welcome, or cross the border hoping to slip through the cracks of the system... instead we have armed drug smugglers invading the country. That's justification for a millitary response.

It isn't like there is some big new crisis and Obama is refusing to act. What happened here is that some politicians and pundits on the right decided, more or less out of the blue, that they want the situation escalated and Obama is saying that first we need to have a decent plan rather than just reacting wildly to the somewhat hysterical demands of the right wing. He is absolutely right. Just ramping up enforcement to historically unprecedented levels to address a problem that has been shrinking for years without having any kind of plan in place to actually resolve the root issues is just a waste of money and would very possibly mean civil rights abuses.

No, Something's been going right in that area to see that kind of reduction... though I'm still not clear on the source of this...


Personally, I would consider throwing caution to the wind and leaping in with a poorly thought out plan just because some pundits decided they want you to a deriliction of duty.

No, because some SENATORS came in at the behest of the PEOPLE he is REPRESENTING to ask for help on this issue that has become detrimental in it's scope... only to have the president say that he's going to sit on it untill he has a 'comprehensive plan'. Unless his comprehensive plan involved sending a squad of marines to take back control of the areas in question to handle the IMMEDIATE concerns, he is neglecting his duties to protect the homeland. No debate. If he's not acting, or at least putting this to a vote, then he's being negligent of the issue.

His job is to protect the constitutional rights of the people living here, to be plan things properly so we aren't just flushing tax money down the toilet. Seems to me that is what he is doing.

Yes... and he protects those contitutional rights by protecting the nation and anyone that dares invade. North america is probably the MOST lenient place to get citizenship, both Canada and the US. Canada and the US are also the most welcoming countries... Hell there's also the pre-existing war on drugs going on... even those declarations aren't being followed up on this issue. However, this people come here and spit in the face of our values and traditions and people are being killed yet nothing more is being done...

If Mexico was a middle eastern country that was doing that, you can bet there'd be enough money for war.

You would THINK that hispanic americans would SUPPORT keeping illegal immigrants out... illegal immigrants provide a means to lower wages for all americans equally, not just hispanic americans.
 
Deriliction of duty, war, citizens being killed... These are all extremely overly dramatic ways of thinking about any of this... Obama is doing the same thing every president has done about illegal immigration for decades. We're spending $36 billion on preventing it. And, the number of illegal immigrants in the US has been going DOWN for 3 years in a row... The problem is less severe than it was 3 years ago. It isn't like there is some big new crisis and Obama is refusing to act. What happened here is that some politicians and pundits on the right decided, more or less out of the blue, that they want the situation escalated and Obama is saying that first we need to have a decent plan rather than just reacting wildly to the somewhat hysterical demands of the right wing. He is absolutely right. Just ramping up enforcement to historically unprecedented levels to address a problem that has been shrinking for years without having any kind of plan in place to actually resolve the root issues is just a waste of money and would very possibly mean civil rights abuses. Personally, I would consider throwing caution to the wind and leaping in with a poorly thought out plan just because some pundits decided they want you to a deriliction of duty. His job is to protect the constitutional rights of the people living here, to be plan things properly so we aren't just flushing tax money down the toilet. Seems to me that is what he is doing.

The numbers of illegals have gone down, as we have discussed in another thread, however, that does not mean that the problem is less severe than it was. In fact, the drug cartel violence and the illegals working for the cartels is an increasing problem, not a decreasing one. Three years ago you rarley heard about an illegal moving dope for the cartels, now it is increasingly common place. Some of the recently migrated illegals I know have said that they have carried drugs as a way to pay for thier passage.

This is just another example of why the border needs to be secured. The violence that the cartels generate in Mexico is starting to come into this country. Obama and others should pay attention to what is happening now, not compare to what was 3 or 5 or 20 years ago.
 
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Umm.. they aren't putting signs up telling AMERICANS to NOT got into national parks because THERE ARE DRUG SMUGGLING ILLEGAL ALIENS THAT MIGHT KILL THEM. To not respond in kind, when Obama has given an OATH to follow and protect the constitution... it's one of the FEW DUTIES that's ACTUALLY part of his oath.

That whole thing is wildly overhyped... First off, it is 3,500 acres. That's only 2 square miles, not the "massive stretch of AZ" the right wing media likes to refer to it as. Secondly, it wasn't declared off limits by the federal government or something, it was just the park ranger... It's a pretty reasonable assumption that the park ranger is just trying to make a scene... I have never seen any statistic indicating that there actually has been some huge number of deaths in that area or anything... I actually was in that park about 3 years ago with my girlfriend at the time and it was quiet, pretty, and empty... I saw a couple border patrol cars, and that's it. The notion that it is a war zone and all that is manufactured by right wingers.

But, we obviously are disagreeing over how to prioritize this issue, so lets try a thought experiment. Lets compare it to another potential priority. Imagine that you are given control over dealing with two issues- illegal immigration and drunk driving. We spent about $36 billion a year on fighting illegal immigration. Approximately a dollar a day per tax payer. We spend less than $50 million specifically on targetting drunk driving, but we should assume that some portion of general law enforcement efforts are focused on drunk driving, so lets say $1 billion to be generous. You are given an additional $10 billion (every tax payer is chipping in about $100 a year to give you that budget). Where do you want to spend it?

