President Bush spoke tonight about his immigration reform plan saying precisely the things that had been leaked beforehand.  Bush clearly was giving the speech in a hope to prop up his disastrously declining support in the nation as we approach the fall election.  His effort was a miserable failure because he wasn’t honest about what would be needed to control the border or actually enforce the law.  The President of the United States intentionally lied to the nation by proposing that 6,000 temporary National Guard and then eventually 6,000 border agents will handle the situation along with a "virtual fence" composed of high technology sensing equipment.

It would be pathetically funny if he wasn’t acting as if this will have any serious effect.  Numerous experts on border security have said we need at least an additional 25,000 border agents to control the southern border alone, to make no mention of our larger northern border or our coasts and interior enforcement.  A few thousand more, even with high technology to assist them, will not effectively control the border.

He spoke of requiring the many millions of illegal immigrants he would give amnesty to learn English.  He said we need to assimilate the immigrants.  Those two points are perhaps the only worthwhile contributions in this speech to the current discussion of what to do about tens of millions of illegal immigrants.  But they aren’t remotely adequate even there because he has advocated no specific action or law to get us there, and I have heard not one word about any such thing being incorporated into either of the major bills facing Congress on the issue.

He did not mention the need to fund programs to teach English along with American History, Culture, and Civics so that they understand what it is that we are, what it is that we stand for as a nation.  The U.S.A. is an idea in the minds of men, not just a chunk of land like every other nation on earth.  The American Idea will simply die if it is not fostered and passed on to both the newer generations and all immigrants.

We have a unique culture and history that deserve to be fostered and continue just as much as any other culture on Earth, and any immigrant wishing to join us is demonstrating that they wish to be a part of it.  Or at least they ought to be because it is crazy to bring in immigrants who are hostile to us.  This is our home, our greater family, there is no reason whatsoever to invite people who hate us and reject us to join our family.

We should not tolerate, much less encourage, people to come here merely to make money while keeping their own culture and remaining separate.  Just months ago we saw how completely disastrous that is to a nation as the unassimilated immigrants of Europe and especially France rose up and went on a rampage of violence for weeks until they basically got tired of it.  The situation there has not and will not change anytime soon because the unassimilated immigrants hate their host countries.  The enemy is within the gate of Europe and they may end up taking over Europe if something drastic is not done fairly soon.  Demographics is destiny and the European people are dieing off demographically while the hostile Muslim immigrants grow exponentially.  There is no mystery here, no magic, just the most basic process of human reproduction and numbers leading to yet another of very many cultural extinctions in our human history.

Multiculturalism is an unmitigated disaster that must end.  Nowhere that it has been tried has it done anything but foster alienation with increasing tensions and eventual violence if not civil war.  Multiculturalism’s only valid point is that cultural differences deserve some respect but it is misapplied to the domestic scene.  Multiculturalism within a nation leads to distinct groups living in isolated neighborhoods and constantly fighting over resources and laws with people with whom they drastically disagree.  There can be no agreement to disagree when the Law must apply to all equally if we are to live in a Nation of Laws.  For that matter everything these days gets federalized anyway so it really all boils down to nationwide struggles for power and dominance over the law to direct the way other people live.  This is no way to have a peaceful happy civil life.  Importing domestic strife is more than just stupid, it is deeply harmful to the future of our nation and will be fatal at some point in the near future.  Just as European culture will fail soon if they don’t take drastic action, we too will face the same problem a bit farther down the road if we do not stop the ceaseless flow of unassimilated immigrants of any type.

President Bush’s speech was a clear attempt to try to smooth over differences within his political base by seeming to provide some action to stop the flow of illegal and unassimilated immigrants at last.  But he couldn’t even act like he was serious about it for one speech, much less the long term implementation of something he clearly does not agree with.  The statistics on interior enforcement since Bush took office clearly show that he diverted efforts away from enforcing our immigration laws inside our nation.  Stunningly President Clinton was much far and away more serious about enforcing the immigration laws inside our country.  By making the speech he made tonight President Bush is making it clear that he is not willingly going to control the border or immigration, that he will make no serious effort on his own to do so, and that if these things are to happen it will have to be forced on him by legislation from Congress.  The real meaning of his words is that he is only interested in importing massive amounts of cheap labor while giving only lip service to any other consideration.  Bush’s well known stubborn streak is fully engaged on immigration and he simply will not deviate from the same broad plan he proposed before our nation was attacked on 9/11.

