Tired of being misled, lied to and false promises never kept, many of my friends who are strong patriots are fighting for policy to restore the sovereignty of our nation, and I am thankful for their efforts.  Fighting for true and meaningful border security policy is key to protecting our country.  

Texans have the opportunity to lead and I am grateful for fighters working to ensure our conservative principles are not lost. The Texas Solution does not address the right way to achieve border security and immigration reform. Significant changes must be made and this is why I have offered alternative principles.

In fact, I began working on border security and private property landowner rights almost four years ago. Among a host of solutions, I have called for a tripling of our border patrol agents; an immediate deployment of our national guard troops; providing Texas the equivalent number of border patrol agents per border mile as sister border states; categorizing cartel activity as a terroristic threat to cripple the transnational criminal organizations financially; increasing assets and greater technology to give our law enforcement and border patrol agents clear superiority over the cartels; and, providing local law enforcement grants to pay for overtime and local needs associated with the federal government’s failures. Further, from budget savings from my agency, I have provided funding to the DPS to aid with Operation Drawbridge. Drawbridge uses enhanced “game cameras” and places them in strategic locations along the border. In just a little over two years, Operation Drawbridge has successfully apprehended over 30,000 individuals seeking illegal entry and confiscated more than 30 tons of narcotics. I led on border security by commissioning A Strategic Military Assessment of the Texas border and also established a website to aid in border security: www.protectyourtexasborder.com, and wrote a book challenging the administration’s claims of a secure border.

I wholeheartedly agree that border security is priority one and must be accomplished. I do believe border security can be done successfully and, at the same time, address guest worker reform in a manner that puts an end to the defacto amnesty Obama is awarding today with his selective enforcement, ensures American jobs come first, does not reward law breakers and does not allow for citizenship without returning home and utilizing the CURRENT citizenship process. The point I am trying to make is that saying “border security only” ignores the fact that we have an existing but failing guest worker program in place that is adding to the ranks of our shadow economy and giving cover to the drug cartels. Why would we leave in place a system that President Obama is abusing and not take away his advantage?

I understand the skepticism that goes with the concept of achieving both border security and guest worker reforms. How can we not have disbelief when Washington has failed to enforce our current laws, created an ever growing welfare state, and coddled businesses who look the other way as undocumented workers walk through the back door?

The only way to stop the madness that continues to perpetuate our broken system is to demand success on all fronts. I refuse to wait 10 years to get to the next step. We have issues that must be addressed. To that end, we all must fight for the most conservative solutions to stop the Washington madness and continue to hold accountable those who abandon our conservative values.

Todd Staples is the Texas Commissioner of Agriculture and a strong proponent of effective border solutions.  

In June 2012, at the Republican Party of Texas Convention in Fort Worth, Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson was the only Republican elected official to speak to the Platform Committee and to the approximately 8,000 member delegation in favor of adopting the “Texas Solution” immigration plank in our Texas Republican Party Platform.  During the floor debate, several key votes were taken on the Texas Solution.  By their votes, Convention delegates voted overwhelmingly to support the Texas Solution. Commissioner Patterson is still supporting the Texas Solution and has submitted the following Q&A in hopes of keeping it in the 2014 RPT platform.

Isn’t the Texas Solution in the 2012 RPT platform actually Amnesty?

Actually not. Going back to the 2010 RPT platform would be closer to amnesty than the 2012 platform. Why? Because the 2010 platform did not address what to do with the 12,000,000 illegals already here, therefore it maintained the status quo of doing nothing which most would agree is de facto amnesty. Additionally, the dictionary defines amnesty as “forgiveness without penalty for a past action, error or omission”.  The Texas Solution calls for fines and does not allow for a pathway to citizenship. Others will note the 2010 platform called for “enforcing our laws” as proof that the 2010 platform did not support amnesty. “Enforcing our laws” lacks specificity. If the 2010 platform advocated deportation, that might be different.  “Enforcing our laws” are just weasel words.

Isn’t the Texas Solution just about providing cheap labor for business interests?

No, it is not. We have that now because of the cheap labor resulting from an underground, cash, non taxpaying labor scheme. By eliminating so called “sub contractor employees”, the Texas solution will immediately convert this subterfuge to a true employer employee relationship, and increase the formerly paid in cash wages (actually a tax avoidance scam) by at least 30{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986}. By adding Social Security withholding, workers comp, federal and state unemployment tax,  health insurance, and IRS withholding, a $20/hour wage goes up to at least $26/hour. The Texas Solution requires all guest workers to be true employees and the cost to the employer goes up, not down.

