Pirate's Cove

It’s not all about the fence

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers failed to stop roughly 1 in 10 illegal immigrants and serious drug and weapons violators from entering the United States through airports and official land border crossings last year, according to a new congressional review.

While screeners turned back more than 200,000 foreigners in 2006, random audits indicate that they missed another 20,000 violators. The Government Accountability Office, Congress’s audit arm, blamed failures by officers and supervisors along with inadequate training and staffing. A Customs and Border Protection study this summer concluded that the agency needs 1,600 to 4,000 more officers and agricultural specialists at the nation’s air, land and sea ports, or a boost of 7 to 25 percent, the GAO reported.

The federal government has embarked on a costly buildup to guard remote stretches of the U.S.-Mexico border, doubling the Border Patrol ranks to 18,000 agents between 2000 and 2008, planning to add 570 miles of fencing and vehicle barriers and 200 miles of sensors by then, and boosting spending on border security to $9 billion last year. (I’m guessing from the verbage that the journalist, Spencer Hsu, doesn’t care for the fence or guarding the border much)

But experts say as many as half of the United States’ estimated 12 million illegal immigrants entered the country not by sneaking across the border but by evading detection at the 326 legal ports of entry or by overstaying visas.

It is nice to see it in numbers, but the information is nothing new. People have been complaining for years and years that many illegals are overstaying their visas and being let in when they shouldn’t be. Several of the 9/11 hijackers had overstayed their visas, and were let back in multiple times coming through normal ports channels. A system needs to be put in place to track the visitors who come in legally, as well as to make sure that certain ones do not get through to start with.

10% getting through, though, is not entirely a failure. This is a large country with millions who visit for many reasons every year. The agencies involved need to make sure that they are stopping the ones who pose a danger.

Voters oppose driver’s licenses for illegal aliens by a nearly five-to-one margin, a new Fox 5/Washington Times/Rasmussen Reports poll finds.

The new poll found 77 percent of the adults surveyed opposed making driver’s licenses available to illegal aliens, while just 16 percent supported the idea.

Licenses fared poorly across party lines, including near-blanket opposition among self-identified Republicans, at 88 percent. Among independents and Democrats, it was still overwhelmingly unpopular, drawing 75 percent and 68 percent opposition, respectively.

It is interesting to note that, in private, Democrats overwhelmingly say no to DLs for illegals, while in public they say yes, in order to support most of the Democrats in office, as well as the majority of those running for president. If so many of the Democrat Party faithful are so against this, as well as in-state tuition and other financial aid for illegals, why do their elected officials support it so strongly?

Because this would create new voters eventually. And one of the first steps is to get them DL’s. Because, you know, they just HAVE to drive, or so says Roger Simon, who seems to be justifying this issue in a manner similar to saying that, since criminals need protection, the Mafia should be allowed to provide it legally. Because criminals are going to rob your house anyhow.