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Closing the borders tightly is the need of the hour


By Isabel P. Ball
December 4, 2005

The word illegal immigration has become like a ringtone to me connected to a memory, before 9/11, significant, unpleasant, and bitter. It was a moment where I was being made a hostage by a local extremist, a professor, and my mentor for a teaching job with the South Western College.

“You are Hitlerian,� rang her accusatory remark, over a lunch she graciously patronized for me. Strong and blunt was her reaction to my opinion suggesting America to be rigid, and to close the borders to illegal immigration. The same opinion has been published in my column carried by a local, ethnic newspaper, a conservative viewpoint according to a white male acquaintance.

The year was 2000. Then, the catastrophic 9/11 nobody had predicted with the prophetic power of Nostradamus landed on the open frontiers of America, obliterating America’s economic symbol, Twin Towers, in New York City, from skyview. As we know, people have varying sense of perception to discern impending catastrophe, from some signs like what I foresaw the effect of uncontrolled border. But lacking the psychic power to situate an occurrence, as opinion makers, we could only express our apprehensions in the power of words and logic to influence minds.

Unfortunate where those lost lives in the 9/11, and personally, though not as catastrophic, my loss was an opportunity for a career growth and income irrecoverably stymied, when the mentor professor dismissed me, rather high-handedly. A subsequent protest I lodged to the President of the College was summarily dismissed as being insignificant.

The post 9/11 has made America somewhat paranoid a nation contemplative of another unpredictable attack from the crafty terrorists. But President Bush’s timely action of instituting the Homeland Security Agency has thwarted such attacks, simultaneously, made the border a bit tightly watched, now with the voluntary participation of the minuteman.

If protests from the liberals and humanitarians have been loud against closing the borders, these days it is more cacophonous. The Mexicans, in particular, including Mr. Vicente Fox, Mexico’s president, has been very critical of the current wave of anti illegal immigration against the Mexicans into America. Closing the borders would mean economic hardship for Mexico, from where bulk of the illegal emanates, and of their corrupt leaders benefiting greatly from transmittals sent from America by the illegal citizens of Mexico.

The truth is that with or without the threat of terrorism, America is well-advised to take the immediate action of closing the border, to allow orderly fashion of immigration entry into the mainland. Though America, like a machine, in constant need for fuel to run and produce, America’s need for workers is reaching the point of satiation, and to continue to import workers, the illegal way, would bring a different brand of problem, that is, overly taxing to the social services. That, at the present, is already causing lopsiding in terms of medical services, unwanted increase in population, with illegal immigrants estimated to be in the 15 million mark. Illegal immigrants have little or nil contribution to the economy, as the bulk of the money is transmitted to the mother country to help the family.

Equally important is that fact that illegal immigration brings in terrorists, drugs, gangs, and other criminals into the country.

Time is now for politicians to stop using immigration as political winning card, as has been done in the past. Enough of the across-the-board, political and whimsical legitimization of illegal immigrants as Ronald Reagan so did in the 80s, when he legalized en masse the more than a million illegal aliens in the country.