Shouldn’t we just deport all illegals and be done with it?

If magically all the illegal workers were deported overnight, our economy would suffer greatly. Unemployed citizens are not lining up for jobs washing dishes, roofing houses, hanging drywall, framing in new subdivisions, lawn maintenance, manual labor on road construction sites and other non skilled entry level work. To attract even a few of the unemployed lawful resident population, wages in those trades would need to increase 50-75{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} by one estimate, driving up prices and inflation. The already weak new home construction industry would be crippled even if it could fill that labor need, which it likely could not. The other concern for those of us who are suspicious of more federal police, and who remember Ruby Ridge, Waco, and the “Fast and Furious” ATF gun running debacle, is do we really want to live in a country with enough federal police power to apprehend, incarcerate, adjudicate and deport 12 million men, women and children? The cost to do this would be in the 100’s of billions, not to mention the cost to our liberty when all those federal deportation cops run out of things to do.

Wouldn’t the Texas Solution create a magnet for more illegal immigrants and further burden our INS and Border Patrol?

It would not. Enhanced border security measures go hand in hand with a guest worker program-you can’t have one without the other. Guest worker permit applicants would have to prove they already have a job offer, and the employer would need to prove the job couldn’t otherwise be filled by a citizen. Additionally, by separating the illegals who seek to work and pay taxes, obey our laws, and send money home to their family in Mexico from the criminals, coyotes, narco-traffickers, potential terrorists and unemployables, we reduce by millions the universe of illegals that law enforcement needs to apprehend. Therefore the current or enhanced future resources are employed to contend with a smaller population of illegals. Wouldn’t you prefer your Border Patrol was chasing criminals and narco- terrorists, rather than chasing the 19 year old kid washing dishes in a restaurant or the guy that mowed your yard?

Could the Texas Solution actually reduce the number of illegals coming across our borders in order to join other family members?

Yes it could. Most agree that our current  immigration system is broken, but few recognize that it actually encourages more, not less, illegal immigration by dependent spouses and children. Here’s why. A immigrant making $20/hour can live on half of that amount, and send the other half home to his family in Mexico. The money sent home brings a dramatic improvement in the standard of living of the workers family. Between jobs or during holidays the worker would like to go home to visit, but can’t take the risk of apprehension while crossing the border. Therefore, our current immigration policies have created an incentive for the worker to bring his family here, to live in squalor on $20/hour and further burden our public school system and other services such as emergency medical care.  If the worker had a temporary work permit, he could cross the border to visit his family without fear, and his family could stay at home. The illegal immigration of dependents would be reduced substantially.

Why don’t those who want to work here just go back home and get in line?

That might work if there was such a line, but there is no line, particularly for entry level non skilled or semi-skilled jobs. Not only that, the U.S. government sets the exact same per country limit of 7{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of the total annual immigration quota for every foreign country regardless of that country’s population!  In other words, the maximum allowable number of legal immigrants on an annual basis is the same for Iceland as it is for Mexico.  Does that make sense? Is it any wonder we have a lot of illegal immigrants from Mexico and none from Iceland? The apportionment should have some reasonable link to the population of the country of origin-but it doesn’t. If these workers could have come here legally they would have done so.

Shouldn’t we severely punish employers who knowingly hire illegals?

Of course we should, if the employer did so knowingly. The problem is that puts the employer, already burdened by excessive government regulation and red tape, in the role of doing what the federal government should’ve done already, without the tools to do it. The Texas Solution advocates a biometric forgery proof ID card instead of the easily forged Social Security card that hasn’t changed since the 1930’s. E-verify could also work but it has errors in the database, and employers are prohibited by federal law from using E-verify until after the employment offer is made, making E-verify not a good screening tool. If an new employee comes up as a “no match”, and is terminated due to inaccurate information in the E-verify system, the employer is open to a discrimination claim or a claim of unlawful termination. The employer, particularly small employers, also have the administrative burden of hiring, then firing a new employee. We should help employers hire lawful employees, not burden them with being the de facto INS.

Shouldn’t we secure the border before we implement a guest worker program?

