JONATHAN GURWITZ: A LEAKY BORDER INVITES INFILTRATION BY AL-QAIDA

BY JONATHAN GURWITZ
San Antonio Express-News

The Associated Press reports that Border Patrol agents apprehended 55,545 individuals who illegally crossed the border from Mexico into the United States between October and June. That's down 38 percent from the same period a year earlier.

No one really knows, however, how many people we aren't catching entering the country illegally. Even if a new emphasis on enforcement has led to a highly improbable apprehension rate of 90 percent, that would mean more than 5,500 people are still entering the United States illegally every nine months along the southern border alone.

That puts into perspective some recent comments by National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell. The objective of al-Qaida leaders operating along the lawless border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan, according to McConnell, is to get recruits into the United States "to conduct terrorist operations to achieve mass casualties."

According to the nation's intelligence chief, terrorists are actively attempting to exploit our porous borders.

"There are numerous situations where people are alive today because we caught them (terrorists)," McConnell said. He suggested there had been a dramatic rise in special interest aliens -- illegal immigrants from countries, mostly in the Middle East, that pose a particular risk of terrorism -- apprehended at the border.

"Now some we caught, some we didn't. The ones that get in, what are they going to do? They're going to write home. So, it's not rocket science. Word will move around."

Remember the al-Qaida operatives trying to infiltrate from safe havens in Pakistan?

"They've got trainers and they've got recruits. The key now is getting recruits in. So if you're key is getting recruits in, how would you do that?" McConnell asked rhetorically.

In response to McConnell's comments, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told the El Paso Times, "We have had intelligence about al-Qaida identifying Latin America as a potential or prospective area where they could come through."

A handful of individuals who overstayed their visas or otherwise took advantage of lax enforcement of weak immigration laws carried out the Sept. 11 attacks. A newly released report from the Drug Enforcement Agency asserts that terrorist groups are partnering with drug gangs to finance their operations and to get terror cells into the United States.

The report, written in 2005, says that drug traffickers on both sides of the border may be wittingly or unwittingly facilitating another Sept. 11-type operation.

The 38 percent decline in apprehensions of illegal immigrants along the U.S.-Mexico border certainly represents a modest success. But a success premised on a continued, unquantifiable breach of the border is destined for spectacular failure.

Jonathan Gurwitz writes for the San Antonio Express-News.

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