Border 'emergency' is really a clash of cultures
SAN DIEGO -- You want to talk about a border emergency?
Grab your passport, and take a quick trip with me around the world. Look at the tensions between Israel and Syria. India and Pakistan. Iraq and Iran. Colombia and Venezuela. South Korea and North Korea.
Now, closer to home, look at this relationship: United States-Mexico.
Thank goodness for good neighbors. Americans really need to stop hyperventilating about the supposed crisis on their southern border -- better known as the natural migration of people from one place to another -- and count their blessings.
I'll start. Americans are fortunate that Mexican law enforcement provides regular intelligence on terrorist threats along the border. In 2011, then-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder credited Mexican authorities with helping uncover a murder-for-hire plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States. The plan came to light when Manssor Arbabsiar, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Iran, met with a person he thought was part of a Mexican drug cartel but who was actually a confidential source for the Drug Enforcement Administration.
You're welcome, America. Or as the Mexicans say: "De nada."
A good friend is an anti-terrorism hawk who studies the U.S.-Mexico border and who recently gained access to a migrant caravan heading north through Mexico. What keeps him up at night are the so-called "special-interest aliens" from terrorist-producing countries who roam around the border, and what their intentions are.
According to the libertarian Cato Institute, as many as 45,000 special-interest aliens have been captured by U.S. authorities since 2007. And yet there has never been a terrorist attack on U.S. soil linked to this population.
Yet when I speak to groups about immigration, I never hear a peep about potential terrorists. You know what I hear? This:
"We have to stop this invasion of illegal aliens from Mexico who refuse to learn English and assimilate into our culture."
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