A NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION?

The end of one year and the dawn of the next is a time to inventory what we have accomplished and what remains to be done. It is a time of resolutions and a time for fresh new beginnings. It gives us a new slate and an opportunity for a fresh start.

At this time next year our forty-fourth President will be preparing to appoint a new cabinet, writing an inaugural address, and overseeing the transition to new leadership for the executive branch of the federal government. One third of the United States Senate will have just been elected, as will the entire House of Representatives.

Here in South Carolina we will also be electing the entire General Assembly -- all the Members of the House and Senate. For these reasons, among many others, the new year is a critical crossroads in our lives as Americans. Candidates are particularly sensitive to the will of the voters, and the year ahead offers “we the people” the opportunity to powerfully influence the direction of our state and nation and to shape the policies that will determine the kinds of lives our children and grandchildren will have.

As I think back on the great policy issues of 2007, one thing stands out. The issue of border security and illegal immigration became a national firestorm. Americans rose up as they have on very few issues to demand that our borders be secured and our laws be enforced. Having been badly burned on their amnesty bill and its “paths to citizenship” for law breakers, one would think that lawmakers would have learned a lesson. Unfortunately, some of them came back again and again trying to achieve the same end.

In the days before Christmas, as Congress was finalizing a massive spending bill to keep the federal government running, lawmakers passed a bill laden with more than eleven thousand pork barrel projects (they call them “earmarks”) worth approximately $20 billion. These projects receive almost no public scrutiny and debate.

Earlier this year Congress and the President had pledged to cut the number of pork barrel projects in half, from the 2005 peak of 13,492 to 6,746. But old habits die hard. Congress was, however, astonishingly successful at cutting one major project and its $3 billion price tag -- the border fence that Congress had previously approved and that the American people have been demanding!

Of course, efforts are underway to restore funding for the border fence. The organization that has probably done more than any other in mobilizing public opinion in support of border security and enforcing our immigration laws, NumbersUSA, has already collected volumes of signatures asking President Bush, Speaker Pelosi and Senate Leader Reid to restore funds for the border fence.

When one sees the U. S. Congress boldly defying the will of the American people, it strongly suggests that there is very strong counter-pressure from highly organized special interest groups. Legislators have determined that small, well-funded, special interests, perhaps with a financial interest in lots of cheap labor flooding into the country, can be of more help to them politically than can the vast, disorganized citizens they are supposed to represent.

There is a lesson here for us all. We need to take our responsibilities as citizens and voters very seriously. We need to challenge our representatives when they ask for our votes, and we need to hold them accountable if they betray us. A good New Years resolution would be to register on the NumbersUSA website, take advantage of the free faxes they provide for contacting the Congress, and make sure your representatives truly do represent you, and not some special interest that wants to pick your pockets for spending you oppose.

The year ahead is an exciting opportunity for all of us, working together, to ensure that our state and nation have leadership worthy of our families, our history, and our ideals.

My family and I wish you a New Year full of joy, peace, and hope. May God richly bless you in 2008 and beyond.

ANOTHER DAY OF INFAMY?

Many of our political leaders who supported amnesty for illegal aliens and a “path to citizenship” for law breakers were shocked by the enormous, collective, “no” they received from the American people this year. Concerned that they have been on the wrong side of what most Americans regard as the nation’s greatest threat, many have attempted to make amends by suddenly talking tough about securing the border and enforcing our laws.

New legislation in the Congress now gives us the opportunity to address the immigration crisis with tough new tools. It also gives the tough talkers the opportunity to show the voters that they “got the message.”

Representative Heath Shuler (D-NC) has introduced the Secure America with Verification and Enforcement (SAVE) Act, H.R. 4088. The House bill already has 122 cosponsors, including South Carolina Representatives Gresham Barrett and Bob Inglis. The Senate version, S. 2368, is identical and was introduced by Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR), but thus far has only one cosponsor, Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.

The legislation, which already has bipartisan support but little apparent support from South Carolina’s delegation, does those things that our Congressional leaders say they support. Specifically, it:

• Increases the number of Border Patrol agents by 8,000 over five years.
  
  
• Employs the newest technology available, including satellite communication and aerial surveillance.
  
