In poll after poll, most Americans say they want the nation’s borders secured. But a recent Government Accountability Office investigation found that thousands of foreigners are getting past the gatekeepers, joining the estimated 12 million illegals who are already here.
We do not know if one, 100 or 10,000 terrorists are among the illegal immigrants in our midst. And that means we cannot know how many terrorists here are waiting for Osama Bin Laden’s orders to come out of the shadows and kill as many Americans as possible.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff points to a 22 percent reduction in apprehensions at the southern border this year as a “significant indicator” that the incoming tide of illegal migration is starting to recede.
However, GAO’s undercover investigators crossed the border at two points of entry in January without even being asked to verify their identity.
They encountered unmanned guard booths, missing vehicular barriers, and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol employees who didn’t even bother to get out of their chairs. They also cited “numerous instances” in which border agents failed to determine the citizenship or admissibility of travelers entering the United States — which is required by federal law. “The extent of continued noncompliance is unknown,” their report said in a masterful piece of understatement.
Last year, more than 23,000 suspected criminals were arrested at the border and 200,000 foreigners were barred from entering the United States.
However, CNN reports that Congress has been told that 21,000 undesirables still managed to sneak into the United States undetected. Chertoff wants to get that number “as close to zero as is humanly possible,” but he insists on relying on the same border agents who already must screen the estimated 400 million tourists entering the United States annually.
Stepped-up enforcement works. An anti-terrorism pilot program at just one port of entry nabbed 96 criminals or terror suspects in one month. The CBP, which spends $2.5 billion to man a 7,000-mile land border and 95,000 miles of coastline, says it will need $4 billion more for needed capital improvements.
Severe staff shortages at 20 field offices have prevented many border agents from being trained in fraud detection and how to use inspection technologies like radiation monitors, though such training is absolutely vital to our national security.
Instead of spending billions on earmarks that too oftenare little more than goodies for special interests, Congress should use those funds to hire many more border agents and to finish the fence along the border with Mexico as soon as possible.