Some numbers you might want to consider. First, approximately 10,000 Americans, many of whom are not the drunk driver, die because of drunk driving a year, whereas certainly no more than 500 Americans a year are killed by an illegal immigrant, and best I can tell, it's actually MUCH less than that. $10 billion would be enough money to dramatically reduce drunk driving. You could set up a fund to provide free cab rides at bar closing time to anybody who wanted one anywhere in the country for that, you could double or tripple the law enforcement on the stretches of road and the times most likely to have drunk drivers, you could pay for those breathalizer locks to be installed in the car of every driver ever arrested for drunk driving, you could set up education programs, and/or you could extend the operating hours of public transportation until after closing time in every city. You really could take a massive bite out of those drunk driving deaths. Thousands of lives saved a year for sure.

So, what would the money do if spent on immigration enforcement? At present, on average, it costs us about $113k per illegal immigrant we either catch crossing the border or deport. So, $10 billion would mean somewhere around another 88,000 illegal immigrants being deported each year. That means deporting less than 1% of the illegal immigrants. So, even assuming our high estimate of 500 people killed a year by illegal immigrants, we can guesstime that the $10 billion spent would save 5 lives. Realistically, living in the US, you would not notice a difference in your day to day life at all having 88,000 fewer illegal immigrants. The effect on the economy would be negligible, the cultural change would be insignificant, the saved social services would be practically nothing.

Which would you rather do? Of course, in reality, there are thousands of priorities being balanced, not just two. Many of them are far better return on investment. $10 billion in cancer research would be a huge deal. After about 3-4 years we could have a mission to mars at that funding level. We could ensure that no child in the US ever went without food for that amount. We could buy a computer for every high school kid in the country. We could do tons of stuff. The point being, you can't just think about it as a "should we do X?" question. You have to think about it as "where does X fit in our list of priorities?" In my opinion, illegal immigration just is not that high on our list of priorities. We are in a recession, we owe $11 trillion in debt, we are in two wars, our education system is dragging up the rear of the first world, our health care system is a disaster, we have a higher percentage of our population living in poverty than any other first world country, we have the second lowest intergenerational income mobility of any first world countries, terrorism, disease, the pace of our scientific progress is slipping relative to other countries, we're going to run completely out of oil in the next couple decades, global warming, etc, etc.
 
The numbers of illegals have gone down, as we have discussed in another thread, however, that does not mean that the problem is less severe than it was. In fact, the drug cartel violence and the illegals working for the cartels is an increasing problem, not a decreasing one. Three years ago you rarley heard about an illegal moving dope for the cartels, now it is increasingly common place. Some of the recently migrated illegals I know have said that they have carried drugs as a way to pay for thier passage.

This is just another example of why the border needs to be secured. The violence that the cartels generate in Mexico is starting to come into this country. Obama and others should pay attention to what is happening now, not compare to what was 3 or 5 or 20 years ago.

I do agree that the drug cartel violence is a significant problem and we do need to address that firmly. But, that's a different problem than illegal immigration. Trying to solve drug trafficking by tackling illegal immigration is kind of like trying to solve a city's drinking water needs by trying to remove all the salt from the ocean...
 
Deriliction of duty, war, citizens being killed... These are all extremely overly dramatic ways of thinking about any of this... Obama is doing the same thing every president has done about illegal immigration for decades. We're spending $36 billion on preventing it. And, the number of illegal immigrants in the US has been going DOWN for 3 years in a row... The problem is less severe than it was 3 years ago. It isn't like there is some big new crisis and Obama is refusing to act. What happened here is that some politicians and pundits on the right decided, more or less out of the blue, that they want the situation escalated and Obama is saying that first we need to have a decent plan rather than just reacting wildly to the somewhat hysterical demands of the right wing. He is absolutely right. Just ramping up enforcement to historically unprecedented levels to address a problem that has been shrinking for years without having any kind of plan in place to actually resolve the root issues is just a waste of money and would very possibly mean civil rights abuses. Personally, I would consider throwing caution to the wind and leaping in with a poorly thought out plan just because some pundits decided they want you to a deriliction of duty. His job is to protect the constitutional rights of the people living here, to be plan things properly so we aren't just flushing tax money down the toilet. Seems to me that is what he is doing.

I do agree that the drug cartel violence is a significant problem and we do need to address that firmly. But, that's a different problem than illegal immigration. Trying to solve drug trafficking by tackling illegal immigration is kind of like trying to solve a city's drinking water needs by trying to remove all the salt from the ocean...

You must have missed what I said in my first post, The illegals are running drugs now, the two are related.

The numbers of illegals have gone down, as we have discussed in another thread, however, that does not mean that the problem is less severe than it was. In fact, the drug cartel violence and the illegals working for the cartels is an increasing problem, not a decreasing one. Three years ago you rarley heard about an illegal moving dope for the cartels, now it is increasingly common place. Some of the recently migrated illegals I know have said that they have carried drugs as a way to pay for thier passage.

