January 02, 2005

Immigration Reform Needed

- Washington Post (via Hyscience)

Smith is part of an effort to track down 370,000 "absconders" -- illegal immigrants who have disobeyed orders to leave the country. As part of a get-tough approach after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Homeland Security Department has deployed 18 fugitive squads to catch these immigrants, including a team in Maryland.

[snip]

At the top of the list were 6,000 absconders from Muslim and Middle Eastern countries, officials announced.

But by early 2003, authorities had resolved only 38 percent of those cases, either by detaining the immigrants or by confirming that they had left the country or gotten legal status, according to the 9/11 Commission. In a report on terrorist travel, the commission concluded: "It is very difficult to find alien absconders without extraordinary effort or pure luck."

Our lax border policy, which is borderline attrocious under President Bush, is a primary concern of mine since numerous reports of people of Middle Eastern descent have crossed our pourus border with Mexico. Our Border Patrol is both undermanned and tied up with full jails and restrictions upon apprehending illegals crossing for them to do anything.

When the Intelligence Bill passed in December, the crisis of immigration was put off until 2005 with a promise to re-visit the topic to put the best policy in place. While the passing of the Intelligence Bill by Congress was neeeded, there is a further need to actively enforce our immigration policy and patrol our borders with more than unmanned drones and stationary Border Patrol Agents.

Digger's Realm has led the blogger front in combating immigration issues with more ferver than anyone else concerning this topic. While he has written too many posts to link to, check out his archives and you will see illegal immigration is a threat to our national security.

Cross-posted at In the Bullpen