Democrats Now Trying To Keep Open Borders

Originally Posted: December 17, 2007
10:02 p.m. Eastern
DEMOCRAT PROPOSED BILL GUTS BORDER FENCE

By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.

Republican presidential hopeful Duncan Hunter is blasting a Democrat-sponsored bill that would eliminate the requirement passed by Congress to build a double-layered fence covering 854 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border.

"By eliminating the double fence requirement, the Democratic Congress is going to make it easier for drug and human smugglers to cross our Southern land border," said Hunter. "This goes against the interests of any family that has been touched by illegal drugs or any American who has seen their job taken by an illegal alien."

The Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations bill would specifically eliminate the mandate of the Secure Fence Act of 2006.

As WND reported last week, an amendment submitted by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and co-sponsored by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, for the Department of Homeland Security 2008 budget was aimed at gutting the already-approved Secure Fence Act, which was adopted with the promise hundreds of miles of physical fencing would help secure the U.S. border with Mexico.

The Hutchison amendment allows the secretary of homeland security to use discretion in deciding whether a fence was the most appropriate means to achieve and maintain operational control along the border with Mexico.

DHS is on record as preferring in many instances the construction of "pedestrian fences" or "virtual fences" instead of double-layered barriers as required in the 2006 law.

"The Hutchison amendment gives DHS virtually total discretion over how and where the fence is built," said Steve Elliott, president of the activist group Grassfire.org.

He explained the DHS would not be required to build fencing in any particular location and the double-layer mandate would be "totally gone."

"I find it odd that such an important amendment which releases DHS from specific requirements of an existing law would be passed by a simple voice vote in the Senate and then buried in the massive omnibus bill," Elliott said.

"The American people reasonably expect that a double-layer fence will be built, but Congress has always had other plans," he argued. "This amendment should be stripped from the bill."

Hunter agreed.

"The success of the San Diego Border Fence demonstrates the overall effectiveness of the double-layered approach and the importance of extending this infrastructure across our southern land border," Hunter said.

"Pulling back from the double-fence mandate is a prescription for failure that will only allow more smugglers, criminals and illegal aliens to enter the United States through our land border with Mexico," the California congressman added.

"If enacted," Hunter concluded, "this legislation would represent a significant step backwards in the effort to secure our borders."

Grassfire.org is running a campaign to encourage citizens to fax Congress to demand "the fence be built as promised."

The Wit and Wisdom of Duncan Hunter

Duncan Hunter "quotable quotes"... (Lifted from the Town Crier).

(AP) Referring to Giuliani, Romney and McCain, Hunter said: * “Governor Romney stood with Bill Clinton (and Ted Kennedy) for the 1994 gun ban when I was fighting that.
Mayor Giuliani stood with him at the White House on that.
Governor Romney has passed what I consider to be a major step toward socialism with respect to his mandated health care bill.
John McCain is standing strong with Ted Kennedy on this Kennedy-McCain-Bush border enforcement bill".
The guy who has the most influence with these three gentlemen is Ted Kennedy. We need to move away from the Kennedy wing of the Republican party.” -(Hunter)

“I don’t need consultants to give me a conservative image.” - Duncan Hunter

"If you can climb my fence, ...we'll sign you up for the Olympics.” - Duncan Hunter Author of the US Mexico Border Fence Bill passed by Congress and signed by the President.

Duncan Hunter on Will Rogers and religion:
"I don’t belong to any organized religion... I’m a Baptist".

Duncan Hunter when speaking to the Conservative Political Action Conference about his 1st place finish in the South Carolina poll said, “You know, I woke up to … one of the commentators saying that the only reason that Hunter beat all those guys in South Carolina is because his Marine son has been there for a week. Well, I looked down at that army of consultants, everybody who was vertical in South Carolina was hired by the other guys, and I said, ‘You know, that is a good match-up: One Marine versus 550 consultants.’ We did have the advantage!”

Hunter: “I’m leaving to meet a constituent that I haven’t seen for a long time... my wife!"

Hunter responding to Johnny Suttons’ remarks re: Campeon/Ramos ...about assuming known drug runners and dealers are unarmed.
HUNTER: "You know, that’s about the weakest statement I have ever heard and about the weakest justification for saying that a guy is unarmed". "I’d ask him, if that’s true, how did those 600 people die in Nuevo Laredo, most of them in drug-related murders if guns weren’t used? Do these guys choke to death on their Wheaties in the morning?"

Duncan Hunter III:
He walked up to his first-grade teacher about a month ago, stuck his hand out, and said, "My name is Duncan Hunter' … 'My grampa’s going to be president,' ...“And then this little 6-year-old looked his teacher right in the eye, and he said, ‘ ...can I count on your vote?’ ”

Duncan Hunter comes right down Santa Claus lane (archive 1985)
Nurse Amy Salud, one of a platoon of nurses thanking Hunter for cheering their patients, shakes his hand and says they have met before. On a previous hospital visit? asks the congressman. “No, at the Miss Philippines Pageant,” says Salud. Hunter puts on a Scrooge face. “Ah, yes,” he says, “the Miss Philippines Pageant"... "I didn’t win". Salud laughs.
He hands her a House of Representatives pen. He hands another to a bedridden patient. Hunter bends over and half-whispers, “It’s a congressional pen... It writes only in red.” The patient laughs.

Duncan Hunter on... THE FAIR TAX... and more...

On the American DIP-lomats who refused to serve in Iraq when called upon...and our "wounded warriors" at Walter Reed and Bethesda who are eager to go back to Iraq.
..."let’s fire these guys that refuse to go and we’ll give the State Department careers to these military guys"..."they know the lay of the land, they know the people and they are professionals and they are patriotic."

On what could be the greatest tragedy in US history...
"One of the greatest tragedies in US history would be ...''If having dissolved the Soviet empire with a policy of strength and strong principles and strong character, ...if having dissolved the socialist Soviet Republic, we ourselves slide into socialism".

"What I want to see is an American people who, the day I walk out of the White House after eight years, are more independent of government than the day I walk in".

"Every major political movement starts not in Washington but it starts with the grassroots."

*edited for clarification and additional quotes. 11/3/08
-red stater