Let's Take a Congressman to the Woodshed

U.S. Representative Sam Graves authored a letter to the editor that appeared in the Kansas City Star today under the heading “Securing Nation and Borders.”

“Before Sept. 11, border security and immigration enforcement were not considered national security issues. But we now know that had our immigration enforcement been tighter before that it is possible that some of the hijackers would never have entered this country at all, and others might have been arrested and deported for immigration violations.

“Sept. 11 made clear that lax border security and immigration enforcement are a clear and present danger to our national security

“Congress is working hard to tighten our immigration and border security system to ensure terrorists and other criminals cannot enter our country. We increased funding for border security and passed laws such as the Real I.D. Act, which established uniform standards for state issued driver’s licenses and identification cards.

“Despite all congress has done, illegal immigrants continue to flood across our borders.

“It is clear that we need more than just personnel or funding increases. We need a new approach to border security. In this age of terrorism, border security is homeland security is national security. We have a duty to the American people to implement legislation that will secure our borders, and that is exactly what we are going to do.

Sam Graves
U.S. Representative
Tarkio, Mo

I read the letter three times, trying to get something salient out of it, but alas, it failed to register as anything more than empty rhetoric.

Apparently, Rep. Graves has as tenuous a grip on recent history - and reality - as the rest of his party. Let’s parse the representative’s words, and take it from the top shall we?

First, the September 11 hijackers entered the country legally, most on student visas. And months after the attacks, several of them, by then known terrorists and dead as doornails, had those visas renewed.

Second, the Representative glibly conflates the issue of border security with the terrorist attacks of September 11, but doesn’t back up his assertion. He just throws the statement out there and expects us to buy it whole cloth.

Third, he pats himself and the rest of this do-nothing congress he is part of on the back for “working hard to tighten our immigration and border security systems to ensure terrorists and other criminals cannot enter our country.” Puh-lease. They put some words on paper, called it the “Real I.D. Act” and pretended they mattered to anyone with firing neurons.

Fourth, he beats the illegal immigrant pony like a redheaded stepchild, but fails to address the fact that it is economics that fuels the flood of undocumented immigrants into this country from the south, and until the social forces that cause people to immigrate to this country seeking a better life are addressed, nothing is going to change. Take that to the bank.

Fifth, the congressman sternly intones “In this age of terrorism, border security is homeland security is national security.” Where to start? How about we start with the fact that none of the 9/11 terrorists entered the US through Mexico? Remember the so-called millennium bomber? Caught at the Canadian border attempting to enter Washington state?

Finally, the congressman ends his letter with (here we cue the Star Spangled Banner) “We have a duty to the American people to implement legislation that will secure our borders, and that is exactly what we are going to do.” Again, puh-lease. Spare me the vainglory like you spared the details, Congressman. What legislation passed in Washington is going to fix the economy of Mexico and turn the tide of immigration from that country? And where in that overblown sense of “duty” to the American people that Mr. Graves and the rest of the Rethuglicans have does the duty to keep us out of illegal and unnecessary wars reside? Where does the duty to preserve our civil liberties and uphold our constitution fit into this red-white-and-blue tinted portrait of virtue? Is this sense of duty what has prompted this congress to rubberstamp every cockamamie idea of the minion-in-chief?

And not a single word about the miles and miles of unprotected coastline that could be penetrated with Phoenician technology (a sailboat for those that missed the snark.) Not a syllable about the fact that only 0.7% of shipping containers are inspected in our ports.

Congressman, join the rest of us and for God’s sake, pull your head out of your ass and clean the crap out of you ears. We are asking real questions and we want real answers, not empty rhetoric, laws that are not worth the paper they are written on and straw men.