My column in today’s Marietta Daily Journal. I have added some links to educate the reader.

I am posting having just returned from the Georgia Capitol and there most everyday during session ( until mid April) Please bear with me on replying to email and posting here. The laws of physics says I can’t be in multiple places at once.

Disappearing border fence must be ‘non-news’
Published: 01/29/2008
Marietta Daily Journal

D.A. King

Years of studying the fact that traffic rules in Italy are more enthusiastically enforced than American immigration laws and that our borders remain unsecured in a war on terror due to a coalition of the far left and the powerful business lobby can make it difficult to choose just one column point. So, some comments on a few things have been on this long-time American’s mind for a while – and a promise.

*Remember the Secure Fence Act of 2006? Passed by Congress and signed into law just before the last congressional election, the Secure Fence Act required the construction of vehicle barriers and at least 750 miles of double-layer fencing separated by an improved patrol road along the border with Mexico.

“The bill I’m about to sign is an important step in our nation’s efforts to secure our border and reform our immigration system,” remarked President Bush at the well-publicized bill signing.

The law was clear: “Not later than 18 months after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall take all actions the Secretary determines necessary and appropriate to achieve and maintain operational control over the entire international land and maritime borders of the United States.”

Operational control was defined in the language of the bill as “the prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband.”

The Secure Fence Act of 2006 seems to have been a hoax. Apparently according to plan, it was quietly gutted and the requirement for the abovementioned fence was removed by an amendment offered by Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) to the Consolidated Appropriations bill passed by Congress last month.

The passage by Congress of the Secure Fence Act was a huge media story in 2006. Not so its “unpassing” – which took place in the dark of night on Dec. 19 while Americans were busy with Christmas preparations. I guess we can call it “unnews.”

*Because of the seemingly endless media coverage, most of us know about the untimely death of Heath Ledger, the young actor who was found dead in his New York apartment this month. Who can recall news stories about the death of Luis Aguilar, another young American who was killed just days before?

More unnews.

Married with two children, Aguilar, a 32-year-old Border Patrol Agent, was killed in the line of duty Jan. 19 near the Mexican border in Arizona when an illegal-alien drug smuggler killed him with a speeding Humvee while escaping back into Mexico.

In an all too unusual occurrence, Mexican authorities have arrested a suspect in the killing. Jesus Navarro Montes admits hitting the Border Patrol agent and had been arrested and jailed previously for smuggling illegal aliens into the United States.

Maybe you have seen some of his past clients at the local day-labor sites – or at a rally for amnesty-again. Or working at secure areas of Hartsfield-Jackson airport.

*Some politically incorrect observations: Maybe the fence could have saved Patrol agent Aguilar. Virtually open borders and illegal immigration have consequences. None of them are good for America.

Which reminds me: Jerry Gonzalez, who lobbied relentlessly against Senator Chip Rogers’ Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act in 2006 and is executive director of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, was just honored as one of the 100 Most Influential Georgians by “the magazine of Georgia business and politics since 1985” – Georgia Trend magazine.

Gonzalez quit the Cobb County Latino Initiative last year in protest when Cobb began to use federal tools aimed at assisting federal authorities in enforcing immigration laws. We see an unhappy year ahead for Gonzalez. The sheriffs in Whitfield, Hall and Oconee counties have decided to follow Cobb Sheriff Neil Warren’s lead and use the federal training that will allow them to also begin deportation proceedings for illegal aliens who commit additional crimes.

Here’s wishing they would deport the illegal employers as well.

*Another result of studying illegal immigration and a respectful promise to my Republican friends: As an independent voter I will never vote for John McCain for president. Maybe he really has forgotten the McCain/Kennedy alien legalization bill that was defeated by the outraged American people last summer.

Like a very large – and resolute – group of conservative voters, I have not.

D.A. King is president of the Cobb-based Dustin Inman Society. He is not a member of any political party. On the Web: www.TheDustinInmanSociety.org