Bush Amnesty Sparks Surge in Border Crossings
By staff writers, Fox News, February 19, 2004
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,111818,00.html
On Jan. 27, the Copley News Service reported that shortly after President Bush announced his plans to amnesty millions of illegal aliens in the U.S., more than half of the Mexicans trying to sneak into the U.S. through San Ysidro told authorities they were doing so to position themselves for the amnesty.
As one member of the U.S. Border Patrol told me, “They believe that they are only responding to an invitation.”
The percentage suggested by Copley probably does not come close to the actual number of people who are running for the American border as word of Bush’s immigration plan spreads through Mexico -- and indeed throughout the world. Mexico, it seems, is now regarded the world over as the doorway to the United States.
In the last several weeks, a staggering 90 percent of all illegal aliens intercepted in one sector in southern Texas claim they’ve come for the amnesty.
Officers of the Border Patrol have now been directed to ask a set of questions of the illegal aliens they apprehend running across the border. One of those questions is: Is the person attempting to illegally enter the U.S. in response to the Bush amnesty proposal?...
“The agents were soon told to stop collecting this information, presumably because it appeared as if the proposal was acting as a lure,” says my source within the Border Patrol.
Word of the 2000-mile wide open door between Mexico and the U.S. has spread far beyond Mexico. It is not just Mexicans who are flooding into our border states anymore. Along with the Nicaraguans, Brazilians, Venezuelans, Ecuadorians, and Chileans, agents of the Border Patrol now encounter Chinese, Pakistanis, and Indians. Nationals of countries other than Mexico are known, in Border Patrol parlance, as “OTMs.” Because they cannot easily be returned to their home country (whereas a Mexican national might be driven right back across the border), OTMs are permitted to enter the U.S. and given a Notice to Appear, which is a piece of paper demanding their appearance before an Immigration Judge.
“I’m an OTM and I want my NTA,” some have been known to declare to the Border Patrol. Rules require that most be given their NTA, upon which the OTM departs forever for some unknown location in America.
“A lot of OTMs want to be caught so they can get their "papers," which makes them legal enough to get past our checkpoint without having to ride in the back of an 18-wheeler or crammed into the trunk of a car,” says one agent.
This is what the Bush amnesty proposal has caused to happen at our border with Mexico. Foreign nationals walk nearly unimpeded into our country -- fully aware of ways in which our immigration laws can be used to their advantage...
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