We could do that, but at much greater cost and it would take longer. A guest worker program implemented simultaneously with enhanced border security makes border security easier to accomplish. The simple reason is by reducing the eligible for apprehension population by the millions that become temporary guest workers, law enforcement, the INS, and the Border Patrol simply have fewer people to deal with, making border security a less onerous task to accomplish. It ‘s a simple military defensive tactic. If you can reduce the number of the opposing forces trying to infiltrate your position, you have a more secure defensive position. You can’t have border security without a guest worker program, and you can’t have a guest worker program without border security.

Would this population of guest workers be a disastrous financial burden for generations to come as the recent Heritage Foundation study has suggested?

The Heritage foundation study based its analysis on illegal immigrant households (worker, spouse, kids) who remain here permanently as envisioned in the immigration bill currently before congress which provides a pathway to citizenship after 13 years. Citizens and legal permanent residents (LPR) are entitled to welfare benefits and the citizenship provision, along with the LPR status during that 13 year wait for citizenship is a major source of the financial burden forecast in the Heritage Foundation study. The Texas Solution does not provide a pathway to citizenship, and it is designed for a temporary guest worker, who is not an LPR, and whose family remains in, or returns to, the country of origin. The Heritage Foundation study does not apply to the Texas Solution. Futhermore, if we go back to the 2010 platform, considered by many to be de facto amnesty since it has no realistic or feasible plan (assuming that could even be possible) to deport illegals, nor does it call for deportation, we will continue our current under the table cash wage scam, collect no taxes, and lose 100’s of billions if not trillions in tax revenue and social security payments-truly a disastrous financial burden to be assumed by those who do pay taxes.

You can see more of Commissioner Patterson’s thoughts on the Texas Solution by clicking here.

 

Last Thursday, the Clear Lake Tea Party (CLTP) and a few other invited activists sat down to a teleconference call initiated by Commissioner Todd Staples. It was his intention to reach out to tea party activists about the upcoming fight over the “Texas Solution” immigration plank prior to next week’s RPT convention. It made sense that Commissioner Staples would reach out to the CLTP since their Executive Board had endorsed him during the Lt. Governor’s Primary campaign.

Commissioner Staples expressed to the grassroots on the call, dissatisfaction with the “Texas Solution” plank in the 2012 Republican Party of Texas Platform and proposed a new “Border Security and Legal Workforce Reform” plank. Staples wanted to coalesce grassroots support behind the newly proposed immigration plank and manage the platform fight. He claimed that the proposed plank addressed all the earlier issues with the “Texas Solution” and would be the basis for resolving the flood of illegal aliens crossing our southern borders. It was his assumption that if the conservative grassroots and most establishment Republicans could get behind this new plank then a messy, contentious platform fight could be avoided.

Unfortunately, that was not a correct assumption and the tea party activists were having none of this. The shock on the faces of those on the CLTP end of the conversation was profound. Here was a former candidate for Texas Lt. Governor who had made border security one of his high-profile campaign issues championing an immigration policy that made no sense to those involved in border security issues. In reviewing the proposed plank, it became immediately apparent, as one activist put it, “This is nothing more than an erudite re-writing of the Texas Solution.” As with the Texas Solution, this new plank is a “market-based” approach to illegal immigration. Again, what is being proposed is a “guest worker” solution that would end illegal immigration if we can just give enough guest worker visas to all who sought them. It is incomprehensible to those who care about their State and their country to see the grand Republican solutions to the human tragedy and national security of illegal immigration centered on “cheap labor.” With approximately 40{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of Americans dropping out of the job market, we are being asked to support more jobs for non-Americans. Although the proposed 2014 immigration plank intends to provide protection for American workers through a reformed visa system for which hiring foreign workers would cost more in visa fees than hiring Americans, there was no answer to the question of why would businesses pay more for a foreign worker visa when they can hire cheaply under the table just as they do today.

