TOO LITTLE TOO LATE

By Michelle Malkin

Here we go again.

President Bush is continuing the homeland security dog-and-pony charade in his quest to deliver a massive "guest worker"/amnesty plan to the open-borders lobby. A few weeks ago, Bush's Department of Homeland Security put on a bogus performance of Get Tough Theater with a series of politically timed immigration raids...which, as I predicted, simply resulted in more catch and release of illegal aliens nationwide.

This new last-minute stunt to sprinkle National Guard troops on the border--temporarily, of course, to appease Mexican President Vicente Fox--is more transparent than the Scotch tape used to hold together our dilapidated border fences. (That's only a slight exaggeration.)

For all the new tough talk, these additional troops will be barred from actually doing what needs to be done: guarding the border. President Bush is already bowing and scraping to Mexico over the plan before he's even officially announced it. More details via WaPo:

Officials suggested their mission would be to play a supporting role by providing intelligence, training, transportation, construction and other functions, while leaving the actual guarding of the 2,000-mile line separating the United States and Mexico to the Border Patrol. The National Guard would be a stopgap force until the federal government could hire civilian contractors to take over administrative and support functions from the Border Patrol, freeing more agents to actually hunt for immigrants slipping into the country.

Hold up. It's been nearly five years since the Sept. 11 attacks. It's taken the Bush administration this long to acknowledge the need to hire more civilian contractors to relieve the Border Patrol of administrative and support functions?

Only now, on the day the Senate revisits his favored, faltering pet proposals for mass amnesty, does he find it important enough to send a show of military non-force down to the border--a show that was immediately emasculated to satisfy the "American is a continent, not a country" crowd.

White House spokeswoman Maria Tamburri said Bush made clear to Fox that "the United States considered Mexico a friend and that what is being considered is not militarization of the border, but support of border capabilities on a temporary basis by the National Guard."

The proper White House response to Fox should have been: If it's good enough for your southern border, it's good enough for ours.

Oh, and before the open-borders radicals start arguing that there are legal restrictions against National Guardsmen patrolling the border, please note: The few, thin numbers of Guardsmen who are at the border now in fact carry out some of these functions:

Soldiers scout the border from inside the trucks looking for illegal aliens crossing the border into the United States at night. They call the Border Patrol when they have them in sight and track them until they are able to come in and apprehend them or push them back into their own boundaries.

Watching and waiting for threats to come across the border may be tedious, but the Guardsmen on patrol are always patient and alert. After calling in a group of aliens and the Border Patrol responds, the Soldiers move on and look for the next group.

When surveying illegal aliens in the field, they pay attention to whether they are carrying bags or not. They refer to some of these individuals as “mules” when they come through with drugs in homemade rucksacks. Up to 80 pounds of marijuana are carried on an illegal alien’s back, according to Counterdrug officials here. Once they are aware they have been spotted, they may try to ditch the sacks.

See also here.

Where was the president's sense of urgency to fortify the border when national park ranger Kris Eggle was gunned down in 2002 by drug-runners on the Arizona-Mexican line?

Or when Mexican army incursions were plaguing the Southwest?

And when Border Patrol agents were being shot at?

Or when the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus called for increased troop deployments at the border last year?

Some Bush supporters are admonishing immigration enforcement activists to "tone it down" because the criticism will hurt Bush.

Maybe he should of thought of that all the years when he could have been raiding worksites and strengthening border protection for their own sake. Instead, he has chosen to offer a too little, too late, and all-too-expedient gesture of immigration enforcement as a phony bargaining chip to bribe his base into supporting a historically doomed, dangerous, and utterly unmanageable amnesty proposal.

Tone it down? No, crank it up.

What does he take us for?

You want the American people to buy into "comprehensive immigration reform?"

Message to Congress (since the White House still isn't listening): Drop the guest worker plan and the amnesty sham. Comprehensive immigration enforcement first. Enforcement now.

No more bull.

***

Grass-roots conservative blog reaction gives Bush two thumbs down. Way down.

Round-up at Polipundit
Right Wing News
Cavalier X
La Shawn will be liveblogging.
Scrappleface spoofs.
Bizzy Blog on more things Bush won't talk about tonight.
Scott Johnson on the flabbergastingly idiotic Hagel-Martinez bill.
Andrew McCarthy dispenses with the mass deportation canard.
John Derbyshire on the Bush speech: "milk-and-water leaky-bandaid stuff."

Related:

Tim Graham busts the Washington Post's Minutemen coverage
Tom Tancredo at Human Events Online: Come home, Mr. President.