Another crappy cover-up… a la Bushicano

The Immigration Blog has a another eye-opener about the Bush administration’s efforts to manipulate data to disguise the fact that his immigration policies don’t work, they SUCK beyond compare, and are actually making the problem worse.

The day after Bush unveiled his AMNESTY PLAN (let’s just call a spade a spade, people) last year, a survey was conducted by Border Patrol agents of detained illegal crossers. Approximately 45% of the illegals said it was because of Bush’s plan, which was widely perceived as an amnesty. The survey only lasted three weeks before the administration cancelled it.

Judicial Watch, which filed suit last year to obtain the surveys, has received only 882 [of 1700] to date. Of those examined, it said:

* 45 percent said they crossed illegally based on rumors of an amnesty.

* 80 percent said they wanted to apply for amnesty.

* 66 percent hoped to petition for family members to join them in the United States.

In an attempt to cover-up the unfavorable findings of this survey, entitled “U.S. Border Patrol Survey Analysis”, the Adminsitration released an internal memo “White House Approved Talking Points”:

After President Bush unveiled his guest worker proposal last year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials were ordered not to discuss a surge in apprehension of migrants trying to enter the country illegally.

“Do not talk about amnesty, increase in apprehensions, or give comparisons of past immigration reform proposals,” said the one-page Customs and Border Protection public affairs guidance, “White House Approved Talking Points Temporary Worker Program.”

“Do not provide statistics on apprehension spikes or past amnesty data,” the memo said.

You know what this reminds me of, of course: the infamous lock-down on the Arizona BP agents right after the Minutemen’s successful civilian border watch in April. The BP agents were told to not arrest or detain illegal crossers, so that the records would NOT prove the impact the Minutemen had on decreasing illegal border crossings (400-500%) in the month of April. That’s like waving a big white welcome flag over that 23-mile stretch of border for any terrorist wanting to enter the country with no worries whatsoever!! If that’s not just the shittiest national security blunder, I don’t know what is.

Send post as PDF to