Border Control

While hamhanded government minions have been oppressing pregnant mothers and silver-haired grannies in airports, the Feds have also simultaneously changed the US-Mexico border from a national barrier into a welcome mat. Willfully, and completely against the tide of public opinion, Uncle Sam has decided that there's no more need for the INS to do anything about illegal immigration--with the possible exception of making sure undocumented aliens get food and water and clean blankets to sleep on while they are violating the laws of our land. Mexican truck drivers are invited to visit and prowl our highways, and George W. Bush wants to not only give illegal aliens amnesty, but Social Security benefits as well. This is all occurring in the midst of an overpoliced, overregulated, increasingly regimented United States society. The stampede of human traffic into the US must not be impeded. And by the way, our empty, open borders represent a recent change of political policy. The southern border was not this unguarded under Clinton. Republican loyalists, blind as lemmings, do not realize this, of course, as they do not realize many things.

A paranoid, conspiracy-theory take on government, border control, and firearms. Yes, firearms -- it's all about gun control to this guy. Is there any truth to the accusations? Who knows? You can't prove a conspiracy theory like this easily, but neither can you easily disprove it.

Mostly-libertarian Professor Bainbridge complained about Arnold Schwarzenegger's comments on immigration policy, and received the usual complaints.  He's taking the pragmatic approach on the immigration question.  That's fine, and in fact I agree with him; so long as the economic incentives to cross the border are present, the border will be crossed.  This needs to be understood and taken into account when setting our nation's border policies. 

As a libertarian, I favor as few restrictions on travel by ordinary people as possible.  In a perfect world, there wouldn't be any need for a border control system at all.  Vernor Vinge has written about a libertarian-anarchist society in the Southwest facing invasion from a Mexican army.  The army crosses the border and travels the roads with little resistance.  But while the libertarian society has no standing army and relatively small-scale security services, certain individuals in that region have so heavily fortified their homesteads that as soon as the army seeks to impose its will upon one, the resistance is fierce and bloody.  The prospect of encountering such individuals every time the invading army decides to set foot on someone's farm is sufficient to deter the invasion. 

While that's a work of science fiction, a society which practices universal arms ownership does not have much to fear from individual terrorists.  However, weapons of mass destruction and a state of war with islamic terrorism change this equation.  Protecting its citizens from external threats is a legitimate function of libertarian government, and it can be implemented in a manner consistent with the principles of free enterprise and free travel.

Permission to enter the United States for economic reasons should be easily obtained.  However, it should require permission.  Historically America has welcomed those who come to our land seeking freedom and opportunity, and we should continue to do so.  However, those who come to our land seeking instead to do us harm must be stopped at the borders.  The alternative is an entire nation fortified against terrorism, at significant cost to freedom and liberty.

We can set our border policy to reflect the libertarian values of economic openness while closing our border to illegal entry.  Those who seek honest work for honest pay will follwo the legal procedures for that process, if those procedures are streamlined to block entry only to criminals and terrorists.  Those who refuse to follow the legal process, who cross the border illegally and live their lives outside of our laws, are those we do not want in our country.

Whatever his faults on other issues, Schwarzenegger is a legal immigrant and understands that there's more to this issue than prejudice and bigotry.  Legal immigrants have a right to be in the country, receive the protection of our laws and our justice system, and contribute to the upkeep of the government services they use.  Illegal immigrants, whatever the quality of their motivations, are by nature of their immigration status criminals who fear the law, conceal their presence, provide cover for the entry of terrorists, and breed disrespect for the law.

The Republican party does need to examine its policies on border entry.  The libertarian ideal of an open society is an important policy debate that needs to take place.  But we can't have that debate on policy while permitting its open violation by millions.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin speaks sense on this issue.

The briefing takes place at dawn, about two miles from Arizona's southern frontier, in the driveway of a low-slung house with, perhaps not incidentally, a raised metal platform facing Mexico. Glenn Spencer's group checks for optics (binoculars), specs out their positions on a topo map and decides who gets to be ''Delta,'' ''Romeo'' and ''Foxtrot.'' Then, they caravan in trucks and S.U.V.'s to a private ranch northeast of Douglas, six blank miles from the border. There's no shade, just desert specked with mesquite shrubs, yuccas and prickly pear -- basically sand plus thorns.

A self-styled border-watch group was accused of terrorizing six undocumented immigrants in a lawsuit aimed at bankrupting the organization and any ranchers who cooperate with it. The suit, filed Thursday, labels the Abilene-based Ranch Rescue an illegal paramilitary unit that is motivated by racial hatred.

Ranch Rescue's stated mission is defending private property, and it has conducted ``operations'' along the country's southern border, rounding up undocumented immigrants and even seizing drug loads.

Sutton called the accusations ``total hogwash,'' saying the four shoeless Mexicans merely had to sit on the pavement by his ranch gate while federal agents came to pick them up. "I interviewed all six (immigrants) and they made it crystal clear to me they were not hungry, were not abused, and they weren't thirsty," Sutton told the San Antonio Express-News for Friday's editions.