  
• Expands and mandates the use of E-verify, a free program administered by the Department of Homeland Security that enables employers to confirm the legal status of their workers and job applicants. The bill will phase in all employers over four years.
  
  
• Allows for information-sharing between the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to close all loopholes and ensure that no illegal aliens are eligible for Social Security, Medicare and other entitlement programs.
  
  
• Expands the detention capacity and resources for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
  
  
• Increases the number of Federal District Court Judges so as to expedite deportation hearings for lawbreakers.
  

We have all heard the tough, new rhetoric about border security and about enforcing immigration laws, but only two members of South Carolina’s Congressional delegation have yet signed on to this legislation that has the bipartisan support of 124 of their colleagues.

The problems and expenses created by our undefended southern border, and the opportunity it offers terrorists, cannot go unaddressed any longer. Sixty-six years ago today on December 7, 1941, our nation suffered the first attack on its own territory. Our President directed that all measures be taken for our defense and assured the republic that “we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.”

It is time that our leaders remember those words and recognize the damage being done to us through a passive attack by tens of millions of scofflaws. The American people are just as willing to address today’s prolonged national attack as they were following that sudden “Day of Infamy” in 1941.

Time To Go Home

(Originally published May 25, 2007)

Many Americans don’t often publicly discuss their displeasure over the policies and actions of political leaders who offend them. They would rather simply mind their own business. But every now and then when our nation’s security and survival is at stake, Americans turn from their daily pursuits. At such times, a great wave of patriotism, common sense and wisdom rises up, takes the helm from the politicians, and steers the great ship of state back on course. This is such a moment, and the issue is the illegal immigration crisis and the proposed amnesty bill before Congress.

We have an illegal immigration crisis because national politicians have refused or failed to enforce our existing national laws. Their failure to protect our nation’s borders has resulted in a literal invasion of 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens in recent years. President Bush recently reported that 6 million tried to breach our southern border between 2001 and 2006. Of these, 500,000 had criminal records. Some proceeded to commit violent crimes in the U.S.

For the first time in our nation’s history, large numbers of Americans have begun migrating out of California and other western states. In the 1990s, two million Americans began a migration from California to pursue new lives in other states. That exodus continues.

Some of the immigrants who have taken the place of these Americans speak of reclaiming for Mexico the land they now occupy in our largest state. Senator Jim DeMint, who has stood for the people of South Carolina in resisting what some have termed “national suicide,” courageously admits that we are “in a fight to retain our country.”

To address this crisis, a small group of Congressional insiders have developed a several hundred-page amnesty plan. They are attempting to quickly pass it without permitting others sufficient time to read it, without Congressional hearings, and in defiance of overwhelming opposition from the American people.

They deny that their proposal is an amnesty plan. But if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, let’s call it what it is. Their proposed amnesty plan is a brazen attempt to create the appearance that the growing immigration crisis has been addressed. Like previous amnesty plans, it will only encourage more law breaking and more illegal invaders.

Their legislation would require illegal immigrants to acknowledge that they broke the law, pay a $1,000 fine, undergo a criminal background check, pay an additional $4,000 fine, complete English requirements, leave the U.S., return to their home country, and then apply for a green card. If some members of Congress really believe that a government that won’t even defend our borders is going to enforce this complicated law, then they believe in what never was and what never will be.

People are outraged by the pie-in-the-sky plan being force-fed upon them. They know that if politicians would only secure our borders and enforce the laws already on our books, the problem could be addressed.

People here illegally, many driven by the lure of good paychecks, will not stay if they can’t find work to support themselves. Our government and America’s employers need to ensure that only legal residents of the United States, including legal immigrants, work in the United States.

To Washington insiders, it’s all about politics. But in South Carolina, it’s all about our families, our homes, our jobs, and our communities. In South Carolina, we also respect our laws.

As for members of Congress who act in defiance of those of us they’re elected to represent, a grassroots revolution seems to be afoot. Americans may be poised to push aside those who refuse to act in our interest and who believe instead that they know better than we do. Perhaps like illegal aliens, when they are denied their jobs in Washington, D.C., they also will find their way home.