BAGHDAD (APUPI) The Bush administration was reeling from renewed criticism of its immigration policy today, as many in Iraq demanded a wall across the Syrian, Jordanian, Iranian and Saudi Arabian borders to keep out a perceived flood of undocumented insurgents.
“The Bush administration seems indifferent to the number of problems being caused by these people, and its unwillingness to control the border,” said an angry Iraqi official. “These illegals shoot men wearing shorts and women who show any skin at all, they plant roadside bombs, they send explosive-laden cars into crowded market places, they kidnap us and chop off our heads.”
A visit to a random street corner in Ramadi displays the scope of the problem, and the demand for their services. A swarthy Al Qaeda commander drives up in a pickup with a load of bomb belts, and looks over a group of Syrians milling around. He casts an experienced eye over them, sizing them up, judging them for vapid yet maniacal expressions, willingness to abruptly disassemble themselves and their neighbors in the name of Allah. He points out to three of them. “You, you and you. I’m paying forty virgins today.” The desperate young men get in the truck, to go off to their day’s task.
Most upsetting to many is the unwillingness of the administration to deport the miscreants. “They arrest them, they kill them, but they refuse to return them to their native country,” he continued. “They won’t even allow us to report them to the INS.”
The administration claims that it’s not practical to talk of deporting all of these people.
Some people, normally at odds with the administration, defend the administration policy. For instance, film maker Michael Moore made the case for open borders.
“These are desperate people, with few opportunities to kill infidels in their native lands,” he explained. “If they’re willing to brave many miles of brutal hot desert to seek a new life, and death, it would be cruel to turn them back.”
“Besides,” he went on, “they are doing the jobs that Iraqis won’t do. No Iraqi is willing to brutally murder Iraqis, to chop off their heads, to perforate their bodies with nail bombs. It’s hard to find Iraqis willing to murder young women for wearing nail polish, for any amount of money or virgins. Most of all, few Iraqis are nuts enough to strap bombs to their own chests and detonate them. These are the Minutemen of the insurgency. Without these hardworking immigrants, creating mayhem that the media can use to show how we’re losing the war, the Iraqi insurgency could completely collapse, and all hopes for ending the occupation evaporate.”
Many analysts claim that this is really part of a larger regional problem–a symptom of the failure of the neighboring governments.
“The Saudis, Jordanians and Syrians don’t allow sufficient freedom of Islamic extremism in their own countries,” explained one expert. “The governments in some of those states cynically look the other way, and even encourage and aid those desperate Jihadis emigrating from their countries, in order to export the problem, and avoid having to deal with the pressure cooker of their own home-grown issues.”
Some think that personal relationships between the president and the leaders of the neighboring countries are influencing the policy.
“George Bush is still good buds with Prince Bandar,” said one critic. “They go mountain biking when he visits the ranch in Crawford. I think that goes a long way toward explaining this strange attitude. Besides, maybe he and Karl Rove imagine that if they’re nice to these people, they’ll eventually become Republicans.”
In an attempt to assuage the angry Iraqis, the administration is working with the Senate on a bill to grant amnesty to the new immigrants, making them Iraqi citizens.
“We’re sure that once they are offered a path to legitimacy, they’ll quickly assimilate and restrict their murders to American soldiers,” explained an administration spokesman.