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COPYRIGHT 2006 Financial Times Ltd.
(From Fox News Channel)
Byline: John Gibson, Bret Baier, Carol McKinley, Bill McCuddy
GIBSON: Now it's time for "My Word."
A lot has been said about Saturday's massive rally in support of illegal immigration in Los Angeles. Wait, you say that is not really what the rally was all about? Sure it was.
Many of the people who came to protest the proposed law that would make illegals felons say they are citizens because one of their relatives took a chance and crossed the river a decade or two or three or four ago. They honor their illegal immigrant ancestors. Whatever.
It was an impressive demonstration. It would have been more impressive if everybody had been carrying American flags and the flags of Mexico had been left home. What the heck, you might say that was the soccer element in the crowd.
I am for a guest worker program that would accommodate a large number of immigrants, half a million perhaps. I'm for guest workers being able to apply for legal status as residents and eventually citizens. I am for doing something that makes sense and isn't necessarily punitive about the 12 million to 20 million illegals already here?
I must say the demonstration in L.A. on Saturday shows that none of those immigrant-friendly changes in the law makes any sense at all unless we can stop illegal immigration and stop it cold.
If you have 500,000 legal immigrants and another 500,000 that come illegally, eventually the number of legals will be reduced to near zero again. If you are asking people to take the trouble to go through our bureaucracy legally, why should they if their friends still come across illegally and save themselves the trouble.
None of this stuff works unless there is a wall on the border that shuts illegal immigration down completely. When the flood of illegals has been reduced to near zero, then guest-worker and citizenship programs can make sense. When the wall stops illegal immigration cold, you can set a number of legal immigrants the county can handle, and have an orderly and fair program accepting new workers into our country.
Without a wall as job one, the entire discussion of immigration law is buried under a new wave of illegal immigration. This is a country is built on immigrants. We like immigrants, but we want them to be admitted by a U.S. government agent, not by a coyote or smuggler of humans. That is "My Word." Want to argue, call my radio show, it comes on in half an hour on a radio station in your town, or on XM 168 or Sirius 145 satellite radio. Or write to me at myword&foxnews.com.
Time now to head over to Uma Pemmaraju with the rest of today's headlines.
UMA PEMMARAJU, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Here is what is happening. Donald Rumsfeld said the U.S. is failing in efforts to counter terrorist propaganda across Iraq. He is saying in the war on terror the U.S. deserves a D for the way it has presented its case. Earlier in the day, Rumsfeld paying a visit to the site where, on September 11, Flight 93 crashed...
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