Closing Yucca Mountain 

IMMIGRATION

IMMIGRATION

            “Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor; Your Huddled Masses Yearning to Breathe Free;”[1]  Sounds great, doesn’t it.  Try this out, approximately 1-3 million illegal immigrants cross the Mexican border every year. Furthermore, as of 2003 there is approximately 8 million illegal immigrants still in this country. [2]  These figures are reinforced with the amount of actual illegal immigrants caught.  According to the US Costumes and Border Protection, in 2004 they caught 384,000 individuals crossing the border illegally.  I know the argument before you say it.  First, that does not add up to 3 million.  Second, those are just poor Mexican looking for a better life.  Well hold on to your seat.  That 384,000 illegal immigrants, is just on the

Arizona

border.  As to the second question, poor Mexicans looking for work, 3,004 of them, crossing the Arizona border where not Mexican nationals.  According to a USA Today Article, we arrested 65,814 non-Mexican nationals attempting to cross the US-Mexico border in 2004.[3]  What do you think the odds are that one of them is a bad guy looking to hurt

America?  Remember these are just the ones we caught.[4]   Well you might be thinking it can’t get any worse, right? Wrong!  In a USA Today article, published in August 2005, Dennis Wagner wrote, “…Since October 1, 2004, U.S. Border Patrol agents have caught more than 500,000 illegal border crossers in Arizona…”  This is also reported on the US Department of State Web site.  Notice, this is just the Arizona Border and only over a 10 month window. [5]   So where am I going with this?  Am I advocating closing the border, am I anti-Immigration?  The answer is no.  I am not advocating anything.  I am just framing the current reality we are in.  This is a land that many have feared to tread.  In this land it is easy to be called a raciest or an extreme liberal.

Closing Yucca Mountain 

  Yesterday President Obama decided to close Yucca Mountain. One problem this is the only facility that can handle our nuclear waste. The President did decide to form a blue ribbon panel to look in to how to solve this problem. The only problem is its taken 7 years and billions of dollars to get this one ready. Meanwhile, while the Presidents panel is exploring the problem that he created by closing the facility, the nuclear waste is piling up.  Two things will happen; one, the nuclear plants will close or two we will have a leak.  I suspect the goal of this is to close the plants.  The only problem is 20% of our power is nuclear.  This means a lot of power outages.  I say if we have to go without power so should the Whitehouse; that’s not going to happen.  It is easy to be an Idealist if you do not have to live in the real world.