Dale Brown: Edge of Battle

“I’ve been in the Air Force command centers up at Beale Air Force Base in California watching unmanned Global Hawk aircraft twenty thousand feet in the sky locating and tracking individuals from half a world away; I’ve seen infrared detectors spot individuals hiding under trees or even in underground spider holes; I’ve seen Joint STARS aircraft identifying and tracking hundreds of vehicles by radar over thousands of square miles. Guess how many Global Hawks we have patrolling Iraq and Afghanistan right now? Seven, according to the public affairs folks at Beale Air Force Base. How many do we have patrolling anywhere in the U.S.? You guessed it— none! How many Joint STARS patrolling Iraq and Afghanistan? Six—that’s all we have, my friends, leaving none to protect our own borders. We have less than twenty percent of the Air Force’s fleet of smaller Predator unmanned reconnaissance aircraft patrolling our own borders.

“Technologically, I know we can do it—the question is, do we have the political will to do it? You will hear that illegal immigrants do work that Americans don’t want to do.” Again the sound of the trap snapping shut. “O’Rourke says ‘hogwash’! Farm owners prefer immigrant labor because they’re cheap, plentiful, work in absurdly deplorable conditions, and don’t complain or cause trouble for fear of deportation. If farmworkers were paid an honest wage instead of a slave laborer’s wage, more Americans would do those jobs, or the farm owners would modernize their equipment and procedures to make farming even more efficient and profitable. Any higher costs would just be passed along to consumers anyway, where the market would then dictate prices—but undoubtedly unemployment would go down in the meantime.

“You will hear that politicians don’t like legislating against illegal immigrants because it will anger ethnic voters.” Snap! “Again, O’Rourke says ‘hogwash’! Legal immigrants and naturalized citizens oppose illegal immigration just as much as native-born citizens do because illegals are breaking the law—which hurts everyone—paints them with the same bigoted, racist, xenophobic brush as the illegals, and diminishes all the efforts they’ve made to come into this country legally.”

O’Rourke paused for a few breaths, then went on: “I know a lot of you are advocating a guest worker program. Say what? A what worker program?” Snap! “Bullpies! I won’t even consider a guest worker program until every last man and woman in this country who wants a job has a job, and that’ll be a long, long time in coming, my friends. Don’t you dare try to sugarcoat the issue by telling me that Mexicans do jobs that Americans won’t do! Illegals have done those jobs because farmers and other employers would rather pay them a few pennies an hour rather than what a worker is legally entitled to. Pay an honest wage for an honest day’s work and you won’t need to hire slave labor to do the work.

“And don’t you dare try to call it a guest worker program, as if the illegals will leave when we ask them to and won’t come back unless we invite them. Calling someone a ‘guest’ implies that we want these people to enter our country. We can’t have it both ways, my friends. We can’t demand sovereign, secure borders, no risk of terror attacks, and no risk of skyrocketing costs associated with providing public services to illegals, and then ask for allowing undocumented, untraceable persons the right to legally enter the country and work. Trading security for comfort and convenience is not the answer.

“Step three is the stick: anyone found violating immigration laws risks detainment, not just deportment. Anyone caught without proper proof of citizenship is sent to a detainment facility to await administrative processing and deportment. These detention camps are minimum security, minimum amenity facilities—the persons detained are not there for rest and relaxation, but to await deportation, in which the length of time they are detained depends on the size of the facility, the number of judges assigned to work the cases, and the number of detainees. Multiple violators face federal jail time. Children born in a detainment facility are not considered U.S. citizens. If they must lose wages because they go to a detention camp every time they’re caught without a guest worker permit, or if their offspring are denied citizenship, maybe they’ll think twice before trying to sneak across the border.

“I see Fonda rolling her eyes at me already,” O’Rourke said. This time, his little bit of radio theatrics was right on—she was rolling her eyes at him. Although Kent knew about today’s topic and was ready for the onslaught of calls, even she looked at O’Rourke with a bit of trepidation. The phone lines were beginning to light up, and she knew that not everyone was going to want to talk with the host. The angry but radio-shy among them would scream at her instead, and she really hated that—it was her job, of course, but she still hated it. “I can hear the politicians in California calling me a racist and likening all this to Japanese internment camps in the 1940s. Folks, there’s no doubt that those camps were born of mass hysteria and xenophobia—every man or woman after Pearl Harbor with sloped eyes was a Jap spy. That was racism, and that was wrong.

“Here’s O’Rourke’s bottom line: those found illegally entering the United States are criminals. At best they are trespassers, flouting our laws and taking money and services from legal citizens. At worst, they could be terrorists, murderers, rapists, and vandals. This is unacceptable. This madness has got to stop. Are you listening, Washington? Are you listening, President Conrad?”

O’Rourke looked up and saw Fand with her hands upraised in surrender, and a quick glance at the computer screen told him why: the switchboard was completely full. “All right, you people, I’ve ranted enough. The lines are jammed, so keep your comments short and sweet and let everyone have a chance to voice an opinion. America is once again under siege, not only by illegal immigrants but now by terrorists sneaking across the border with the illegals. We’re talking about illegal immigration and what the Conrad administration must do about it right now . I’m Bob O’Rourke—welcome to The Bottom Line . Let’s get it on—right after this commercial message. Stay right there.”

THE OVAL OFFICE, THE WHITE HOUSE,

WASHINGTON, D.C.

THAT SAME TIME

“That rat bastard!” the President of the United States, Samuel Conrad, thundered as he exited his private study adjacent to the Oval Office. “Who does that guy think he is? He doesn’t know anything except what some hack reporter puts out over the wires. Somebody save me from the know-it-alls in the world.”

The President’s National Security Adviser, Sergeant Major Ray Jefferson, U.S. Army, had just walked into the Oval Office when the President finished his tirade. The President’s Chief of Staff, Thomas F. Kinsly, was fixing the President a cup of coffee—decaf, Jefferson hoped—and he immediately made his way over to fix himself a cup. The White House had the best coffee in the world, Jefferson learned, but the Oval Office stuff seemed even better, and he never failed to grab a cup when he could.

Ray Jefferson took his coffee, stepped back behind the sofa in the little meeting area of the Oval Office—and almost seemed to disappear from sight. That was his favorite of all his many talents learned over almost three decades in the military: the ability to seem insignificant, blend into his surroundings, and look completely disarming. He was of just over average height, wiry, with short dark hair and blue eyes that seemed to reflect his mood at any given moment: they could be light and friendly one moment, dark and angry the next, but they were sharp and rarely missed anything. His ability to stand perfectly still, listen, and observe people and events around him had always served him well, and even more so now in his rough and tumble political role as the President of the United States’ National Security Adviser.