Security is our concern! Or is it?

“The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) estimates that in January of 2000 there were 7 million illegal aliens living in the United States, a number that is growing by half a million a year. Thus, the illegal-alien population in 2003 stands at least at 8 million.” Surprising numbers one might think with all the established laws mentioned in the previous posts we would be led to think that the number of illegal immigrants would be minimal. While the Mexican “border's total length is 1,951 miles (3,141 km), according to figures given by the International Boundary and Water Commission. It is the most frequently crossed international border in the world, with some 350 million people crossing (legally) every year.” The length of this border may sound surprising but it does not compare to our friend in the north.

“The Canada-U.S. border stretches more than five thousand miles across North America.” That is more than twice the length of the Mexican border yet much greater attention is focused on the southern border. It is necessary to note that the very terrorists who infiltrated our land and the very same people who planned and later carried out the 9/11 attacks crossed through the Canadian border, yet it remains highly under guarded. All this emphasis is to put on the established laws for the border and how they are supposed to thwart the illegal immigrants crossing. However, the numbers show that there is no sign of slowing the people out to attain "a better life". Both the northern and southern borders are too immense to contain, there are too few border patrol officers to monitor all the land. In the documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore, there is a section where Moore interviews a border patrol officer in the Canada-US border and he testifies to having the sole responsibility to monitor over 100 miles on his own. With these lack luster efforts in the north its a surprise another security breach has not yet occurred. With all this, the focus still remains on the Mexican Immigrants coming in from the south. While the government advertises homeland security and stopping terrorists, it is clear that "SAFETY" is not their main interest.

http://canadaonline.about.com/library/weekly/aa040300a.htm

http://www.cis.org/topics/illegalimmigration.html

http://codac.uoregon.edu/HomelandInSecurity.shtml