President Bush is expected in Tucson, Arizona today and will comment on the hot button topic of the U.S. — Mexican border problem.  The problem is the border is porous, allowing illegal entry into the country from peoples ranging from Mexican nationals seeking higher wages to drug traffickers seeking a lucrative market to possible terrorist plotters seeking to do harm on U.S. soil.

Is it racist to want greater security along the border?  That's the argument coming from the American Left.  What they fail to realize is that race is not the issue; obedience to the law is the fundamental concern.  Illegal aliens are just that because they have not followed the legal way of gaining entry to the country.  That makes them lawbreakers. 

Bush has offered a guest worker program and insists it is not an amnesty program.  So far, no one is buying that.  The American Right is holding the President to his word on making the nation secure and will not allow the usual song—and—dance on immigration.  Many immigrants who came here legally are very grateful to call themselves Americans.  Those who came here otherwise are criminals who spend every waking moment trying to avoid detection.  For them, the American dream can only be fulfilled with the help of those who are indifferent to the rule of law and prefer false commiseration and pandering.  Unfortunately, that includes, to this point, President Bush. 

Will that change this day when he sits in a briefing with U.S. Custom agents at the border?  Will the President announce a tougher stance on border protection, including the construction of a fence and the prosecution of all illegal entrants?  Will he add to the number of border agents on patrol from Texas to California?

Governor Richardson in New Mexico and Governor Napolitano in Arizona have just recently announced that they were committing extra cash in the battle to tighten security at the border.  In Arizona, that meant 12 new border agents on the state payroll.  That should really send a shiver down the spines of the thousands crossing daily.  No, this problem demands a solution from the Commander and Chief.  If it means stationing the National Guard in the heavy traffic areas, so be it. 

For the remainder of the border, if not a physical fence, than a virtual one is in order via unmanned drones and satellite surveillance.  One's race cannot be determined from space where a blip on the screen does not discriminate.  An affront to American sovereignty is just that, whether the assailant is from Mexico, Scandinavia or the Middle East.

It's up to President Bush to make the case for all the laws of the nation.  Not just the ones that appear to be politically expedient.   Doing the right thing may not gather the majority in the polls, but, then again, it just might.  If the next terrorist attack on the country is traced to the border, the President, for all his good work in this war, will not have to worry about how he will be remembered.  No one will be able to forget.

J. James Estrada   11 28 05