The President is wrong that any immigration bill must be "comprehensive".  We had that back in 1986 and all that did was allow a massive amnesty with none of the enforcement.  Every indication given the reluctance of our leaders to control the border is that it is even worse now and that all we can expect of such a bill is that it will not in fact ever make any real attempt to control immigration but surely will grant the amnesty, thus serving as an even larger beacon to others who will come for the next amnesty.  Estimates of the net legal immigration as a result of the proposed Senate bill favored by the President are between 100 million and over 200 million immigrants in the next 20 years alone.  We can not possibly assimilate even a fraction of that number even with strong government programs and laws requiring it, and there is no indication any such laws will ever be passed by the current Congress anyway.  If we allow hundreds of millions of immigrants to live unassimilated we will have lost our sovereignty and will lose our identity as a nation as the increasingly bitter Balkanizing effects destroy social cohesion and the hostile groups struggle ruthlessly, perhaps violently, for wealth and power.

If the President really means that he only wants to legitimize the illegal aliens currently in the nation and no more then he would support an immigration and border enforcement only law then push as hard as he could to make it effective.  If our national leaders can show the citizenry that they actually are stopping further illegal immigration and that they are serious about the future security of our national survival and sovereignty then all things are possible afterwords.  With effective control in place and the assurance that it will stay that way it will be easy to agree on a path towards legalization of some form because it really would be the last time and we would be secure enough to be generous with them.

As long as the border is not controlled we are threatened both physically by terrorist infiltration and our future as a culture and a people is threatened by massive waves of unassimilated immigrants.  The majority of Americans simply will not accept either of those.  You wouldn’t think that in a "Nation of Laws not Men" just getting our lawmakers to enforce the law would be so difficult.  It shouldn’t be.

Update:  Captain Ed is right to point out that the President mentioned ending "catch and release", which is indeed good if he actually makes it happen, and that the majority of Americans will wonder why it wasn’t done immediately after 9/11.  Its hard to see how he could implement this without Congressional funding and changing some laws however, and I haven’t heard anything about them considering such as part of this bill.

Update II:  Michelle Malkin says its Same Old, Same Old.  She’s right.  Follow this link for more details and explanation.  See her Vent here .

Update III:  The ever loyal Hugh Hewitt at first expressed support, then flips in stunned amazement as an administration guest on his radio show makes it clear they just don’t believe in fences at all.  After the interview, for which the transcript will be available later at RadioBlogger , Hugh now doubts the Administration is serious about border security at all.  I was listening to part of the show, Hugh was really upset with their apparent unconcern with securing the border by building a fence.  He said he’s covered the issue for over 20 years and that the issues or the lingo used haven’t changed at all, and that the lingo she used shone through clear as a bell that they are not at all interested in a fence, which to Hugh is the most important measure needed here before other things can be done.  Its a public relations melt down for the Whitehouse.

Update IV:  John Hinderaker, a.k.a. Hindrocket at Powerline, posts his response to the speech saying that Bush Had His Chance , and blew it.  He concludes his short but sharp post with, "President Bush doesn’t have many chances left to salvage his second term. After tonight, he might not have any."  I really didn’t get to the political implications of this speech in my post above, but I think John has it about right there.  Its never over until its over and every President has substantial power to reverse events until he leaves office, as has been done before, but with the string of self-inflicted wounds of late it is starting to look ever less likely.  He lost considerable support with people I talked to tonight.  It is my perception that President Bush’s reserve of loyalty and support in the Republican party base is either empty or nearly so, and ditto the Congressional Republicans.  They seriously need to make a serious effort to do something significant the base likes soon or defeat in the fall is almost certain.  The political air to me is feeling very much like 1992 when many Republicans either sat out the election or voted for third parties rather than vote for the first President Bush’s attempt at re-election after losing the party’s trust by breaking the "read my lips, no new taxes" pledge.  And the current crew are acting like they have even less of a clue they have serious problems right now.