Rounding up a Posse...

Okay, someone explain this to me: What, exactly, are 6,000 National Guard members going to do once stationed at the imaginary line between the U.S. and Mexico? Yes, they'll stand around. Patrol and whatnot. But what if some wily Mexican nevertheless makes the proverbial "run for the border"? Will he or she be shot on sight? Arrested and housed at government expense awaiting trial? It's all very hazy.

The Guard troops would mostly serve two-week stints before rotating out of the assignment, so keeping the force level at 6,000 over the course of a year could require up to 156,000 troops.

...

Bush said the National Guard troops would fill in temporarily while the nation's Border Patrol force is expanded. He asked Congress to add 6,000 more Border Patrol agents by the end of his presidency and to add 6,700 more beds so illegal immigrants can be detained while waiting for hearings to determine that they can be sent home.

For many years, the government has not had enough detention space to hold illegal immigrants, so they were released into society and most did not return for their court date. "This practice, called catch and release, is unacceptable and we will end it," Bush said

Great! So now, instead of holding the huddled masses yearning to breathe free in some sort of government detention center, we'll...hold them in a costly new detention center.

Wait. Wasn't this supposed to be a new policy? Cause, to me, this looks like swapping out Border Patrol guys for National Guard guys, which will make for a cool-looking British-style Changing of the Guard ceremony, but doesn't seem to accomplish a whole lot.

Also, and I'm not a lawyer, but will someone please let me know why this doesn't violate U.S. Law? From Wikipedia:

The Posse Comitatus Act is a United States federal law (18 U.S.C. § 1385) passed in 1878 after the end of Reconstruction. The Act was intended to prohibit Federal troops from supervising elections in former Confederate states. It generally prohibits Federal military personnel and units of the United States National Guard under Federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress. The Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act substantially limit the powers of the Federal government to use the military for law enforcement.

I read the entire wiki, and nowhere did it include a loophole under which George Bush ordering the National Guard to the Mexican border to arrest illegal immigrants would be legally permisable. Unless, that is, he pursuades Congress to pass a law granting him special powers to deploy the National Guard to the Southern U.S. Border.

In theory, I don't have a huge problem with replacing the Border Patrol with the National Guard. Even though I'm essentially for an Open Border policy, I understand the need for some authority guarding our borders for security purposes. I mean, I don't really give two shits if Pablo and his business partners want to work on some Orange County lawns or schlep a few bricks of awful Mexican mota over here, but I'd rather not have any dirty bombs making the scene in Santa Monica.

In practice, well. that's a whole nother thing...These National Guard guys are busy. Some of them are in Iraq. Others may be needed if there's a really bad hurricane and the entire Southeast portion of our nation gets fucked up again. It's not really a unit designed to be a border police, and it's not really an organization that's desgined to be stretched out as it currently is under the Bush regime. On this particular instance, bizarrely, I agree with De Governator.

‘‘Going the direction of the National Guard, I think, is maybe not the right way to go,'' Schwarzenegger told reporters after a news conference on the state budget...

Schwarzenegger suggested that Guard troops returning from service in Iraq should be able to go back to their jobs, not head to the border.

‘‘We should let them go to work,'' he said.

Other than our shared love of bodybuilding, this may be the first time I've agreed with Arnold Schwarzenegger about something. I'm going to allow myself a few moments to enjoy the feeling...

Okay, I'm back.

But another Republican border state governor, Rick Perry of Texas, said he was glad the administration had decided the Guard had a role to play along the border. "We have the ability to multitask," Perry said.

Hey, that's great, Rick! Way to be! I'll just go tell that to all the people in Iraq we can't seem to keep safe. Sure, we could have sent in more troops in the initial stages of the war in order to provide for basic security, prevent looting and maintain some semblance of an infrastructure and civil order, but we were busy multitasking.

"Hey, Hina, I'm sorry that your face got asploded and your three children are dead...but we were multitasking! You see, in the Middle East, you guys can only hate one or two groups of people at once. You've used up so much venom on women and World Jewry, there's maybe only minor animosity left for all your many other enemies. In America, because of our Protestant work ethic and billions of dollars, we have the capacity to hate on three, four, even five or six large groups of people all at once. You've got your Arabs (of course), your Mexicans, your gays, your liberals, your Frenchies. I could go on and on! And we're not really that crazy about the Jews either! One day, when you've established a democracy of your own, maybe you'll be ready to multitask the hate, but for now it's probably best to stay focused."

Bush said the nation has more than doubled the size of the Border Patrol during his presidency and has sent home about 6 million people entering the United States illegally. Still, he said, that has not been enough.

"For decades, the United States has not been in complete control of its borders," the president said. "As a result, many who want to work in our economy have been able to sneak across our border, and millions have stayed."

Can that possibly be true? I'm not saying it's definitely false. I have no official figures with which to argue this claim. But could the U.S. Border Patrol really catch and process 6 million immigrants in four years? You just have to imagine the amount of paperwork, of human effort, or time it would take to catch and then release (to use Bush's charming fishing metaphor) 6 million people...it boggles the mind. I'd say, if the U.S. Border Patrol is really doing that kind of job, preventing over 1 million illegal immigrants per year from entering the U.S., it's working about as efficiently as possible and we should leave them alone to continue doing their jobs.

Anyway, I don't see how this is really going to help Bush at all. I suspect that the Republicans raised this whole immigration issue, thinking that it would be a big win for them and distract the country from all that illegal shit they keep doing, and that the massive public response on both sides was unexpected and unwelcome. His base, the people who still call him a Great Leader when polled, are a bunch of racists. They want him to round up all the Mexicans and deport them, a la Holocaust-era Western Europe.

And no, I didn't just make that up as hyperbole. Some fanatical right-wing idiots are really suggesting this.

If it took the Germans less than four years to rid themselves of 6 million Jews, many of whom spoke German and were fully integrated into German society, it couldn't possibly take more than eight years to deport 12 million illegal aliens, many of whom don't speak English and are not integrated into American society.

These are Bush's hardcore voters, the people that will never vote Democrat no matter how corrupt and insane the Republicans get, and they demand a hard line. So he's got this whole "I'm-a put 6,000 armed guards at the Border!" plan. But he also can't actually go after the big businesses that depend on immigrant labor, and he seems to understand (somehow) that rounding up and deporting millions of Americans because their exotic, spicy cuisine and comically-oversized straw hats make us nervous doesn't make a whole lot of practical sense.

He's trying to split the difference - nonsensical guest-worker program that only helps companies hoping to exploit foreigners MIXED WITH symobolic militarized horseshit to quell virulent racists - and I don't really think it's going to work. He's going to wind up pleasing absolutely no one with these confused, silly policies.

Before I end this post, I'd like to note that, in addition to agreeing with Schwarzenegger, I actually agree with some of the stuff Bush said tonight. I know, I know...It must be all this black tar heroin I'm smoking...

"It is neither wise nor realistic to round up millions of people, many with deep roots in the United States and send them across the border," he said.

Wait, that's...that almost seems to be...Could it be a well-reasoned, sensible position? Attributed to George W. Bush? Has he been secretly replaced with Kevin Kline or something?