RAND PAUL SEES THE LIGHT ON IMMIGRATION

Rand Paul discovers “security concerns”

By Don Hank

Sen. Rand Paul, who serves on a committee called Homeland Secturity and Government Affairs, just now woke up and realized that an immigration reform bill of the kind he was touting a few weeks ago, needs to take national security concerns into account. He now backtracks with the following statement:

I believe that any real comprehensive immigration reform must implement strong national security protections. The facts emerging in the Boston Marathon bombing have exposed a weakness in our current system. If we don't use this debate as an opportunity to fix flaws in our current system, flaws made even more evident last week, then we will not be doing our jobs.

It's nice that Rand Paul, author of a much touted amnesty proposal that unquestioningly presupposed a competent DHS, finally woke up to the fact that our national security is a disaster. But why did it take a national tragedy to wake him up?

Most of my correspondents know--and knew long before Rand's plan was unfurled-- that illegal aliens make up about 1/3 of our federal prison population and that Mexicans are the no. 1 demographic in terms of drunken driving convictions, including all of those involving traffic deaths of third parties. And they know that a very substantial percentage of our street drugs come from south of the border and that our downtowns are in thrall to 1.4 million gang members, of which all but 9% are foreign. All of the individuals in these problem demographics would have received a blanket amnesty under Rand Paul's proposed “reform.”

My correspondents also know that we are in the midst of an economic crisis where jobs are scarce and 100 million Americans are receiving some form of public assistance other than social security, which tallies up to a cool $1 trillion/yr -- a record number by far in US history.

So, Mr. Paul, while you have shown some aptitude as a quarterback, your side is unlikely to make touchdowns if you wait until Monday morning to pick up the ball and run.