07/13/07 Immigration & Iraq

Immigration & Iraq. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Oregon Senator Gordon Smith believes in comprehensive immigration reform. But he also doesn't support any type of amnesty so he voted against the last immigration bill. He says there are many parts of an immigration package that must be dealt with including the employers who deal in illegal trafficking. SMITH: Employers who flagrantly violate the law who traffic in illegal labor  that can't be permitted and there has to be fines for that but I think this problem is simply going to fester until we can ultimately find a governing center. We just simply haven't been able to do that yet. This is such a large problem that according to Smith it's being worked on from both sides of the border. SMITH: Our State Department, Homeland Security and other departments of government are working with them on a wide range of issues all the way from border control, drug enforcement and even some economic development. The core of the problem is that we share a very long border and no two countries share that kind of a border with the kind of economic disparity that exists between our two countries. Senator Smith has been making a few waves on Capital Hill lately by disagreeing with the President on the war in Iraq. Smith is co-sponsoring an amendment that is designed to get our troops out of Iraq. SMITH: Well at the core there is the assumption that the President has, which I have lost faith in, which is that the Iraqis can stand up so we can stand down. In repeated trips to Iraq what I have found is factionalism, sectarianism at a scale which the American mind can hardly comprehend. And these parties which constitute the democratically elected government of Iraq are more interested in killing one another than in reconciling with one another. Revenge, not reconciliation seems to be the motive. Smith wants our troops put to the task of defending our country against terrorism and out of a civil war. SMITH: My own view is our enemy; America's enemy is al-Qaida. We cannot retreat from any fight with them and those are the people who declared war on us in which I'm very anxious to fight but really what I am talking about is a division of labor. My own difference with the President is that I don't believe that they will stand up until we begin standing down. A report released yesterday said the Iraqi Government has not met any of the goals for political, military or economic reform. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.