Border v. Homeland Security

With all respect, I suggest the discussion about securing the borders of our country is misplaced. By public statements, our political leaders appear to give substantial attention to our border with Mexico and wink at Canada. While there is a critical problem with “illegals immigrants” crossing borders, our focus fails to acknowledge the actual issue of our homeland security. Once again, we miss the point.

The 19 participants in the 9/11 attacks came into our country through a security checkpoint system that they had analyzed and knew how to defeat. “The 9/11 Commission Report” reveals narratives about how the 19 al Qaeda operatives could have been watch listed; presented passports manipulated in a fraudulent manner; presented passports with suspicious indicators of extremism and made detectable false statements on Visa applications. Each of the 19 operatives made false statements to border officials to gain entry into the United States. Each of the 19 operatives violated immigration laws while in the United States. None of these 19 operatives were stopped.

I believe the American people do still remember how we felt on 9/11. It is time to target terrorist travel; invest in intelligence and security strategies that engage the lessons learned from 9/11. There are millions of illegal people who come into this country with passports and visa’s. They are now lost in America with little risk of detection. Let us pay these “illegals” the attention we failed to give before 9/11.

Perhaps sending “illegals immigrants” back to their country of origin provides a sense of comfort and feeling of success in short term political problem solving. Yet, these actions cannot be accepted as a responsible defense of our national security. There is a genuine difference between a person who violates our borders to become an illegal worker and an individual who enters our country illegally for purposes of commiting terrorist acts. We must recognize the difference in the enactment and administration of our border security laws. It is time our political leaders attend to necessary specialization in an integrated national security workforce; meaningful inter-agency cooperation and assurance that we have developed an institutional structure with sufficient expertise in intelligence and real security.

As a people, we cannot solve actual problems by allowing ourselves to be distracted by partial solutions that do not address the lessons left. Perhaps, with great regret, the lesson that should be learned from 9/11 has yet to be acknowledged and it is just easier to look south.