NEWS RELEASE U.S. Representative Charlie Norwood, 9th District, Georgia June 21, 2005
CATO Study Confirms Troops on the Border as the Only Workable Means of Preserving U.S. Sovereignty
(Washington, DC) - A CATO Institute-sponsored report intended to discredit efforts to secure the U.S. border has instead bolstered findings that immediate deployment of troops in support of the Border Patrol is the only means of stopping the current hordes of illegal immigrants invading U.S. territory.
CATO author Douglas Massey's report also contends Americans should abandon traditional national sovereignty as a sacrifice to libertarian principles of "free trade", including trafficking in cheap labor. Massey says the United States should "abandon its illusions" and "accept the reality, the necessity, of North American integration."
Norwood says Massey's study, while confirming the need for an immediate deployment of up to 50,000 troops on the border, should serve as a horrifying wakeup call for all Americans who love their country.
"Dr. Massey has pointed out with jarring candor the real agenda of the 'open borders' movement - the destruction of the United States as an independent nation," says Norwood. "We can fight and win this war right now without a shot being fired through a relatively minor deployment of state and federal forces, or we can let our children either surrender their nation, or be forced to fight a major civil war to defend our Constitution and liberties against globalism."
The CATO report, "Backfire at the Border: Why Enforcement without Legalization Cannot Stop Illegal Immigration", points out that like the success of the Minuteman Project in Arizona this spring, past enforcement demonstration projects using intense manpower increases have successfully stopped illegal immigration in multiple test areas.
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The report then assumes those enforcement standards proven effective by the projects cannot be employed, and instead advocates amnesty for illegal immigrants and massive increases in legal immigration, along with a resulting merger or U.S., Canadian, and Mexican sovereignty.
The report references the U.S. Border Patrol Operation Blockade and Gatekeeper in 1993 in El Paso and San Diego respectively. According to Massey, the projects resulted in "traffic through El Paso...(being) reduced to a trickle," with similar success attributed to the San Diego effort.
Similarities with the Minuteman Project were striking, with Massey reporting that "Border Patrol officers were stationed every few hundred yards," much like the Minuteman volunteers in the 23-mile long Naco section of the Arizona border in April of this year, spaced roughly two hundred yards apart in high illegal immigration traffic areas.
Massey then attempts to discredit the proven manpower strategies with the historic and disingenuous cost argument of the open borders movement, "Because the border is 2,000 miles long, systematically blockading this length in the manner of San Diego or El Paso would be prohibitively expensive."
But for the first time, actual cost estimates for securing the entire southern border with 36,000 state troops are known. According to data obtained through the National Guard Bureau, annual deployment costs are estimated at $2.5 billion a year.
<http://www.house.gov/apps/list/speech/ga09_norwood/MinutemanReport.html>
In comparison, the costs of illegal immigration to taxpayers is now estimated at more than $70 billion a year for skyrocketing healthcare, education, welfare, and crime-fighting expenses, along with lower wages for native-born Americans, naturalized citizens, and legal immigrants and guest workers. Securing the border and repatriation of current illegal immigrants could accordingly cut the federal deficit by over $65 billion annually, and increase long-term solvency of the Social Security system.
However, the CATO report nevertheless recommends a repeat of the disastrous 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, or IRCA. IRCA included granting amnesty to illegal immigrants, a minimal and ineffective increase in border enforcement, and increased penalties for employing illegal workers. Only this time, Massey actually suggests reducing the size of the Border Patrol, further lowering America's defenses.
IRCA has served as a major catalyst for increased illegal migration, due to the undermining of migrant respect for U.S. law by amnesty grants to prior violators, continued lack of federal enforcement efforts against employers, and still largely unguarded borders.
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U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood 2452 Rayburn Building, Washington, DC 20515 www.house.gov/norwood
PHONE (202) 225-4101 FAX (202) 226-0776 Contact: John Stone