God bless those Canucks, they've made my point for me: the dangerous border lies north of us, not south. Someone, give George Bush a compass, please!
No less than 50 Al-Qaeda connected folks have been discovered trying to cross from Canada into the United States, all of them with nefarious purposes. That's not counting the bunch just detained in the vicinity of Toronto.
How many along the Rio Grande? None. Zero. Zip. Zilch.
That's not because the northern border is more fiercely defended. It is not. I have crossed it many times and have seen teenagers allowed into the United States on the strength of the names handwritten on their school notebooks. Or, in the reverse, I have witnessed disheveled folk with no sign of a gainful occupation accepted into Canada as landed immigrants on the hunch of a border inspector.
Granted, most of that was 30 years ago. However, some of it was just after 9/11.
In comparable times, I crossed into Mexico and back. What a difference! Guard dogs, inspections of everything imaginable, questions, questions, questions. Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin had nothing over the Tortilla Curtain.
What's the difference? Come on, take one guess ... yes, that's it!
I admit it. Swarthy Alfonso Queda from Suchitlan, Mexico, whose great-great-grandmother some hundred times removed was probably raped by a Muslim invader of medieval Spain, likely looks a lot like good old Al Qaeda. Certainly more than beefy pink, red-headed Al Caton from Hamilton, Ontario.
Yet Osama's operatives don't appear to have chosen the southern route.
Who wants to wander aimlessly through a desert in areas in which even experienced people native to the region die of thirst? (No 70 virgins await you in Muslim heaven for that.)
Moreover, what university educated Muslim, fanatical though he may be, wants to have to hide among the most downtrodden people in the U.S. Southwest, in slums surrounded by the most bigoted kickers in the whole country?
Finally, courtesy of what once was called the British Commonwealth, loads more people from Muslim countries have links to someone in Canada than to anyone in Mexico. (In fact, Osama's grievances would probably be directed squarely and accurately at his own home-grown pashas, rather than the West, had it not been for a century or three of British mischief in the Near East -- but that's a thought for another post.)
In the end, the conclusion is all the same: the "homeland security" angle to "immigration reform" is just so much hot air and pandering to the GOP's bigot base.
Ask Osama, G-men, if you don't trust me. (Oh, wait, I forgot ... you guys let him get away!)
