Wednesday, October 17, 2001

U.S. borders must be watched closely
Josh Sexton Lynch is a columnist for the Daily Texan at the University of Texas-Austin.

Nearly a month removed from the attacks on New York City, we are beginning to distance ourselves from that tragedy and drift closer to the next one. The people of this nation are beginning to ask themselves, “Are we doing everything in our power to postpone and ultimately prevent attacks in the future?”

This may be the most fair and crucial question in American history. The answer will forever be a simple “no.” No matter how much we have been doing or how much we do in the future, we aren’t doing enough at the present. As long as attacks are possible, it is required of us to do more.

With the airports being militarized for at least the next six months, we probably have one of our bases adequately covered. However, even though this gained a great amount of media attention last week, it is not enough. It must not be forgotten that covering one base is not adequate — all bases must be covered completely.

Five hundred and thirty million people cross America’s borders each year, which can cause many headaches for the people securing those borders. Out of 530 million people, some undesirable individuals are bound to slip through. The task is minimizing this number, which requires that border officials do a better job.

The figure of 530 million doesn’t include one of the biggest threats to American security: illegal immigrants. There is no way to know the exact number, but an estimated 7 million illegal immigrants are in this country at any one given time.

Heightened border security in our current situation is not only smart, it is necessary.

There are several plausible ways of going about this. The most likely possibility would be an increase of INS agents patrolling the northern and southern borders. Along with better surveillance, this could greatly improve the ratio of prospective terrorists apprehended to the number of prospective terrorists infiltrating our borders illegally.

This is in no way a call for closed borders. Rather, it is a call for heightened border security. Since 1994 the number of INS agents assigned to the Mexican border has more than doubled to 9,056 — about one every 1,300 feet. Conversely, there are 334 agents patrolling the entire northern border — one about every 12 miles. It mustn’t be assumed that agents on the northern border have super powers that allow them to patrol 12 miles of land as easily as the southern agents patrol 1,300 feet. The well-known cause of this is that the southern border has more problems with people crossing illegally seeking decent salaries.

Nevertheless, this deficit does not bode well for our current concerns about national security. Due to some lax Canadian immigration laws and inadequate law enforcement, Canada is thought of as a desirable place for terrorists to be, and then possibly leave from there and enter the United States untouched.

Border security should be of the highest concern to every American in this time of crisis. Even though there is no proof yet that any of the suspected terrorists involved in the Sept. 11 attacks crossed an American border illegally, it is important to remember they likely could have. Left unattended to, this problem will undoubtedly be exploited.

Many more problems of national security exist other than illegal immigrants crossing our borders, but this problem in no way deserves to be overlooked. Our preparedness must be nourished like a child. As it grows we must feed it more and adapt to its changes. In its infancy now, we must lay its foundation for the future. We must never forget to inform our child, that no matter how dark the horizon appears, there is always hope.

Josh Sexton Lynch is a columnist for the Daily Texan at the University of Texas-Austin. This column was distributed by U-Wire.