Pubdate: Tue, 17 Jan 2006
Source: Investor's Business Daily (US)
Copyright: 2006 Investor's Business Daily, Inc
Contact:  http://www.investors.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/682

OUR SOUTHERN SIEVE

Sovereignty: Suppose someone told you a foreign army had violated our 
border not once, not twice, not dozens, but hundreds of times over 
the past 10 years. Serious problem, right?

Of course. Yet that's exactly what Mexican soldiers have done, 
according to the Homeland Security Department. In documents obtained 
by several news outlets, the department details 216 crossings of the 
U.S.-Mexico border since 1996. Roughly 35% of them have taken place 
in California, 29% in Arizona and 36% in Texas.

U.S. border agents complain of being shot at by uniformed Mexican 
troops, with the violence growing over the past two years. Things 
have gotten so bad that the Border Patrol has told agents in Arizona 
to be on the lookout for Mexican soldiers "trained to escape, evade 
and counterambush" if discovered.

For its part, Mexico claims drug smugglers are dressing as soldiers 
to gain access to the border, and that its own army has "strict" 
orders not to go within a mile of the border.

American border agents don't buy it.

"Intrusions by the Mexican military to protect drug loads happen all 
the time and represent a significant threat to the agents," T.J. 
Bonner, head of the National Border Patrol Council and a 27-year 
veteran of the agency, told The Washington Times.

In short, the violations don't appear to be "accidental." And if 
Mexican army units are working in cahoots with drug smugglers, it 
marks a nasty escalation in America's war on drugs.

Meanwhile, as these reports are coming out, states in the Southwest 
remain under siege from immigrants crossing the border illegally. No 
fewer than 300 immigration-related bills were considered at the state 
level last year, and 36 of them were enacted, according to the 
National Conference of State Legislatures.

The possibility of regular military incursions by Mexican soldiers 
adds an ominous note to our already strained relations with our 
neighbor to the south.

It should also make clear what too many still fail to see: Our border 
appears to be an open sieve. The states are acting because the 
federal government -- which has ultimate responsibility -- has failed to do so.

The question that remains is: Why?
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman