Don't tie illegal immigration to war on terror

[question everything]

UNION-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL
The wrong mix

Don't tie illegal immigration to war on terror

July 6, 2006

What a mess the much-anticipated House immigration hearings here turned out to be. We thought the purpose of holding public hearings was to, well, hear from the public. We also thought that one reason you hold hearings is to clear up confusion, not create more of it by mixing the immigration issue with terrorism.

But that's exactly what happened yesterday at the U.S. Border Patrol station in Imperial Beach. It was the site of one of the first field hearings into the illegal immigration crisis. There were actually two different hearings yesterday – the one in Imperial Beach and one in Philadelphia, called by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa. At neither hearing was the public allowed to address the panels. The only people allowed to speak were members of Congress and their invited guests.

The House hearing was run by Rep. Ed Royce, R-Fullerton, who chairs the subcommittee on international terrorism and nonproliferation. Rep. Royce said his special hearing panel would focus on whether America's porous border makes it more vulnerable to another terrorist attack. That should have been our first hint that things were about to get weird. After all, even if you agree with the House's enforcement-only approach to illegal immigration, chances are what gets your blood pumping has more to do with the perception that the country is being invaded by trespassers, or that the culture is changing, or that illegal immigrants should not be granted amnesty.

Either way, you're probably not terribly worried that al-Qaeda or other terrorists might come across the U.S.-Mexico border. And why should you be? After all, on Sept. 11, 2001, some of the terrorists came across the U.S.-Canada border. And, while Border Patrol agents have been known to apprehend some crossers from Mexico who are from other countries, the number is still a tiny fraction of total apprehensions. Last year, there were 900 crossers other than Mexicans apprehended, out of nearly 150,000 total apprehensions. That's less than 1 percent. And not all of those came from places on the State Department's “watch list” of countries that engage in terrorism.

(snip)

Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060706/news_lz1ed6top.html