Thought you all might------
these comments from Bill o'Reilly interesting - and disturbing --
js
On Thursday, February 6,
FOX commentator Bill O'Reilly interviewed Congressman Silvestre Reyes
(D-TX) about
the U.S./Mexico border.
In the interview, O'Reilly refers to undocumented Mexican immigrants
as
"wetbacks."
A partial transcript of the interview is available at:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,77898,00.html
The following is a section taken from the
partial interview I cut and pasted to
this e-mail from the webpage above.
O'REILLY: You believe in the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy hasn't
worked in 35
years.
REYES: Bill, when you talk about the amount of narcotics coming
into this country,
90 percent of those narcotics come through the ports of entry,
not in between the
ports of entry where the Border Patrol is patrolling. They come
through the ports of
entry. That's why I'm saying let's give the Homeland Security
Agency an
opportunity...
O'REILLY: All right. Let me...
REYES: ... to get the technology to help.
O'REILLY: What would be the harm in moving troops to help the
Border Patrol not
only in Mexico, but in Canada, where they just found a big Al
Qaeda big shot up
there. We know that border's a sieve as well.
What is the harm in giving us more protection by using the
military the way they
should be used? If you read the Constitution, the military's
primary mandate is to
protect the borders of the United States.
REYES: Bill, immediately after 9/11, we did do that. We
deployed several thousand
military people, both on the northern border and some on the
southern border.
We did not have the resources. It costs too much to continue
that kind of a
deployment around the clock and throughout the year. That's why
I'm advocating that
we continue to hire professional law-enforcement officers.
Let's supplement them with the kind of technology that's
available today, that...
O'REILLY: Oh, I am with you there. You've got to get the
high-tech stuff there.
But I'll tell you what. I've talked to the commanders, and they
tell me, "Look, you
deploy us down there, we stop the drug traffic
dead"…
We'd save lives because Mexican wetbacks, whatever you want to
call them, the
coyotes -- they're not going to do what they're doing now, so
people aren't going to
die in the desert. So we save lives, all right, and we seal it
down and make it 100
times harder to come across.
And 79 percent of Americans see that, Congressman. You are in
the minority on this
one, and so is President Bush. I'll give you the last word.
REYES: Listen, just because we're in the minority doesn't mean
we're not right, Bill. I
already told you, if you're concerned about narcotics, then we
need to focus on the
ports of entry. That's where 90 percent of the narcotics...
O'REILLY: The Army will be there as well, Congressman. They'll
be there with their
high-tech gear, with their nightscopes and everything else.
All right. We appreciate you coming on.
REYES: Thank you,
Bill.
--
John Sanchez, Assistant Professor
Journalism/News Media Ethics
Penn State University
119 Carnegie Building
University Park, PA 16802
814-863/7994 ofc
814-863/8044 fax
In order for dreams to come true...one must first wake up.