This is just another example of why the border needs to be secured. The violence that the cartels generate in Mexico is starting to come into this country. Obama and others should pay attention to what is happening now, not compare to what was 3 or 5 or 20 years ago.
 
You must have missed what I said in my first post, The illegals are running drugs now, the two are related.

Right, that is what I responded to. Some of the people involved in the drug trade are indeed illegal immigrants, but there are 10 million illegal immigrants and maybe 10 thousand of them involved in traficking drugs. It just makes more sense to target the 10,000 than to target 10 million people in hopes of getting to 10,000.
 
Tea:
Your math is wrong 1sqmi is 640acres, so in the one refuge about 5.4 sq miles are closed. You forgot to mention the acres BLM has signed with warnings. Some are more than 80 miles from the border in Pinal county.
I guess you get your news from the left wing media. I say this because you seem to quote right wing media as being non objective.
It is clear you lean to the pro illegal side.
 
Right, that is what I responded to. Some of the people involved in the drug trade are indeed illegal immigrants, but there are 10 million illegal immigrants and maybe 10 thousand of them involved in traficking drugs. It just makes more sense to target the 10,000 than to target 10 million people in hopes of getting to 10,000.

That's what I'm saying... IMMEDIATELY and HARSHLY deal with the 10000... If America was a cell, that's a clear and present infection... doing nothing will only increase the problem, and exponentially.

And we're not talking 3 years ago... we're talking about TODAY. Cops are a proud bunch, they don't go to media and confessing that they are losing the battle, that they are unequipped to handle the cartel and could use about 3000 soldiers???

The drug cartels are organized, well armed, and willing to kill people that get in their way... that they are illegally in US territory AT ALL is disconcerting. At that point we should not lie and call them illegal immigrants, we should call them what they are : an invading force.
 
Your math is wrong 1sqmi is 640acres, so in the one refuge about 5.4 sq miles are closed.

Oops, you're right. For some reason I had it in my head that a square mile was 1600. Good catch. Still though, not a "massive" area.

I guess you get your news from the left wing media. I say this because you seem to quote right wing media as being non objective.

Well, really I think both the left wing and right wing media has a number of blatantly biased news organizations that distort facts badly. On the right we have talk radio shows, fox and WND, all of whom have just laughable records for accuracy and fact checking and clearly have an agenda. On the left we have like huffington post, media matters, michael moore and democracy now which also have laughable records for accuracy.

Anybody who relies on any of those organizations for their news is not getting a remotely accurate picture of the world. MSNBC is, IMO, verging on getting on that list too... CNN is still fairly good in terms of factual accuracy, but not stellar.

But, then there is the real news on both the left and the right- the wall street journal, new york times, the economist, christian science monitor, washington post, etc. Those all have extraordinary records for factual accuracy even though they all have various editorial spins ranging from right to center to left.

It is clear you lean to the pro illegal side.

Depends what you mean. If we could wave a magic wand and *poof* all the illegal immigrants are back in their home countries without having spent any of our budget, hurt anybody, or violated any citizen's constitutional rights, I would absolutely support that. But, I think many people are blowing this issue way out of proportion and pushing for solutions that involve really doing a lot of damage to the country- giving up a lot of constitutional rights, giving up a lot of fundamental principles like that we do not racially profile, going after hispanics in general, blowing tens of billions of dollars we can't afford, etc. I favor an even handed, fact based, proportional, plan that weighs the significance of this issue against the other priorities on our list and that includes a long term approach to the overall problems is what I favor rather than a knee jerk, panicky, response to misrepresentation and political manipulation.

Long story short, I do believe illegal immigration is a problem, but it is nowhere near as serious of a problem as many would have us believe. Our response should be appropriate for the reality, not the hype.
 
That's what I'm saying... IMMEDIATELY and HARSHLY deal with the 10000...

Then we agree on that. Note though, that we've already spent over a trillion dollars on the war on drugs. I do think it is a serious problem, and the cartels have escalated it up quite a few notches in severity, but don't expect an overnight solution. We're a trillion dollars in and we've hardly taken a bite out of it. It's not something that will ever be completely solved, and it's not something that will be like cut in half in a year or something no matter what we do. The drug trade represents about 1% of the total world GDP. They have hundreds of billions of dollars a year coming in and they'll spend every penny of it on keeping their business up and running if need be. And, frankly, they're really good at what they do. There are a thousand ways to get drugs into the US, something like 1/4 of American citizens at least occassionally use an illegal drug. The distribution network involves something like 500,000 American citizens, all of whom are pretty smart about not getting caught. Etc. We won't snuff the issue out easily with an approach focused on enforcement only.

I forget if you were the one that said this or if was somebody else, but like with illegal immigration, the best plan IMO is to legalize some of the safest drugs and concentrate enforcement on the cartels themselves, heroin, crystal meth, pcp, coke, etc. Just legalizing pot alone would take the wind out of the sales of a whole lot of that distribution network.
 
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