The Immigrant Issue

A HUGE problem according to Rep Daryl Metcalfe

Pennsylvania Representative Daryl Metcalfe would have you believe that illegal immigrants are a huge problem in Pennsylvania. THAT is pure political pandering and fear mongering because it is an issue that the FEDERAL government gets an "F" on -- since it is the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT that is responsible, not the STATE of Pennsylvania.

There are FAR WORSE issues that face Pennsylvanians than "not in my back yard" immigrants (and we're talking about ILLEGAL immigrants). While ordinary people are struggling to pay increased food, gasoline, health insurance, mortgages, and other daily struggles, our representative has been spending most of his time screeching about Don Quixote windmills.

SO, LET'S TAKE AN HONEST LOOK at IMMIGRATION -- there are already FEDERAL laws which deal with it. The REAL problem is those laws never got the proper funding with a result of only a few immigration officers which have hundreds of miles of borders to cover / patrol. (In many critical states [and PA isn't one of them], you can count the number of immigration officers on less than 2 hands). The border patrol currently plays "catch and release" because they don't have the manpower or funding to do anything but that. (They catch them and release them back to Mexico or Cuba.)

Politicians play a particularly heinous joke on the public; they hoot about doing something, stall in passing legislation, and when they do pass legislation they never fund it properly. (Just think about "no child left behind" -- great idea, but not enough money appropriated Think of what they did when they were sending our children to fight a war of choice without appropriate body armor [not enough funding there either].)

So now, politicians, similar to or like Daryl Metcalfe, are promoting the building fences and walls around the United States. Uh, can you say "Berlin Wall" or the "Great Wall of China"? Millions (perhaps Billions) of your tax dollars going to line the pockets of more Halliburtons while the "immigration problem" is NOT addressed in a fashion that will actually SOLVE it. Let's all chant the FEAR MONGERING now "the immigrants are coming, oh my oh my; not in my back yard". That's about the extent of what Daryl Metcalfe has done -- CHANT about it. The question that we haven't heard ask is DOES PA have a serious enough ILLEGAL immigrant problem for it to really BE an issue on the front burner when the majority of PA residents are struggling from day to day on REAL issues? The answer is a resounding NO. Just like the answer to Daryl Metcalfe's rants about Voter ID -- where REGIS, the guy who has been in charge of voting in Butler County for the past 20 years said "I cannot remember a single instance of voter fraud in the past 20 years." Metcalfe is entitled to his own opinions as long as he keeps them to himself. He is NOT entitled to his own make believe facts (again, does he THINK he's part of the Bush Administration where you just make up facts to fit your own agenda?)