Why can't we secure the border? In truth, we can secure the border. The problem is that the federal government is pursuing an open-borders policy as a steppingstone to North American merger.

Whether you are talking about a sheepfold, a suburban yard, a vast ranch, or a sovereign nation, almost everyone understands that ownership of property includes the right to control its borders. It is for this reason that property owners have built fences for as long as private property has existed. If the United States is indeed an independent, sovereign nation that Americans own and rule, questions arise: Why does our federal government seem to have such difficulty in securing our borders? Why is illegal immigration rampant?

The great football coach Vince Lombardi once stated: "The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather is a lack of will." It is surely our last few presidents' lack of will to secure our borders that is responsible for our nation's failure to do so. President George W. Bush's lack of will on border control is readily apparent to those willing to decipher his stated plans.

Knowing the importance most Americans place on securing our borders and stemming the tide of illegal immigration, President Bush has frequently addressed the problem in public statements. In one such address to the nation on May 15, 2006, the president offered what seemed like a sound solution to the immigration problem:

   First, the United States must secure
   its borders. This is a basic responsibility
   of a sovereign nation. It is
   also an urgent requirement of our
   national security. Our objective is
   straightforward: The border should
   be open to trade and lawful immigration,
   and shut to illegal immigrants,
   as well as criminals, drug dealers,
   and terrorists.

The staunchest defender of a secure America could hardly disagree. But then we were treated to the other side of the president's address:

   Second, to secure our border, we
   must create a temporary worker
   program. The reality is that there
   are many people on the other side of
   our border who will do anything to
   come to America to work and build
   a better life .... To secure the border
   effectively, we must reduce the numbers
   of people trying to sneak across.
   [Emphasis added.]

So President Bush's solution for stopping illegal immigration is to allow anyone who wants to come to our country to enter legally, so long as we can find an employer who can provide a job Americans supposedly don't want--and to grant amnesty to the illegals who are already here.

In truth, proclamations that the Bush administration is trying to secure our borders just don't stand up to the facts. He promised to send the National Guard to the border. In actuality, on the front lines, this effort amounted to a handful of unarmed men. He promised to give support to our Border Patrol agents, yet federal prosecutors have made Border Patrol agents fear doing their jobs by prosecuting Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean for shooting and wounding a Mexican drug smuggler. * Congress, too, has failed, delaying the release of funds to build a border fence.

The Reasons Behind the Failure

Why have President Bush and his predecessors left our borders virtually undefended, even while U.S. troops secure the borders of Iraq and South Korea? Answer: they want the flood of illegal immigrants across our borders to continue, albeit in the form of making illegal immigration legal. Bush's unceasing attempts to give amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants give credence to this conclusion. But why would President Bush and his Republican and Democrat cohorts want millions of illegal immigrants here when American taxpayers, in the most indebted nation in the world, need to subsidize the immigrants' mere existence in the form of food vouchers, free healthcare, tax credits, and higher car insurance costs--among others--for them to be able to afford to even live in the country?

Arguments are made that allowing them in is about helping businesses compete financially in the global economy. In fact, societal costs incurred through immigration are passed on to businesses in the form of taxes and fees that make the overall cost of doing business more expensive and that make the country less competitive on the global level. The result is lost jobs.

The mainly poorly educated immigrants are putting a huge financial strain on our nation and making us less competitive. According to the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), in 2002 "households headed by illegal aliens imposed more than $26.3 billion in costs on the federal government ... and paid only $16 billion in taxes, creating a net fiscal deficit of almost $10.4 billion, or $2,700 per illegal household." CIS also estimated that if an amnesty were enacted in 2002, "the net fiscal deficit [at the federal level] would grow to nearly $29 billion per year." This anticipated increase would occur even though the legalized persons would pay increased taxes because they would also heavily use services--likely increasing the net annual fiscal deficit "from $2,736 to $7,668 per household."

The aforementioned estimates were made in 2002 when the approximate number of illegal immigrants was 8.7 million; it's now about 12 million. The estimated billions actually understate the problem. They ignore costs that, when included, have been estimated to bring the price tag of immigrants to above $100 billion a year. For instance, the numbers don't include future Social Security payments to the immigrants, nor do they include state- and county-level welfare costs, or outlays for education and controlling and investigating immigrant crime. They also do not include the increased costs created because of all the hundreds of thousands of Americans whom immigrants put out of work.

No, letting masses of immigrants into the country is not about making the country as a whole wealthier. It's all about instituting regional governance over the United States--like what happened with European countries in forming the EU. (See article on page 39.) Put simply, the reason the administration has failed to secure the borders is because the administration supports open borders. And the reason the administration sup ports open borders is because it supports submerging the United States in a new North American Union.

An advocate of North American integration is Glen Atkinson, professor of economics at the University of Nevada in Reno. Atkinson described the progression from regional trade agreements like NAFTA to full continental union in a 1998 article entitled "Regional Integration in the Emerging Global Economy" in the Social Science Journal:

   The lowest level of integration is a free
   trade area, which involves only the removal
   of tariffs and quotas among the
   parties. If a common external tariff is
   added, then a customs union has been
   created. The next level, or a common
   market, requires free movement of
   people and capital as well as goods
   and services. It is this stage where
   institutional development becomes
   critical. The stage of economic union
   requires a high degree of coordination
   or even unification of policies. This
   sets the foundation for political union.
   ]Emphasis added.]

When it is understood that the Bush administration supports the creation of a North American Union, the administration's "failure" to secure the border, and its guest-worker/amnesty proposal leading to "the free movement of people," suddenly makes sense.

* For more information about this case, see "Punished for Doing Their Job" from our Feb. 19, 2007 issue, available online at www.jbs.org/node/2620.