U.S. Border Control

We must keep the Islamist threat from crossing our borders

Aug 28, 2005

Last week I took Tribune TV critic Walt Belcher's advice and watched "Inside 9/11,'' a documentary on the National Geographic Channel. It used declassified documents and scores of interviews to piece together how terrorists caught U.S. intelligence and security agencies off guard in the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001.

I rode the same emotional roller coaster I did almost four years ago - with stunned disbelief, anger and grief - even though I knew the ending. And, as in 2001, I couldn't go to sleep that night.

An interview conducted for National Geographic News with Michael Scheuer, a former senior analyst of the Central Intelligence Agency, did little to lift my spirits. He said terrorists would not have much more difficulty attacking the United States today than they did before 9/11.

"The reason it's going to occur is because we've done nothing about our borders,'' said Scheuer, who was the head of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit.

Most of the talk I hear about "protecting our borders'' centers on the effects illegal immigrants are having on the job market, wages, public education and social services. Those are legitimate concerns, but national security should be the biggest one.

Unfortunately, concerns about racial and ethnic profiling may prove to be as big a culprit in the next attack as intelligence failures were in the last one.

"We've given the police an impossible task, because the politicians of both parties are too cowardly to enforce the laws already on the books as far as immigration and finding out who's in the country illegally,'' says Scheuer.

According to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, however, that may be changing. In April he wrote why he believes no more attacks have occurred on U.S. soil. One of the biggest reasons: "New U.S. visa policies have made it much harder for bad guys to get into America.

"If your name is Muhammad and you are a 21-year-old single Arab man and you have not visited Disney World yet, well, you may want to consider Euro Disney, because your chances of getting a tourist visa are very low,'' Friedman wrote. "This is one of the sad byproducts of 9/11 - but it has undoubtedly made it more difficult for the few bad apples to get in as well.''

Actually, I don't consider it a "sad byproduct," but a pragmatic policy. During World War II, people from Germany, Japan and Italy weren't allowed to emigrate to the United States. Entire nations were profiled. It was a tactical wartime measure to protect Americans.

Because we are a nation of immigrants, some Americans have come to believe that immigration is right, not a privilege. The opposite is true. And while there may be many young Muslims only ``yearning to breathe free'' in this country, it took only 19 with no such intent to kill thousands in the name of Allah.

I'd feel more comfortable in a situation where if some immigrants with hostile intent should manage to slip in, they won't be able move around as freely as the 9/11 hijackers or acquire driver's licenses and credit cards with great ease

Our troops are supposed to be fighting terrorists ``over there'' so we won't have to fight them over here, says President Bush. I believe the safest policy is to make sure they never get here in the first place.