Guest
Contributor
Xiaochin
Yan
Xiaochin
Claire Yan is a Policy Fellow in Education Studies at the
Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco.[Yan index]
 Still
Not Safe in California
Protecting the borders?...
[Xiaochin
Yan] 12/13/04
The post-9/11 intelligence reorganization bill is expected to
pass Congress but Californians should not feel any safer. Adding
a national intelligence director alone will not make the country
safe. By not including provisions to plug our porous borders,
this bill violates the spirit of the 9/11 report.
That report gripped
the nation with a clear narrative of how the 19 hijackers entered
the United States, moved around, opened
bank accounts, and obtained driver's licenses before boarding
airplanes with weapons. The commission said that the “abuse
of the immigration system and a lack of interior immigration
enforcement were unwittingly working together to support terrorist
activity.” But rather than becoming more secure since 9/11,
the border has grown even more porous.
Time magazine estimates
that three million illegals will enter the U.S. this year — that’s
about 60 flights every day for a year. This mass movement of
illegal immigrants provides
a perfect cover for terrorists, particularly with tighter security
at airports. Between October of last year and this past August,
Border Patrol estimates that it caught 55,890 people described
as other than Mexicans.
Time also estimates that as many as 190,000 illegals from countries
other than Mexico have flooded into the U.S. population this
year. Only a fraction of them are ever captured. Local law enforcement
officers, ranchers, and others living in border states told Time
that these intruders arrive not only from Latin America, but
also from Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq.
The House version of the post-9/11 bill included plans to hire
more border and immigration agents. It would have also expedited
the deportations of citizens of other nations repeatedly caught
crossing illegally into the United States. (The 9/11 Commission
believes that 15 of the 19 hijackers were potentially vulnerable
to interception by border authorities.) The Senate rejected most
of these changes.
Nineteen of the 9/11
hijackers had more than 60 driver’s
licenses. Yet this issue will not be addressed in the new bill
aimed to make Americans safer at home. Those first to feel not
only the economic burdens but also the security threats are likely
to be states in the border regions.
Of the 15 million
illegal immigrants in the U.S., it is estimated that more than
two million are in California. The Federation
for American Immigration Reform estimates that California’s
illegal immigrant population is costing taxpayers more than $10.5
billion per year for education, medical care, and incarceration.
Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed legislation that would have legalized
licenses for illegal immigrations because such legislation would
make it easier for terrorists to get licenses.
The 9/11 commissioners recognized that the challenge to keep
the nation secure in the age of terrorism is to prevent those
few who may pose overwhelming risks from entering the United
States. The primary responsibility for combating illegal immigration
and securing our borders lies with the federal government.
A handful of Californian lawmakers, including Congressmen David
Drier, Gary Miller, and Elton Gallegly, along with James Sensenbrenner
of Wisconsin, have denounced the Senate version of the bill that
deleted key border reforms. Though the Senate version looks to
prevail in Congress, these few clear-headed lawmakers should
not give up the fight for immigration reform.CRO
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