Border Checks

Open-border enthusiasts and discontent border commuters now ballyhooing preliminary findings from the recent one-day border inspection “experiment” may believe that the rest of the U.S. citizens are “brain dead.” We are, if the silly premise that alleged long lines and waiting was solved overnight.

Opening more stations will help only marginally. As the experiment showed, less than 30 seconds was allocated per vehicle inspected. That is not nearly enough time. Men and women trained to do the job correctly will agree. These inspectors were not allowed to inspect for anything. They were approximately 19 people dressed up in uniforms waving people through like members of an official California greeters group.

Trouble is, while they were waving through legal foreign visitors and U.S. citizens at a brisk pace, the smugglers who deal in humans, drugs, exotic birds, booze and other illegal contraband were also waved through. Add convicted criminals, heroin and crack addicts, prostitutes (male and female) and dangerously ill people carrying contagious communicable diseases to the list of guests.

If and when the role of our border inspectors is relegated to that of official greeter, we’re in big trouble.

No one will argue that the inspection points are overburdened and need modification and modernization. However, many U.S. citizens are questioning why their tax dollars are being shelled out for a half-effort at best. A user tax should be instituted in the form of tolls. Perhaps the legitimate shoppers and visitors from Mexico will pressure their government to help curb the criminal element that swarms around the borders. If there was not so much criminal activity, inspection would not be such a large task.

Under no circumstances should we succumb to the dangerous notion that there is no cost or that there can be a quick fix to this problem. Above all, we should never allow expediency of entry (and re-entry) into the United States to take priority over the constitutional responsibility to protect the sovereignty of the United States.

BEN SEELEY

Southern California Program Director, Federation for American Immigration Reform