The horror of September 11^th, 2001, remains forever etched in our memories, as it should. Thanks to the obstruction-for-the-sake-of-political-power tactics of Tom Daschle and Senate Democrats, our nation is no more capable today of protecting its borders than we were on September 10, 2001. I simply cannot understand why President Bush has not stationed U. S. troops on our borders with Mexico and Canada to close these porous routes for potential terrorists or why members of Congress have not moved to do so on their own initiative. President Bush needs no Congressional approval to take this step. It is within his existing authority to do so, yet he has not.

One of the primary arguments normally offered against closing down our borders with Mexico and the overwhelming flood of illegal immigrants from that country is the effect it would have on our economy if these undocumented, illegal workers were not available to take jobs many American workers do not want or would cost employers more to hire. Proponents of the status quo argue that we would lose legions of workers needed in the construction trades and other areas of low-paying, menial labor type jobs. That is, at best, an idiotic argument and a situation that is easily addressable.

There are reportedly over 13-MILLION illegal aliens in this country now. "Where would we find the people to replace them in these jobs?" is the cry of those who refuse to do something to protect us.

The answer to that one is so simple as to be downright laughable. There are far more than 13-MILLION people waiting in line to come into this country legally at this very moment. Were we to get rid of the illegal workers and replace them with equally willing-to-work LEGAL immigrants who would love to have those jobs, there would be no adverse effect on our economy whatsoever. Many American construction trades and production workers cannot find work because the availability of cheap, illegal workers who work for below minimum wage paychecks. Because they are illegal, they cannot complain to authorities when unscupulous employers do not pay them overtime rates while working them far more than 40 hours per week.

Our current "wink-wink-nod-nod" immigration law enforcement policies reward those who do not wait their turn and break our laws. More horrifically, it punishes those who do play by the rules and try to do things the right way.

Were we to replace, one-for-one, every illegal alien here with a legal one, we would have a zero-base difference in the work force and a huge reduction in the cost these illegal aliens impose on all taxpayers. Should we not find enough workers to replace these illegals, then we can, and should, institute a "guest worker" program similar to the highly successful ones we had in the past prior to that idiot Jimmah the Geek Carter's meddling. We would have lower cost workers to take unfilled, manual labor jobs that do not require educationor training, but we would be able to check them out and make sure they weren't criminals or trouble makers before they got here. If they misbehaved while here as a legal guest worker, they could have those rights revoked without much hassle or legal mumbo-jumbo excpet from the liberal whiners. Their presence in the work force would also serve as a balance to mindless demands by unions and liberals for skilled worker pay for unskilled American born workers who are equally unqualified for other types of work that demand education and training. We would not see the return of 40-thousand-dollar-a-year janitorial workers in government schools and buildings as was once the case, and still is wherever unions manage to get a stranglehold on goverment jobs.

Here are two pieces of information I garnered from The Federalist that directly relate to this situation:

A former Arizona kindergarten teacher is positioning 50 armed members of a new 600-member militia along the state's border with Mexico to "protect our country" from illegal immigrants and narcotics traffickers> He has warned federal authorities not to interfere.

"It is a monumental disgrace that our government is letting the American people down, turning us into the expendable casualties of the war on terrorism," says Chris Simcox, who organizes the border patrol out of Tombstone, Arizona to compensate for the federal government's failed border policies. Simcox vows to continue the weekend patrols until President Bush places federal troops along the U.S. border with Mexico.

The border militia will carry handguns for personal protection (no rifles) and are required to obtain a state concealed-weapons permit. This means members of the militia will have to pass felony background checks.

The threat and sense of urgency is a little greater when the border is in your back yard. The process is EXACTLY what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they authored the Second Amendment to the Constitution despite what gun-grabbers and federal judges say to the contrary. The Second Amendment does not limit the "Militia" designated there to only state operated and controlled militia.

In a somewhat related article regarding other border news, officials admit that Mexican ambulance drivers are using rural crossings with no checkpoints, from Brownsville, Texas, to Douglas, Arizona, to transport indigent patients from Mexican hospitals to U.S. border hospitals, where their treatment is mandated by U.S. law and paid for by U. S> taxpayers.

