National Security at Home

Our “national security” is a critical part of our daily concerns. The words “national security” must be more than political jargon to solicit our patriotic consent to foreign military actions rather than address the actual security of American citizens living in the United States. It is simple foolishness to believe the security of our nation is singularly dependent on evasively defined military missions in Middle East countries. Our “national security” is compromised by the failure of Congress and the Administration to responsibly identify and address threats to our individual security within the United States or effectively enforce our immigration laws.

The question we must ask is whether our “security” focused leaders have taken sufficient steps to prevent 19 more terrorists from entering our country and engaging in another attack. The 19 al Qaeda operatives had passports, visas and at least two were traceable from State Department INS TIPOFF watch lists. Each of the 19 operatives violated immigration laws while in the United States. None of these 19 operatives were stopped.

Each day thousands of illegal aliens enter the United States from Mexico or Canada without passports or visas. An estimated 12 million or more illegal aliens now living and work in the United States. In this number there is a subtle source for terror. “Terror” as in the execution of three Newark college students, forced to kneel against a wall and shot at close range by Jose Carranza, an illegal alien from Peru. The three students were victimized by the failure of state and federal tracking even after Carranza was indicted twice this year on 31 counts surrounding the sexual assault of a child and a bar fight. In New Jersey local authorities are not required to check immigration status of upon criminal arrests. What happened to national security for these three students?

Within the past week, the United States opened its borders to allow Mexican-domiciled trucks full access to our national highways. We must wonder where the priority of our national security is found in this action. Is this simply a policy choice of cheap goods and labor over the security of United States citizens? With millions of illegal aliens violating our borders each year from Mexico, allowing Mexican-domiciled trucks within our borders will merely provide the prospective for more comfortable travel accommodations.

Without control of our borders, the concept of national security is a political illusion. Without strong and comprehensive programs to secure our national borders, engagements in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan will serve only as a distraction. It is unfortunate that our attention spans do not permit us to pay attention to illegal aliens within our country as potential terrorists.