Terrorists and Borders: Real or Politcal Threats?
By Chad A. B. Wilson
Published October 30, 2006, 12:15 pm in Military / Foreign policy, Economic Issues.
Everyone's talking about it. So for me to be like everyone else, I guess I have to, as well. This time, we're going to talk about another bill, and I will go through some of its definitions and wording, although not quite as much as I did for the Military Commissions Act of 2006. I'm talking about the bill George W. Bush passed on October 26 authorizing the construction of a 700-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. Called "The Secure Fence Act of 2006," the bill stipulates that the Department of Homeland Security must "achieve and maintain operational control" of the U.S.-Mexico border within 18 months.
It sounds like a good thing, doesn't it? Security officials should have "operational control" over our borders. If you're unsure what the term means, it is here defined as "the prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband." That definitely sounds like a good thing, at least to my ears. The problem is that my ears may deceive me...
Political Threats
As David Woods pointed out in an earlier column on this site, there is no proof that illegal immigrants are terrorists. As he says, all of the 9/11 terrorists, for instance, entered the country legally, not by smuggling through the U.S.-Mexico border. No weapons used during 9/11 were smuggled in through this border, either. How do I know that? Because the terrorists of 9/11 didn't need bombs or anything else. All it took were a few box cutters, not some WMD that needs to be stopped at the border.
Therefore, let's repeat that definition: "the prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband." Notice what comes first: "entries by terrorists." Why must that be stated? Does it really do anything? If the law said simply, "unlawful aliens" and left out the "terrorists" part, would the border officials be confused? Would they say, "Well, you're an unlawful alien, yeah, but you're also a terrorist, so I guess you get to come in"? If so, we need to hire some new security people.
The way "terrorism" is insisted on here (twice, in fact) reminds me of the Republican ad called "The Stakes." You can find it on lots of youtube sites, and it's a frightening video. It says that our country is under attack by terrorists and that we need to elect officials who are tough on terrorism, which presumably are the Republicans. The ad mentions nothing about the wall, but another person on youtube made up his own version. He uses the first few minutes of "The Stakes" ad and then says that X number of terrorists enter the country illegally, so we must vote to construct a wall along our border.
In other words, terrorism and borders are entertwined in the minds of most voters, just as 9/11 and Iraq were inseparable. And the fact is that there is no concrete connection between any of those at this point. There are relationships, yes, but terrorists have not as yet crossed the border and committed an act of terrorism. But notice how everyone wants to connect them. Everyone who voted for this bill wants his or her constituents to see that the two issues are interconnected. If they did not, then the wording should have been removed. As it is, the people who passed this bill are claiming that they are tough on terrorism and that this bill in an important part of keeping our nation free from terrorist attacks.
At this point, that's not a viable claim.
Abiding by the Law
But I'm not saying that the wall is a bad thing, at least not yet. All I'm claiming is that the wording of the bill and the way people refer to the wall is in response to 9/11, and that's a false relationship.
In general, I like the idea of the wall. Why is that? Becuase we have a law that states that it is illegal to cross the Mexico-U.S. border without going through a proper channel, and this wall is one method to enforcing that law.
What we have to do, however, is take a step back and look at the laws themselves. I believe that people should follow the law of the land. As I have mentioned before, we choose to abide by the laws of our country simply by living here, and we can't pick and choose which laws we want to obey and which we don't. If we don't like the laws, we can move somewhere else (yes, I know I come close to the "love it or leave it" saying here), or we can fight to change those laws. Until they are changed, however, we have no choice but to obey them. Let's work with this assumption for a minute. If we have to obey our laws, then every single illegal immigrant should be punished according to our laws. Either it is illegal to be here illegally (in the defintion itself!) or it's not. But there are problems with that. If we put every illegal immigrant in jail for up to two years (which is what the law calls for), then we will have overcrowded jails and a deficit of unruly proportions. We can't afford all services for 12 million people.
Treat the Cause, Not the Effect
So perhaps comprehensive immigration reform is what is needed. George Bush wanted it. The Senate voted for it. But then the conservatives in the House thought it was too liberal and they gunned it down. In a last-ditch effort to try to seem hard on security, the House passed this security bill. At this moment, I don't want to say whether the Senate's earlier proposal was the right way to go because I haven't read that bill. But it's a move in the right direction. One problem is that it wants to say that some people are "illegal" but they will be made "legal," and that seemed like amnesty. Like the day you can go to the courthouse and pay the original amount of your 25 parking tickets, and they don't just throw you in the slammer. We don't want that, everyone says, becuase they feel the same way I do; if something is illegal, then...well, it's obvious.
So I am a firm believer that we have to go to the root causes of immigration, not just focus on enforcement. Enforcement has to be a part of it, but it can't be the only solution. We can't hole ourselves up by pouring money into enforcement and then expect everything to be alright. There's more to it than that. We have to figure out why we have this problem in the first place and then figure out how to solve it.
In my mind it is treating the symptom instead of the bacteria. You can use a decongestant forever, but if you don't kill the bacteria, your problem will never go away. All you wil have is a bacterial infection, a sick body, and the ability to breathe somewhat clearly. I would rather take care of all three.
Yes, I just used a metaphor of sickness for our immigration problem. Perhaps I shouldn't have done that?
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