Home of Today's Common Sense

Published Brownsville Herald March 25, 2007
 

Note: On alternate Sundays, for the earliest view of this column check the link to the Brownsville Herald e-paper on the right and then click on Viewpoints on the left. You may want to comeback to this archive as it will be the unedited version with all the mistakes and run-on sentences as well as the other banalities that sometimes make the column too long!
 

On page A12 of the March 21, Brownsville Herald, a promise of an Immigration fix is reported in an article entitled “Immigration Bill to include path to legalization”. The brief descriptions available in the press and on the internet leave a lot to be desired.
The House version sponsored by Congressmen Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) and Congressman Jeff Flake (R-Ariz) calls for citizenship for illegal immigrants, create a new worker program, stiffen worker verification procedures and overhaul the visa system to reduce waiting times for legal immigrants. The bill also calls for require some illegal immigrants leave the U.S. and re-enter legally and others to be granted amnesty.
The Senate version being pushed by Senator Mc Cain (R-Ariz) and Senator Kennedy (D-Mass) is very similar.
One of the first things that concern me is that it seems that one of the most knowledgeable Representatives in Congress, Sylvester Reyes (D-Tex), has not been invited to participate in the creation of this crucial legislation, though it has been said that he approves of many of the items.
The other thing is that this legislation seems to add numerous layers of bureaucracy and perhaps hundreds of jobs to clog the system even more and little effort made to rehabilitate an immigration system that can lose records for months and years where in at least one case the lost papers have left a potential new citizen in limbo for months after completing all the requirements for citizenship. There appears to be little or no oversight and no way to seek recourse. More »

Published Brownsville Herald March 11, 2007
There is more than enough bad news in the news today and the saga of the Brownsville Navigation District keeps adding to it, seemingly without end.
From the beginning Port management both elected and appointed, have worked in secret to keep the details of a bridge that may have been doomed in its concept had it continued forward as a rail facility as well as a truck bridge.
It appears that access would have resulted in a noose of rail track around the city of Matamoros and I now even wonder, if a truck bridge would cause more ecological damage than it is worth. I seem to remember some wildlife issues coming to light at the time the Veteran’s Bridge was being built.
Further, one only need look at the report of issues that Mexico raised back in 1992 as described in the Torteya & Torteya Report of 2004, to see the concern. Mr. Kruse’s response, in an effort to resolve the issue of competition related to containerized freight identified at the time, has been undermined by stated BND goals of attracting containerized freight. More »