I received several e-mails throughout Friday about the outrageous murder of a United States Border Patrol Agent.
I just read two news reports about the information that is preliminarily available about this crime that left two little children without their father, a wife without her husband and our nation without the valiant efforts of a federal officer.
Because the investigation into this brutal murder has only just begun and facts are sketchy, I will not say much about this case except to note that it would appear that whoever killed Agent Rosas intended to murder him, considering the circumstances thus far reported on the events that preceded his death and the fact that he had been reportedly shot numerous times including at least one bullet that entered his head.
What is also disturbing is that Agent Rosas was working “solo” that is to say he had no partner, a practice that T.J. Bonner, the President of the Border Patrol Council, the union that represents our line Border Patrol agents, has indicated is not unusual and obviously engenders a serious risk to the safety of our agents.
Once again I am compelled to point out that just several weeks ago, New York Senator Chuck Schumer, the chairman of the Senate Immigration Subcommittee, stated that the border is now adequately secure to justify implementing a widespread amnesty program for millions of illegal aliens whose true identities are unknown and unknowable. There will be no way of knowing not only the names of most of these illegal aliens, but even their respective nationalities, backgrounds and possible criminal histories or the fact that they may be fugitives from justice in other countries. There will therefore be no reliable way of determining if these aliens are affiliated with criminal or terrorist organizations. There will not even be any reliable way of determining when, where or how they entered the United States.
There is a list of reasons why any such sweeping amnesty program aka “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” is a completely wrong-headed program, but even where our nation’s supposed secure border is concerned (per Schumer’s assertion) there are many issues that need to be considered.
About a week ago I wrote a commentary in response to a report that appeared in Government Executive Magazine “IG: Secure Border Initiative lacks effective oversight”
See Commentary:
Secure Border Initiative Leaks Like a Sieve
Today’s horrible news report should provide additional evidence about the state of our borders and make it crystal clear that our borders are not secure. That extreme level of violence in Mexico is indeed crossing our border and now it has claimed the life of a young U.S. Border Patrol agent.
Our nation’s failure to secure its borders and create an immigration system that has real integrity is not a new problem, but it is unconscionable that this deplorable situation has been permitted to persist by “leaders” of both political parties. President George W. Bush refused to secure our nation’s borders even in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and President Bill Clinton refused to secure our nation’s borders or address the issue of the lack of integrity in the immigration bureaucracy even after the two terrorists attacks of 1993 which resulted in the death of two CIA officers and the wounding of three others in January 1993 by a Pakistani national who had succeeded in gaming the immigration system by making a fraudulent claim to political asylum and then showed his gratitude by gunning down those CIA officials.
Of course it is also to be remembered that just one month later, in February 1993 a team of Middle Eastern terrorists planted a bomb in the basement of the World Trade Center Complex that left 6 people dead, hundreds injured and a half billion dollars in damage inflicted on the World Trade Center complex. At least a couple of those attackers had acquired lawful status through immigration benefit fraud and yet just a couple of years later the Clinton Administration implemented a program known as Citizenship USA (CUSA) that naturalized more than one million aliens and the GAO subsequently conducted an investigation of this insane program that determined that tens of thousands of those aliens who naturalized were statutorily ineligible to be accorded United States citizenship.
Today our nation’s leaders are still unwilling to take the necessary steps to provide our nation and our citizens with true security. I found it amazing that this evening, Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano appeared on Bill Maher’s show, “Real Time.” Maher questioned her about the stringent measures implemented at ports of entry in the name of national security and she talked about how Richard Reid was the “shoe bomber” and thus we now must remove our shoes before boarding an airliner. She also noted that because other terrorists were planning to use a combination of liquids to make a bomb on airliners that now requires that passengers not be permitted to bring large quantities of liquids on board airliners.
Of course Bill Maher who knows nothing about national security failed to follow up Ms Napolitano’s statements by asking why our nation has been able to learn about how the terrorists might attack airliners but the fact that Reid and the other terrorists who were behind the liquid bomb plots were all British nationals and as such were exempt the visa requirement under the Visa Waiver Program.
For the most part, all that our government has provided its citizens is the illusion of security.
Illusory security measures will not save any lives or prevent an attack.
We live in a perilous era and it is time that our nation and its citizens were afforded real protection.
Law enforcement is a dangerous profession but it is unreasonable that considering the continuing escalating levels of violence in Mexico and in the border regions of the United States, that our Border Patrol agents be subjected to the unreasonable risk of working solo in what is becoming a near “war zone.”
As I have noted on many occasions, a country without secure border can no more stand than can a house without walls!
In less than two years, each and every member of the House of Representatives is up for reelection. In less than two years more than one third of the members of the United States Senate will have to face their constituents. They need to be reminded that they work for us, We the People!
The large scale apathy demonstrated by citizens of this nation has emboldened elected representatives to all but ignore the needs of the average American citizen in a quest for massive campaign funds and the promises of votes to be ostensibly delivered by special interest groups. There is much that we cannot do but there is one thing that We the People absolutely must do- we must stop sitting on the sidelines!
The collective failure of We the People to get involved in make our concerns known to our politicians have nearly made the concerns of the great majority of the citizens of this nation all but irrelevant to the politicians. I implore you to get involved! We live in a perilous world and in a perilous era. The survival of our nation and the lives of our citizens hang in the balance this is neither a Conservative issue, nor is it a Liberal issue- simply stated, this is most certainly an AMERICAN issue! You are either part of the solution or you are a part of the problem! Democracy is not a spectator sport! Lead, follow or get out of the way!
