Immigration Insanity

As President Bush busies himself with a Supreme Court appointment, he continues to fail breath-takingly in his sworn duty to defend the territorial integrity and national sovereignty of the United States. Not to mention protect the American people from threats foreign and domestic. The sheer lunacy of immigration enforcement under the current administration (continuing the idiocy from previous pretenders-in-chief) can be demonstrated in the slightly different treatment received by Mexican and non-Mexican illegal aliens entering the US.

Illegal immigrants from Brazil, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and other nations routinely descend on the bus station just steps from the New World discount store in this bustling, sweltering city 10 miles from a U.S.-Mexico bridge.

They openly gather in groups, make phone calls and buy bus tickets to cities across the United States. They have little fear of being arrested: Most already have been. Happily.

Many, in fact, illegally crossed the border hoping to get caught right away and slip through a crack in the nation's immigration system known as 'catch and release.'

Although Mexicans can be easily bused back to their country, arranging to deport non-Mexican immigrants can take months. There are few jails to hold them while arrangements are made. So non-Mexican immigrants deemed not to be a safety or security risk are given a summons for a distant court date at the nearby Harlingen immigration court and set free.

Between the time they are released and the date they are supposed to appear in court - which more than 90 percent of them will not do - they can legally move about the country and ultimately meld into an illegal immigrant population now estimated at 11 million.

Central and South Americans - Brazilians in particular - represent a new and rapidly multiplying wave of illegal immigration from countries other than Mexico, a trend that is frustrating the Border Patrol and federal lawmakers.

In the wake of September 11th, one would think that it would be the US government's top priority to prevent aliens of unknown origins and intentions from entering the US. But quite clearly the Bush administration and Congress simply don't care. What should that tell your about this administration's rhetoric regarding the "war on terrorism?" What does it tell you about the administration's excuse de jure for the war in Iraq - that "we're fighting the terrorists over there to keep from fighting them in America's streets? If the administration were truly worrried about terrorists flocking to America's streets, it would deploy troops along the borders to prevent them coming here in the first place. Terrorists - as demonstrated sadly in London, most recently - can walk and chew gum at the same time. They can wage an insurgency against American troops in Iraq and send operatives to the US to conduct attacks there at the same time. The administration's failure to do anything to prevent unknown aliens from entering the US is a clear and unambiguous indication that the White House does not consider that a real threat, or has concluded that kowtowing to Hispanic voters is worth more than protecting American lives.

The stupidity of the current border policy is readily acknowledged in Washington.

Critics charge that the relative ease with which non-Mexicans can enter the United States through Mexico, which doesn't require visas for Brazilians, reveals a weakness in the post-2001 era of homeland security.

'It simply means that an avenue by which a worker could come into the country illegally is available also to a terrorist who would want to come into our country and do us harm,' U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said last month in Austin.

'I think it's unconscionable that at a time when (President Bush) talks about homeland security, that he allows a catch-and-release policy for non-Mexicans,' said Democratic U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes of El Paso, a former Border Patrol chief in McAllen and El Paso.

'If an attack like (the London bombings) occurs here and it's traced back to one of these people who were released in south Texas, I think it could be grounds for impeachment.'

And yet, for all the rhetoric, Congress has done as little as the president to protect the border.

A White House spokeswoman referred questions to the Department of Homeland Security.

'No one is released from Homeland Security custody that is considered to present any risk whatsoever to public safety or national security,' said Russ Knocke with the department.

How would Homeland Security know which alien represents a threat and which does not since we know nothing about the aliens who do get detained to begin with? If Mr. Knocke means that their names don't appear on a terrorist list, does he grasp the possibility that Islamist terrorists might use false, Hispanic sounding names? Or that they might choose people who, like the London bombers, are not on terrorist lists? This is what passes for Homeland Security under George W. Bush.

The trend of non-Mexican aliens illegally entering the US is only getting worse. The illegals themselves recognize the almost comedic nature of US border enforcement, which for Americans is anything other than funny.

Nationally, with about four months still left in this fiscal year, Border Patrol agents have caught about 115,000 non-Mexicans - 153 percent more than during 2004, which itself was a record year. Of those, more than 26,000 were Brazilians, more than three times the number arrested last year.

'We have instances where they are actually flagging down our agents, and they are asking local residents to call the Border Patrol so they can get what they call their permiso,' Spanish for permit or permission, Reyes said on the House floor in May. Agents are demoralized, he said.

Once an illegal is detained, it's only a matter of hours until he or she is back on the streets, free to travel wherever he or she wants inside the US. Why? Because this oh-so-tough-on-security administration refuses to adequately fund enough detainment facilities.

Federal officials are supposed to return undocumented immigrants to their home countries. But with 85 percent to 90 percent of the nation's detention beds already taken by immigrants considered mandatory holds, officials release immigrants who don't have criminal records or pose a security risk.

Arrest warrants are issued for those who miss court dates, and the agency has a fugitive operations team working nationwide that 'has become effective for us,' Deason said.

Yes, so effective that a recent study found as many as 11 million illegals currently residing in the US. That really very, very effective, Mr. Deason.