Posted on 03/20/2005 9:35:26 PM PST by neverdem
EDITORIAL: AN INSECURE NATION
After the Sept. 11 attacks, it was shocking to learn how easily the hijackers entered the country. What is shocking today is how little progress has been made in securing our borders. Terrorists may well be entering the country by crossing from Mexico or Canada. But it is just as likely that they are coming in the way the Sept. 11 hijackers did: at airports, slipping through the Swiss-cheese security system now in place.
Until this year, immigration officials routinely handed phony travel documents back to people caught trying to enter illegally, and even now visitors are not always required to show the simplest of evidence that they are truly here on a visit: a return ticket. The government still does not have a workable system for monitoring whether visa holders actually leave when their visas run out.
At Senate hearings last week, it was clear that the sense of urgency the nation felt after Sept. 11 has faltered. Only 2 of the 27 "visa-waiver countries," whose citizens can enter the United States without visas, are expected to meet the Oct. 26 deadline for having new machine-readable passports - which was extended from Oct. 1, 2003. And U.S.-Visit, a much-heralded new system for tracking arrivals and departures, has been rolling out at a glacial pace.
One of the most important tasks Michael Chertoff, the new secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and Congress jointly face is pulling in the welcome mat for would-be terrorists. If Mr. Chertoff does not have the resources or legal authority he needs to make the borders safe, he should say so publicly, and often. Among the areas that need to be attended to are these:
1. More Resources at the Borders - A growing number of non-Mexicans are crossing over the Mexican border. And suspected terrorists have long been entering the country from Canada. More guards need to be put in place, and there should be more use of fences and ground sensors to detect movement.
2. Better Means of Tracking People Who Overstay Their Visas - One of the biggest sources of illegal immigration is people who enter the country legally but decide not to leave. The Department of Homeland Security must push to complete work on the U.S.-Visit system so that the government can identify people whose visas have expired.
3. Better Information for Front-Line Immigration Officials - Stolen and lost passports are a major terrorist tool, and not enough is being done to detect them. There needs to be a greater international effort to centralize data about lost and stolen passports, and the data needs to be made available on computers so front-line immigration officials can consult it before admitting a visitor.
4. Shorter Lengths of Stay for Visa Holders - Most of the Sept. 11 hijackers were admitted as tourists and given automatic six-month stays, far longer than the typical vacation. Lengths of stay should be more precisely tailored to the needs of individual visitors - tourism, study or visiting relatives. This may require more resources, but it is worth it to ensure that terrorists are not guaranteed a half-year to prepare an attack.
5. Tougher State ID Requirements - The Sept. 11 hijackers obtained 13 driver's licenses. The rules need to be re-evaluated, so non-citizens cannot get such high-quality identification. This is a complicated issue. Congress needs to find an answer that would not violate civil liberties as some national ID programs would, and also gives undocumented residents access to some kind of driver's license for safety and insurance reasons.
Getting terrorists into the United States is a vital step in most of the worst terrorist scenarios. We now know that Al Qaeda has travel facilitators, who are experts at exploiting the weak points in our border security. The federal government needs to act quickly and forcefully to make their jobs harder, and the nation safer.
An Insecure Nation: Previous editorials in this series are available at nytimes.com/opinion.
You know our unnamed open-borders FRiend will be along soon.
I won't name him/her because he/she whined to the moderator last time and got me suspended.
ping
I worked for a national church organization and was privy to documents that showed all the foreign students that came to the USA for theology studies to become pastors. The point is that they were to go to school, then leave to teach the Gospel in their communities. After a taste the good life of America, many chose to stay. The contact between immigration officials was the organization that sponsored them. It was easy to skirt the system. Just move and lose contact with your sponsor. The former INS couldn't give a rat's butt.
And yet the Administration refuses to fund the full complement of Border Patrol agents authorized by Congress. Congress authorized 2000 new Border Patrol agents per year for 5 years, for a total of 10,000. This year's budget, as the White House submitted it, only calls for 210 Border Patrol agents, beraly enough to cover attrition.
We must fund the full complement of Border Patrol agents.
We must seal our borders. Bulid two wall, one electrified and built of barbed wire, the other cement, with a moat in betwween. Back that up with Border Patrol.
We must return to the old rule that all aliens must register.
We must crack down on businesses that hire illegals.
We must start deporting any illegals we catch.
We must redefine American citizenship to say that you're a citizen if you're born here of parents with a legal right to be in the country.
We must crack down on those who overstay their visas.
Under these provisions, and with extremely strict monitoring, we might consider a guest worker program. But we need to know where these workers are each and every day.
We should also buy more oil from Mexico and help them develop it. This will create more jobs down there, keeping more of their people at home, and reduce our ned for oil from Arab countries, Islamic states, or Communist Venezuela.
And we really shoudl stop taking the word of foreing governments for what the conditions are in asylum cases.
Wait until Presidente Fox hears about this outrage!
Did you and I read the same editorial? The terrorists who have come to the United States did not come across the Mexican border. Mexican immigration (and/or workers) and border security are overlapping issues, but the editorial wasn't about Mexico.
There, the NYT has broken the PC barrier, and mentioned the unmentionable.
No matter what they say after, they have mentioned the broken border.
They must have gotten a memo from Hillary.
"They must have gotten a memo from Hillary."
So that explains it!
NY Times policy shifts are always proceeded by Hillary and/or DNC policy shifts, it's totally predictable.
preceded, even
Nice how the NT Slimes stuck that little piece of Liberal crap in there.
No, ILLEGAL ALIENS do NOT need US driver's licenses! They need to be detained, have all their US property and currency confiscated, then deported to their host nation (if Mexico, it should be to a town along their southern border), and their host nation needs to be billed for the costs of apprehension, processing, and deportation.
LOL! Methinks you and the guys aren't on Vicente's Christmas card list. Outsmarting the weasels with minimal interaction is paramount. Anything less is fodder for an anxious media. God bless you.
Yeah, they're called the ACLU.
C'mon, Congress has much more important matters to worry about; like baseball players taking steroids for instance.
Well, actually they do need them to carry out their illegal objectives, which is all the more reason that they should not have them.
BTTT
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