the borders or reform the immigration system. you had folks hiring folks and no workplace enforcement and that basically enabled a situation where we had droves of people coming across the border creating this it s like we re in this vicious cycle. is the biggest criticism that the two sides can t find a middle ground on such an important issue and as we talk about what happened in 1986, here we are in 2011 where border security has never been more important? why can t we find common ground? maria? because the gop is not willing to. look at what danny just said in terms of president bush supporting this when he was in office. that s absolutely true. where are the senators that supported this when george bush is in office? mccain had his own name on a comprehensive immigration bill. right. and he even said during his campaign that he wouldn t support his own bill.
part. our borders are more secure today than they ever have been. the crime that danny is talking about is actually amiss. border towns have less crime than the towns that speaker boehner comes from in ohio. so let s just keep those facts straight. so the gop needs to step up here because democrats are on board, labor is on board. businesses are on board. faith lead ares are on board. we need the big coalition to come to the table to get this done. let s not forget it was president bush several years ago that tried to push immigration reform through congress where he assigned two of his cabinet secretaries to work on a full core press. this president obama did nothing of the kind during his first year in office, which is something that he promised. the other thing that republicans are saying is the fact that we absolute must have border security as a top priority. right. we cannot have a situation like we had after 1986 when we passed amnesty on to president reagan where we did n
consider themselves to be democrats and yet only 38% find the party very welcoming to them. can you explain the political ambivalence that we re seeing and what role that may play in any real reform? sure. absolutely. they feel the same frustration that americans across the border feel and that president obama feels every day that immigration reform doesn t get done. the reason that people are skeptical is they understand the realities in washington and you can t get this done as a single party. where are the republicans talking about this? they are not here. they do not want to work with president obama on this because they know it would be a losing issue for their tea party base. president obama is going to talk about border security and, again, danny is right. that s a critically important
afghanistan war to be made public. the website wikileaks is planning to release the rest of the secret papers it has on file. the pentagon warns their exposure would be even more damaging to the military than what was previously published. president obama signs a bill to strengthen the nation s border security today. it provides $600 million to fortify the mexican border. that money will put more border patrol and customs and immigration officials on duty. it will be final approval in a special session. it was the second time the senate was called to a special session in august since 1970. tests are being conducted to determine if any other work is needed to seal that gulf oil well. the oil flow was stopped nearly a month ago as mud and cement created a temporary plug in the well. the latest test will determine if drilling relief wells and plugging them with cement is really necessary. we re told the government s point man on the spill is unsure about whether to officially declare
would help to do with border security today, she didn t have a great answer. what in that bill would improve border security? it s another tool in our tool box trying to address the issues we re facing here. you concede it wouldn t do much along the boarder? i m not quite sure about that. well, not along the border. i think it would help in telling people that it is illegal to come into the state of arizona, which it already is but it s just not being enforced. if they knew the states themselves were going to enforce it, that certainly would maybe give people pause before they came running across the border. so jim sharpe, as a supporter of this law, not much along the border, not quite sure about that, but give people pause. is the point of this law more message than law enforcement? yes, i think it is. that s exactly what it is. and i think this is more than just protecting arizona citizens. more than just protecting american citizens. this is trying to protect those who cr