Border Patrol: Why Even Bother?
Commentary by Steve Yuhas
June 21, 2004

Border Patrol agents are a brave bunch, not simply because they face a stealth and often crafty enemy, rather because they are willing to wake up every day of their career only to be bashed by "community activists" and politicians for enforcing the immigration laws of the United States. There are more news conferences demanding that the border patrol not do their jobs than there are politicians demanding the laws be enforced and in a post-9-11 world where taking a cheap shot at a law enforcement officer would otherwise be taboo, berating border patrol agents seems to continue to be in fashion.

Agents charged with enforcing the immigration laws of the United States do not have a zone close to the border in which they are only allowed to operate. In fact, border patrol agents may enforce the immigration laws anywhere in the United States - whether that be sitting on the border or at bus stops and areas inland where known illegal immigrants congregate. It is not often that they venture out into areas of the nation that are unfriendly to law enforcement whose purpose is to defend us from the most dangerous of people - namely those who are here illegally who may want to do us harm - but sometimes they do.

A few times in the last couple of months in southern California a team of agents known as the Mobile Patrol Group made arrests and assisted in the deportation of some 200 illegal immigrants in San Bernadino and Riverside, California. The agents were acting on community based information because illegal immigrants were congregating at places in the two counties and the uniformed agents who drove marked U.S. Border Patrol vehicles came to investigate the complaints.

A similar action occurred in San Diego aboard the public trolley system that connects various areas of San Diego and the Mexican town of Tijuana. Around 7,000 people were asked to identify themselves to border patrol agents aboard public transportation in San Diego after the train bombings in Madrid, Spain killed 200 people. Of the 7,000 only about 200 have been detained or deported by immigration officials.

There is no question that citizens of the United States want our immigration laws to be enforced, but it seems politicians and many on the left feel that enforcing those laws are just a waste of time. After the arrest of about 200 people in California two weeks ago pro-illegal immigrant activists took to the streets demanding that the arrests stop. One University of California Riverside professor, Armando Navarro, said, "All of a sudden, the Border Patrol is hitting different parts of Southern California away from the border. Something is going on." Yeah - enforcement of the law.

U.S. Rep. Joe Baca (D-San Bernardino) wrote to Commissioner Robert Bonner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, expressing "concern" over "the apparent expansion of your jurisdiction to engage in disruptive enforcement in crowded residential and workplace communities." A United States Congressman is upset that the border patrol agents hired to enforce immigration laws are actually enforcing them. It doesn’t stop there.

Now the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Mexican Consulate are gathering information for possible legal action against the border patrol. That’s right - the ACLU and the Mexican government find it objectionable that the immigration laws of the United States are enforced and are looking to find good, solid illegal immigrant plaintiffs for their cases against the government.

Outside of the fact that illegal immigrants violate the law on a daily basis and forget for a minute that if Mexicans can make it over the border so too can Arabs wishing to do us harm, what would liberal politicians and people like the ACLU have us do? Perhaps we should just simply scrap all immigration laws completely and just throw open the doors and let everyone in.

Border patrol agents are on the front lines when it comes to protecting the nation yet politicians, on both the right and the left, are so worried about attracting the Hispanic vote that they are not supported when they enforce the laws, but are among the most criticized when terrorists make it into the nation and are not confronted or deported. The American people want to enforce the law and the people of California have been demanding border patrol enforcement for years, but the vocal minority of candle light vigil holding pro-illegal immigrants and leftists in government and fearful Republicans have no desire to actually enforce laws designed to protect the nation both economically and security wise.

The men and women of the border patrol who put themselves on the line every day wake up and do their job despite the fact that everyone with a microphone or a vote on a committee doesn’t want them to. They fight against local politicians who refuse to allow police departments or sheriff deputies to even inquire as to the legal status of people they stop for traffic violations or violent crime.

They fight against sympathetic local groups who trot out a bunch of strawberry pickers or hotel cleaners pretending that dangerous would-be terrorists don’t share the same status as illegal immigrants and they fight against a liberal media who pretend that the border patrol is kicking down doors in private homes and making sweeps of public schools. None of it is true, yet the border patrol wakes up every day to work against the politicians to protect us.

It is time that we gather our collective voices together and demand that something be done about illegal immigration and to support he border patrol on whatever legal measures they take to enforce the laws designed to keep us safe. People are worried about whether or not beds will be made in hotels or lettuce picked in fields if we enforce the immigration laws, but imagine what will happen when the next attack hits and it is shown that the terrorists came in through Mexico and settled just north of the border - untouchable because of political correctness demanded of those charged with enforcing the law.

I’d hate to be a politician when that day happens, but I can’t wait to say, "I told you so."