One Reporter's Opinion – Importing Disease

One Reporter's Opinion – Importing Disease

George Putnam
Friday, Feb 25, 2005

It is this reporter's opinion that when the president and first lady return from the fence-mending trip to Europe, he and the 'Ayatollah in the White House,' Karl Rove, need to lock themselves in the Oval Office and review the findings of the February 17, 2005 testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee: Three of the nation's highest-ranking Homeland Security officials issued a chilling warning that al-Qaida will exploit our lax border enforcement to infiltrate terrorists and weaponry into the United States.

Story Continues Below

CIA Director Porter Goss, FBI Director Robert Mueller and Admiral James Loy, deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, all warned that al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations will use our poorly guarded border with Mexico to launch another lethal attack on American soil.

According to Admiral Loy, Intelligence reports strongly suggest that al-Qaida considers our southern border to be a point of vulnerability. Goss told the committee, "It may be only a matter of time before al-Qaida or another group attempts to use chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons against the United States."

Mueller warns that at the top of the FBI's list of concerns is "the threat from covert al-Qaida operatives in the United States."

The warnings are spelled out for the president and Mr. Rove just as they were so often before, specifically, in September of 2004 when Time magazine warned of our porous borders. According to Time's cover story, "Illegal immigration into the United States has accelerated in the last year since President Bush proposed a TEMPORARY WORKER PROGRAM that amounts to an amnesty program that would allow millions to remain in the United States legally."

Isn't the president aware of the thousands of letters and communications, phone calls and faxes from all of us crying out against the disastrous effects on Americans as a result of illegal immigration? We the people are stunned at the deaf ear turned away from our pleadings in defense of our nation!

While the illegal immigration crisis began decades ago, it has reached epidemic levels since Bush was elected in 2000. Much of this began with the incessant assault on America by the Mexican government encouraging their nationals to invade the United States in violation of our immigration laws. Observing Mexico's success, many other nations sent their people to join the tsunami of illegals. Shouldn't we conclude that this is a carefully designed and executed plan to destroy the very fabric of our nation?

At this moment, our Census Bureau has released its latest figures: The foreign-born population in the U.S. numbered 34.2 million in 2004, which accounts for 12 percent of the country's total population. Of the foreign born,

53 percent came to us from Latin America;

25 percent from Asia;

14 percent from Europe;

and the remaining 8 percent from other regions of the world.

And along with this invasion by the unwanted and uninvited comes the importation of diseases we previously all but stomped out: tuberculosis, hepatitis, malaria, even leprosy, and diseases previously not heard of, such as chagas ... and a new one: infectious neurocysticercosis, caused by the parasite taenia solium (a tapeworm), identified as the cause of this disease in the southwestern U.S. It's especially rampant along the Mexican border all the way from Brownsville, Texas, to San Diego, California.

It's found in the shantytowns on the U.S. side of the border where there is no sanitation of any kind: no toilets, no showers, no clean water. Disease proliferates unchecked among 185,000 Mexicans and South Americans who inhabit those shantytowns. From 1985 to 1995 the number had increased to half a million. These areas are known as "colonias": rusted trailers and shacks nailed together from tar paper and cardboard, without toilets, and with mounds of trash, multitudes of rats, and a complete lack of sanitation, with the pitiful people drinking their own waste.

And so, Mr. President, having returned from your trip of playing 'nice' to Chiraq, Schroeder, Putin and company, don't you think it's time to take another look at the almost insurmountable task that remains for you here at home?

With 50 million of our fellow Americans living without any form of health care, let's set aside the manufactured crisis of Social Security. It will wait. The health of America will not.

Editor's note:

Become a member of NewsMax's "Land of the Free, Home of the Brave" Club – get the T-shirt – Click Here Now

A Retirement Crisis is Coming; Protect Yourself From the Baby Boomers – Click Here

Illegal immigration threatens our security and tears at the fiber of America – Click Here!