As the discussion turned to border security, we were further distressed to see that border security is addressed only in the vague and indeterminate language found in the original 2012 Texas Solutions plank. We made it clear to Commissioner Staples that the issues of border security and immigration reform must be addressed as two separate issues. While Staples initially agreed with this premise, it soon became apparent as we drilled down into the issues that he really did not agree on this point. He indicated that there could be no movement on border security without immigration reform (otherwise known as comprehensive immigration reform). We challenged the Commissioner that his proposed border security and immigration plank only addressed the issue from an economic perspective in that all border violators were economic immigrants looking to provide for their families rather than the true scope which includes drug cartel members, multi-national gang members, criminals, drug smuggling mules (willing and forced), human traffickers and their victims. How can the Republican Party gain respect in the Hispanic and Asian communities if all that is talked about is “cheap labor” and not the sickness that plague their communities. Consequently, we were told by Commissioner Staples that it was impossible to “close” the border. He said the 2000 mile border (really 1200 miles in Texas) was unenforceable and that a “market-based” answer was the only feasible solution to minimizing illegal border crossings. Really, the ancient Chinese built the Great Wall of China to keep out the barbarian hordes, the Roman’s built Hadrian’s Wall to defend against the Picts, and the Israelis’ have built their security walls against Islamic terrorists. Even the USSR built an “iron-curtain” to keep people in. To say that America does not have the ability to close a border is ridiculous. We pointed out “Operation Strong Safety” which reduced illegal border by 80 – 90{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} showed that DPS could manage the border. Staples disparaged the DPS operation and claimed it wouldn’t work on a larger scale. Wow! We brought up the border fence and he said that ranchers on the border prevent a contiguous fence from being built because of individual property rights issues. He even said that he was against any Federal or State intrusion onto his property to police the border and protect our national security. At this point, one of our members stated that if a private individual would prevent our borders from being secure they could be considered “un-American.” At this point, we got a real rise out of the Commissioner who took offense at the implication. If you can take an individual’s property to put in a shopping mall, eminent domain should surely cover the land needed to put up a fence!

Finally, we noted that this new proposal goes even further than the 2012 version by adding language to provide so-called “dreamers” a path to citizenship and modernize legal points of entry rather than addressing all the illegal entry points. Although we did not directly address these issues with Commissioner Staples, this is clearly a direct call for amnesty for some illegals. Ostensibly, this language in the Republican Party plank directly codifies the Obama Administration’s stance regarding the children of illegal aliens. It is this very attitude that is causing the tsunami of children crossing the border illegally causing the Federal government to jump through hoops in order to feed and house these minors. The fact that policies such as this encourage illegal immigration – not discourage it.

Ultimately, while we are sure this conversation did not go the way Commissioner Staples intended it to go, it was extremely enlightening to the grassroots participants. We believe that this is an attempt to “manage” the upcoming Texas Solution plank debate with the Party leadership orchestrating a false dichotomy between two choices that are, in essence, the same. The question to tea parties, conservative grassroots, indeed, the Republican Party at large is what you believe in with respect to the questions of border security and immigration reform. Do you think that the Republican panacea to the immigration issue and subsequent electoral success resides in a “guest worker” solution? Do you think that border security and legal immigration reform are inseparable? Do you think that America cannot “close” its southern border? If you do, then support the Party leadership and business interests and back either version of the Texas Solution.

However, if you believe that the 2014 immigration plank is a continuation of moderate Republican policies that seek to appease progressives and big business, then you must join in the effort to rebuke this approach and provide a real Texas solution. If you believe that Texas border security must be the first step in solving the overall illegal immigration issue, then it is up to you to see that this is the lynchpin of any RPT Platform plank addressing this issue. Rather than offering platitudes regarding border security we should be offering real solutions for securing our border. These could include:

• Offering Federal block grants to States to protect the border
• Call for increased funding to allow the Texas DPS to expand the pilot program Operation Strong Safety to a permanent surge
• Close legal ports of entry until Mexico begins to police its side of the border
• Stop the promise of amnesty
• Ask the Federal Government for an accounting of all illegal aliens captured on Texas soil.

But what can the grassroots do with the convention so close? First of all, immediately begin contacting your Senate District 2014 Temporary Platform Committee members and find out if they support the Texas Solution or not. If they do, begin organizing your convention delegates to vote in a different Permanent Platform Committee member who is against the plank. At the convention, elect SREC Committeemen and Committee women who stand against this approach. Encourage all to change the language from economic migrants to the true bane of illegal immigration that is manifest in drugs, crime, and human slavery. And finally, confront our politicians and candidates regarding their support or non-support for the Texas Solution. These are men and women of standing within the Republican Party and should not shy away from making a stand that so divides us today. Many of them have made promises to get elected or gather in the Party nomination. They can influence the outcome regarding what is in the 2014 Republican Party of Texas Platform. Ultimately, this is on you, the Texas activist, to decide what message you want to send to the rest of America.

Dale Huls is a founding member of the Clear Lake Tea Party.