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On August 29, syndicated columnist Patrick J. Buchanan made a courageous call for President Bush’s impeachment. Buchanan wrote: “Well, we are being invaded, and the president of the United States is not doing his duty to protect the states against that invasion. Some courageous Republican, to get the attention of this White House, should drop into the hopper a bill of impeachment, charging George W. Bush with a conscious refusal to uphold his oath and defend the states of the Union against ‘invasion.’” [“A National Emergency,” by Patrick J. Buchanan, August 29, 2005, Creators Syndicate Inc.] WorldNetDaily later reported that immigration reform leader Congressman Tom Tancredo would not be taking Buchanan up on his impeachment challenge anytime soon. Tancredo was quoted as saying he would not pursue impeachment because that “his immigration reform bill [H.R. 3333] will do what is necessary to stem the flow of illegal aliens into the U.S.” ["Tancredo won't initiate Bush impeachment," By Ron Strom, September 2, 2005] But Tancredo’s H.R. 3333 does absolutely nothing to break the litigation log-jam of the federal immigration bureaucracy and deport aliens through summary removal. In fact, H.R. 3333 goes in exactly the opposite direction—by hiring more government attorneys to appear in EOIR Immigration Court hearings. [Section 207] The problem is that there are too many lawyers involved in alien deportation already—not too few. . . . and impeachment or no, America still waits for a courageous Congressman to drop a summary removal bill into the hopper. Get the full story in my latest column on VDARE.com: Impeach Bush — And/Or Abolish The EOIR? Also in the Juan Mann archive: · 08/29/05 - Guard The Border But Don't Forget Deportation Enforcement! · 08/22/05 - Coming from California: An Immigration Reform Tsunami? 
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Michael Chertoff recently announced on September 14 that the DHS would “expand” expedited removal authority to cover the entire Southwest border.
More background information and articles from the Juan Mann archive on Section 235(b) expedited removal:
The post "Katrina's unemployed and job competition from illegal aliens" discussed how recent Bush administration moves might make it easier for Katrina rebuilding jobs to go to citizens of other countries instead of to the victims of the hurricane. Now, Phyllis Schlafly offers "Give Illegal Aliens' Jobs to Unemployed Katrina Victims". And, more importantly, Jesse Jackson offers "Hurricane looting not over yet": ...President Bush characteristically issued an executive order effectively lowering the wages of reconstruction workers -- and hiking the profits of their companies. He wiped out the requirement to pay prevailing wages in the disaster region, apparently thinking that $9 an hour for construction workers was too high a price to pay. The government can save money, no doubt, by exploiting illegal immigrant labor... While Jackson's article has ironic features and some bad ideas and the usual things one would expect, and it's quite odd that Jackson and Schlafly would appear to agree on something, let's completely ignore that part of things. Perhaps the Democrats should take the lead from Jackson and try to ensure that those affected by the disaster are both enabled and encouraged to take the rebuilding jobs. It's just common sense... UPDATE: From the AP comes "Undocumented aliens rebuilding Biloxi, say they deserve visas". Perhaps Bush could regain some popularity by enabling and encouraging Americans to do those jobs instead. Let's watch and see what Bush and Jackson do.
Recent moves by the Bush administration will make it easier for illegal aliens to take the jobs that could go to U.S. citizens who lost employment due to Katrina. Those moves will also lower wages for reconstruction jobs in the affected areas.
With an estimated 400,000 unemployed as a result of the hurricane, the idea of making it easier for illegal aliens to undercut American workers wouldn't seem to make much sense. Reading between the lines of the WaPo's "Trying to Absorb the Newly Unemployed" offers a few clues: About 250,000 of those displaced by Katrina have come to Texas... "Skilled people will certainly find jobs, [but] in terms of unskilled jobs the labor market is pretty tough," [Daniel S. Hamermesh, an economics professor at the University of Texas at Austin] said. There's a very good chance that a very large part of those "immigrants" are in fact illegal aliens. As for the Davis-Bacon Act, the AFL-CIO responds in Bush Uses Disaster to Ram Through Low-Wage Work. They call this move "nothing less than profiteering" and say it "amounts to legalized looting". Unfortunately, the AFL-CIO - like many others on the left - seem to be living in a fantasy world: they want high wages, but they supported the "Immigrant" Worker's Freedom Ride and some in the union support the McCain-Kennedy massive illegal alien amnesty, and so on. Needless to say, these moves by Bush provide an enormous opportunity to the Dems to both score political points and do something good for the victims of the hurricane. However, based on their past actions, I'm not expecting them to take advantage of it and do the right thing. UPDATE: According to WDSU: DHS spokeswoman Joanna Gonzalez said in an e-mail that authorities want to provide food, water, shelter and medical supplies to everyone. She says no one should be afraid to accept offers to provide safety. But she would go no further. UPDATE 2: Sep. 9's "Bush Suspends Prevailing Wage Laws for Katrina Clean Up" has the details on how Davis-Bacon got suspended: Last week, Americans for Tax Reform, an organization founded by long-time Republican activists Grover Norquist, sent Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao a letter [PDF file] asking that she suspend the Davis-Bacon Act in order to free taxpayers from paying too much for the disaster clean up and management. Wednesday, Representatives Tom Feeney (R-Florida), Jeff Flake (R-Arizona) Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colorado), sent Bush a similar letter, stating that the Act drives costs up and "effectively discriminates against non-union contractors."
Hundreds of DHS employees - some charged with guarding our borders - are being sent to assist with the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. While help is desperately needed in LA and MS to deal with that disaster, it's important not to (literally) let our guard down and allow terrorists and others to take advantage of the situation. This article says it involves "more than 200 Border Patrol agents and 300 other U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel". They join 1800 from FEMA and 4000 from the Coast Guard: ...But T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, argued that Border Patrol was already stretched too thin, and deployment of officers would make a difficult situation on the border even worse... Sep. 2's "U.S. Border Patrol Moved to Katrina Area, Border Vulnerable" says: ...As CBP [Customs and Border Protection] pointed out to NewsMax, its relief teams in the New Orleans area are not by any means gratuitous. The proliferation of ports of entry in the area means that the agency has a large number of CBP personnel regularly on the ground. Many of these CBP personnel were hit by the storm and are in need of relief. As for where they're coming from, this article says: There are 14 specially trained Immigration and Customs Enforcement Officers from El Paso, are on their way to help restore order in the wake of Hurricane Katrina... The 14 ICE detention officers should arrive in Louisiana Friday night. From "San Diegans will help keep order": More than two dozen San Diego-based federal agents and Coast Guardsmen traveled over the weekend to areas hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina to assist with law enforcement and recovery efforts. And, it's not just our southern border that's affected: More than a dozen local immigration officers boarded a bus in Angola overnight to help enforce the law across Louisiana... While it's important to aid the victims of Katrina, and that was natural disaster and not an attack, those making these decisions might want to consider the definition of the word "feint": A feint attack is designed to draw defensive action towards the point under assault. It is usually used as a diversion; to force the enemy to concentrate more manpower in a given area so that the opposing force in another area is weaker.
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