Controlling U.S. borders isn't optional (opinion)..positive
http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2005 ... inion4.txt
Controlling U.S. borders isn't optional
Wednesday, April 6, 2005
SUMMARY: Volunteers trying to thwart illegal immigration call attention to the government's failure.
Montanans returning after a visit to Canada will have to present their passport at the border under a new security proposal surfacing this week.
Meanwhile, volunteers have assembled in Arizona to try and stanch the flow of foreigners illegally entering the United States from Mexico.
Guess which of those two things prompts criticism from President Bush?
The president's own administration is cooking up the plan to require Americans to use passports to return from Canada starting in 2008. But the White House is looking askance at citizen efforts to increase security along the border with Mexico today.
Talk about your mixed messages.
Volunteers organized over the Internet have converged this week along the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona under the banner of the Minuteman Project. Their goal: guard the border against illegal immigrants.
This is the government's job, one of relatively few absolutely essential functions of the federal government. The survival of any sovereign nation requires the ability to effectively control the borders. Whether the Minuteman Project succeeds in catching people sneaking into the country remains to be seen. However, the project has very effectively called attention to the fact that the government has failed miserably to control the nation's southern border.
Instead of thanks, Minuteman Project participants have been criticized by authorities, including the president. They're being watched by the FBI and threatened by the American Civil Liberties Union. Our brethren in the news media have branded them "anti-illegal-immigration activists."
What's that make their critics? Pro-illegal-immigration?
So typically, there are folks rushing to portray this as a racial issue. But that's a straw man. The real issue here is a simple one of border control. No one's arguing against Mexican immigration to the United States; it's simply imprudent to permit uncontrolled immigration for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the potential for criminals and terrorists to enter our country.
More than imprudent, it's also illegal. But the federal government has for decades failed to effectively control U.S. borders. Enforcing immigration laws isn't supposed to be optional, even if doing so seems difficult or economically disruptive to border towns. If the rule of law means anything, then the government shouldn't have the option to broadly decide which laws it's going to enforce and which laws it's going to ignore. The Bush administration, among others, is quick to decry as "judicial activism" ad hoc decisions made by the courts. The executive branch's failure to faithfully execute the law is every bit as bad.
If national security requires Americans to begin carrying passports to cross back from Canada - and, perhaps, in these dangerous times, it really does - then surely the government shouldn't leave it to volunteers to guard the southern border, much less criticize those volunteers for calling attention to the government's failure.
