Column of the Day: Steyn on the Open-Borders Contributions to the Near-Miss at Ft. Dix
As usual, it’s a read-the-whole-thinger, but Steyn’s last four paragraphs from his Sunday Chicago Sun-Times column are priceless. The first section bolded by me should outrage everyone; the second should be read at the opening of business every day in the House and the Senate until the job of truly securing our borders is done:
Tough, you say. So what? Washington still has no dog in these fights. It’s time to hunker down in Fortress America. Which brings me to the fourth lesson: What fortress? The three Duka brothers were (if you’ll forgive the expression) illegal immigrants. They’re not meant to be here. Yet they graduated from a New Jersey high school and they operated two roofing companies and a pizzeria. Think of how often you have to produce your driver’s license or Social Security number. But, five years after 9/11, this is still one of the easiest countries in the world in which to establish a functioning but fraudulent identity.
Consider, for example, the post-9/11 ritual of airline security. You have to produce government-issued picture ID to the TSA official. Does that make you feel safer? On that Tuesday morning in September, four of the killers got on board by using picture ID they’d acquired through the “undocumented worker” network in Falls Church, Va. Half the jurisdictions in the United States issue picture ID to people who shouldn’t even be in the country, and they issue it as a matter of policy. The Fort Dix boys were pulled over for 19 traffic violations, but because they were in “sanctuary cities,” any cop who suspected they were illegals was unable to report them to immigration authorities. Again, as a matter of policy.
On one hand, America creates a vast federal security bureaucracy to prevent another 9/11. On the other hand, American politicians and bureaucrats create a parallel system of education and welfare and health care entitlements, maintaining and expanding a vast network of fraudulent identity that corrupts the integrity of almost all state databases. And though it played a part in the killing of 3,000 Americans, leaders of both parties insist nothing can be done to stop it. All we can do is give the Duka brothers “a fast track to citizenship.”
The Iranians already are operating in South America’s Tri-Border area. Is it the nothing-can-be-done crowd’s assumption that the fellows who run armies of the “undocumented” from Mexico into America are just kindhearted human smugglers who’d have nothing to do with jihad even if the price was right? If you don’t have borders, you won’t have a nation — and you may find “the jobs Americans won’t do” covers a multitude of sins.
Still waiting for the reax from the “There Shall Be Open Borders” Wall Street Journal …..
The unfortunate aspect about this whole episode is much of the blame can be laid at the feet of the President. Bush, Gonzales, and Chertoff have looked the other way when it comes to immigration. Certainly Clinton and Bush the Elder bear much of the responsibility because they too looked the other way.
But equally duplicitous is a Congress that thinks once they get to Washington they know better than the people that elected them.
If the federal government enforced the laws on the books, cabinet’s secretaries ensured ICE agents, and attorney generals did their jobs, and Congress funded illegal immigration law enforcement, then maybe local and state leaders would not be so embolden to create the sanctuaries.
Comment by Brian — May 16, 2007 @ 8:45 am