Below is my column posted on today’s Insider Advantage Georgia, a subscription Website, Mr. Dick Pettys editor. Reposted here with permission.

Guest Column: D.A. King
Security On The Border, Sept. 12, 2007 – Feel Safer?
By D.A. King

“We must be vigilant.” – President George W. Bush, in an address to the nation following the 9/11 attacks – Atlanta, Georgia. November 8, 2001.

(9/12/07) The sixth anniversary of the unspeakable horror of September 11, 2001 is behind us, the heartbreaking memorial ceremonies and speeches are over and we now begin our seventh year facing life in America knowing we are targets of crazies who will do anything to attack us in our homeland.

Most adult Americans will never forget that clear-blue morning in 2001. “Everything will be different now,” I remember thinking, still tearful and numb from the shock of watching the second airliner fly into the World Trade Center.

But everything is not different now.

While it is true that we must now partially disrobe to board an airplane, that we carefully pre-package our toothpaste and liquids in our carry-on luggage for inspection, and that the American government cannot process passports to its own citizens in anything resembling a timely manner, a glaring and nationally suicidal truth remains.

In a war on terror, American borders remain less secure than Disney World.

In post-9/11 Washington, try to get into a Senate or House office building – or the White House gift shop – without submitting to a scan and a possible search.

Note the very efficient fence that protects the home of the president.

In a 2004 letter to constituents promoting what much of Congress and the president refer to as ‘Comprehensive Immigration Reform,’ the senior Senator from Arizona (and now, again, presidential candidate) John McCain quoted U.S. Border Patrol statistics which estimate that in the year 2002, “nearly four million people crossed our borders illegally”.

About 10,000 a day.

In addition to violation of the law, entering the U.S. “illegally” means uninspected and usually in places other than through authorized ports of entry.

It is not exactly a secret that anyone in the world has only to make it to Mexico and then walk into America by stepping over a barely-there barb wire fence that would not make a respectable or effective cattle pasture in Georgia.

Feel safer?

In a 2006 report from the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security that somehow went un-noted by the mainstream media, anyone willing to take the time could read that the estimates of illegal entries into our nation in 2005 were between four and ten million.

Titled “A Line in the Sand: Confronting the Threat at the Southwest Border,” the report offers some other very disturbing findings. Among them:

* During 2005, Border Patrol apprehended 1.2 million illegal aliens, of those 165,000 were from countries other than Mexico (“OTMs” in Border Patrol speak).

* Of the OTMs apprehended, 650 were from what are labeled “special interest countries” – designated by the American intelligence community as countries that could export terrorists.

* Border Patrol estimates that they are able to apprehend 10-30% of the total illegal crossers.

Do the math.

Feel safer?

The report goes on:

* U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigations have revealed that aliens were smuggled from the Middle East to staging areas in Central and South America, before being smuggled illegally into the United States.

* Members of Hezbollah have already entered the United States across the Southwest border.

* Each year hundreds of illegal aliens from countries known to harbor terrorists or promote terrorism are routinely encountered and apprehended attempting to enter the U.S. illegally.

While six years after 9/11, the American president and the Department of Homeland Security promise that “operational control” of the border is coming, the House report tells us “The Mexican drug cartels wield substantial control over the U.S.-Mexican border. Law enforcement on the border agree that very little crosses the respective cartel territories, or “plazas,” along the Southwest border without cartel knowledge, approval, and financial remuneration.”

According to a May report in the Washington Post, “Federal officials became alarmed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks when they discovered they could not account for 314,000 immigrants who had been ordered deported, including 5,046 from countries where al–Qaeda was present.”

Six years later, DHS now says there are more than 600,000 illegal aliens roaming America who are already under deportation orders.

Vigilant indeed.

On September 12, 2007, think about this fascinating reality: Even after 9/11, Immigration and Customs Enforcement periodically apprehends illegal aliens working in “secure” areas all over America – including airports and military bases.

Feel safer?

On September 12, 2007, security is far better in major American newspaper offices and network television buildings than on our borders.

Americans may want to ask what we would have said to anyone, who on September 12, 2001 would have predicted the present state of homeland security six years in the future. And why it is all so sadly true.

Because as Americans, we are America, we may want to ask political candidates the same questions.

Because virtually open borders means bargain wages and an expanded market, here is a hint as to why: Follow the money – even in a war on terror.

Feel safer?

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D.A. King of Marietta is a columnist for the Marietta Daily Journal, president of the Dustin Inman Society and Americans for Sovereignty . He is not a member of any political party.

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