Foreign visitors arriving at U.S. airports or seaports beginning Jan. 1, 2004, will have their travel documents scanned, fingerprints and photos taken and identification checked against terrorist watchlists. Homeland Security undersecretary Asa Hutchinson released details Monday of the department's new U.S. Visitor and Immigration Status Indication Technology, or U.S. VISIT, that will check the comings and goings of certain foreign travelers.

Unmanned aerial drones similar to ones used in the war on Iraq could be patrolling the U.S. border by the end of the year to help stem illegal immigration and increase security, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Thursday. "We are very serious in looking at UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles) for both border applications, land and sea," Ridge told the House Select Committee on Homeland Security.

About 1,000 miles of national forest land bordering Canada and Mexico go virtually unpatrolled by the U.S. Forest Service, creating wide swaths for terrorists and criminals to enter the country undetected, an internal government audit says. Even though the Forest Service is not the lead agency responsible for border security, it oversees areas "that are potentially vulnerable to infiltration by terrorists, smugglers, and other criminal agents," the Agriculture Department's inspector general said in a report Wednesday

It is this reporter's opinion that while fighting for freedom elsewhere in the world, we could be losing our own. Over the past 30 years, this reporter has crusaded on and off the air against the invasion of our country by illegal aliens.

According to Garrison Commander Col. Lawrence Portouw the number of illegal immigrants found on the Army post is "interfering with the fort's regular law enforcement operations." One can only imagine what National Security risks such an invasion across our borders will bring. This past weekend, 94 illegal immigrants were apprehended on the fort and turned over to the U.S. Border Patrol, Portouw said. The previous weekend ended with 70 being detained in the same locations. This is the fourth weekend in a row that large groups have been apprehended. United States at war has not deterred the invasion at all.

Changes to America's border security and immigration policies are designed to strike a balance between promoting lawful entry into the country by foreigners and keeping out terrorists and others wishing to do the U.S. harm, the federal official charged with that task said Friday.

Two volunteers helping a southern Texas rancher protect his property from a wave of illegal immigrants were arrested by Texas Rangers yesterday on an accusation brought by a couple apparently from El Salvador. Casey Nethercutt and Hank Conner, members of the citizens' group Ranch Rescue, are in the Jim Hogg County jail in Hebbronville, Texas, for allegedly pistol-whipping two illegal aliens they helped detain in the early morning hours, just after midnight, yesterday.

The federal government is strictly limited in its powers by the Constitution. Nevertheless, Washington exceeds its authority every day without a second thought. We now have innumerable agencies and departments spending billions and billions of dollars with no constitutional justification whatsoever. Worse, while assuming all this extra-constitutional authority, the government has abdicated its primary responsibility ý providing for the common defense of the several states. One of the ways it has betrayed this mission is by opening up our borders to an immigration invasion.

A southern Texas sheriff is warning the public that unidentified armed men dressed in military fatigues have been spotted on numerous occasions in his county near the border with Mexico. For the "country's safety," Sheriff Erasmo Alarcon Jr., of Jim Hogg County, published a letter in a local newspaper to alert citizens of reports he has received for some years from ranchers who have spotted the unknown troops, equipped with "professional backpacks" and walking together in a military cadence.

Several members of the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday told the nation's new head of border security that his agency needs to do a better job of protecting the nation against terrorists while not hampering legitimate trade and travel. "For a year and a half now, Congress, the administration and the American people have searched for answers on how a large group of coordinated terrorists could operate for more than a year in the United States without being detected, seize control of four commercial jetliners and then use those jetliners as weapons of mass destruction without being stopped," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Thirty- four volunteers including two new recruits from California spent the weekend patrolling the Cochise County border with Mexico over the past weekend. Civil Homeland Defense concluded its most productive - yet most terrifying weekend to date with forty-three illegal invaders peacefully and humanely turned over to Border Patrol. Another approximately 80 border intruders who ran and pelted members with rocks were not so peaceful or humane in their attempt to escape capture by Border Patrol agents. All intruders were located and reported to Border Patrol, all eighty were apprehended and returned to Mexico. The community of Palominas experienced what was virtually an all out invasion over the weekend. Friday night the roads were bustling with Border Patrol vehicles driving everywhere in an attempt to keep up with the hundreds that were moving up the San Pedro river basin; the trend continued for three straight days and nights. All weekend helicopters were buzzing in the air-locating group after group of illegal intruders.

U.S. Border Patrol agents have been ordered not to arrest illegal aliens along the section of the Arizona border where protesters patrolled last month because an increase in apprehensions there would prove the effectiveness of Minuteman volunteers, The Washington Times has learned.

That takes chutzpah, folks.  Hat tip to the Nashville Files.  Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: KeepAndBearArms links to an article in the  Washington Times  that cites over a dozen agents for this particular factoid.  This looks to be something more than just one guy's sour grapes.