What’s to be done about the Mexican border?

Arizona is being flooded with violence from drug cartels and unscrupulous coyotes smuggling people across the porous U.S. Mexico borders. The Bush administration had a bill with a worker pass system and re-enforced borders. Judging from the equally loud screams of protesting “conservatives” and “liberals”the bill was a workable compromise, but the Republican senators (including both Utah senators to their shame) defeated it.

Now Arizona authorizes its police making stops to also inquire into legal resident status when there is reasonable suspicion of illegality, and Obama’s laggard administration has the gall to sue to declare the Arizona law unconstitutional!

Some claim we cannot secure the border, but Israel has done so for the Gaza strip. Yes our border is much longer but a fraction of our humongous budget for making war in the middle east would suffice. As to worker passes, we cannot pretend that our economy does not need the migrant workers, who surround us in jobs that others won’t take.

In gross negligence the Congress has substituted employer fines for border enforcement. Our employers should never have been thrust into this role of law enforcement. They do not want it, they are not good at it, and it creates constant conflicts between them and the ICE agents. If the border were properly enforced, there would be no need for fining employers, for the Arizona law, or for suspecting everyone with a Latino look.