The unreimbursed cost to U.S. taxpayers and insured exceeds $200-million and estimated to reach $300-million next year. Those who ask where we would get the money to pay for the border protection we should have in place already need look no further than these funds. If we aren't payign them for this purpose, we can use those funds to protect our borders instead. Those dollars would pay for a lot of border patrol agents. Should we round up all current illegal aliens here and ship them home while replacing them with legal ones who have been waiting as much as 21 years in some cases, we will save several BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars in the process. The legal workers would pay into the Medicare and Social Security funds as well as state run Medicaid programs the illegals now overburden without contribution.

Were Congress to change the existing law to deny the children of illegal immigrants who are born in this country American citizenship as a birthright, and as a result free medical care for the mother and children - as is the case in Mexico and all other nations of the world - then we would stop another practice our government allows to happen. Here are two examples. It happens all the time.

A woman from Brazil has six children, all U. S. citizens though she is not a citizen or even a legal resident of this country. She has freely and proudly admitted to auhorities that, near the term of each of her pregnancies, she boarded a flight from her country to Miami. Upon arrival, she was placed in detention each time, pending deportation to her country. While she was being held in U. S. INS custody in each casee, she went into labor and gave birth to each of her children who were automatically U. S. citizens. In each case, she received taxpayer provided health care for each delivery at no cost to her and her return trip was paid for by U. S. taxpayers.

Each morning around 6:30 AM local time in the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, hundreds, or even thousands, of Mexican children show up at the border. There they are picked up by state paid for school buses and transported to state paid for public schools in each of those states. While there each day, these children receive free breakfasts and lunches, again paid for by the states' taxpayers. They receive free medical care through the schools as well. Few are citizens or even the children of legal immigrants. They only need to cross our unguarded border to qualify for this parasitic drain on the taxpayers of those states who then whine that all of us ought to pay to reimburse them for these costs from federal tax dollars. Naturally, the professional "educators" in those states argue that the practice should not be stopped. After all, they get paid on a per pupil (legal or not) in daily attendance basis, so they have a vested interest in perpetuating this travesty.

I have made a living from dealing with foreign nationals in tax and immigration matters for over ten years now. Many of my clients are not here legally and I work with those who qualify to help them become legal. I also work with families who are desperately trying to legally bring wives, husbands and/or their children to this country legally. The heartbreak of separation is something I have seen firsthand many, many times and it stinks! Were we to replace the illegals here with legal immigrants and prevent any more illegals from coming here to work, then we would reduce the overwhelming financial burden on all the rest of us that those illegals represent. A guest worker program would allow those who truly wished to come here to work and then to return home to do so and it would limit their right to burden American taxpayers. At the same time, the multi-MILLION case backlog of INS applications and petitions would be wiped out in no time whatsoever. I have clients who have had Political Asylum cases pending for over 12 years now and who have not even had their cases heard because of this backlog. Until President Bubba changed the rules in an effort to pander to potential Latino voters, it once took no more than four months from application to swearing in for a legal resident to become a U. S. citizen. Now it takes a minimum of two years. Were we to clear all the legally entitiled immigrants' applications on a fast track in order to replace illegal workers, the INS could address all applications in a timely and efficient manner instead of in the horrific way such applications are now handled.

The "Republican Revolution of the 1994 midterm Congressional elections gave all of us one benefit that I have never seen reported in any of the media. The Republicans, while they had control of both houses of Congress, ramrodded through a bill that changed IRS rules and regulations. Prior to then, even illegal immigrants who filed tax returns were entitled to the Earned Income Credit because of their children, legal or illegal. In most cases, their manual labor jobs paid so little that they qualified for this credit. It resulted in each family filing receiving thousands of dollars in tax refunds that included every penny they had paid into the system plus the proceeds of the Earned Income Credit for their wage level. Newt Gingrich and House Republicans changed that so that now most illegals don't even bother to file returns unless they're hoping to become legal within three years. Most work as independent contractors, so they pay no state or federal taxes whatsoever in the form of withholding, nor do they pay into Social Security, Medicare or state Medicaid programs. They do apply for - AND RECEIVE -foodstamps and participate in the WIC programs as well as overburden our public health care systems where they are treated for free... at the expense of the American taxpayers.

What do you folks think? Do we need troops on our borders? Should we change the rules to reward law-abiding immigrants and remove the burden for the care of illegal ones from our shoulders? How do you think it should be done?