Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

So now it's my turn to weigh in on the political firestorm du jour that is the immigration debate. Rather than address any of the most contentious issues at this time, however, let me take this opportunity to state, for the record, that I cannot understand how anyone could oppose President Bush's plan to build 370 miles of triple-layer fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Look, I love to travel to all sorts of new and interesting foreign countries. But I also realize there are procedures that need to followed. When you arrive in a new country, you must clear customs and get your passport stamped (which is one of my favorite things about travel). The reason is that every country, as an exercise of its national sovereignty, has the right to secure its borders and ensure that any visitors pass through the proper channels, where they can be denied entry as a security threat or a risk to overstay their visa.

We can argue all day about whether illegal aliens who have snuck into this country and managed to evade the authorities for two decades deserve a "path to citizenship," or whether employing one of those aliens should constitute a felony. But, for the life of me, I cannot see how anyone could reasonably oppose making it for difficult for those people to sneak into the country in the first place and ensure that all visitors to the United States must pass through the proper channels. I agree that our current immigration system is heavily bloated with red tape, and one of the best ways to make people respect the rule of law is to streamline the process and make it possible for people to actually comply, disincentivizing the need to sneak in illegally. But whether the system is streamlined or not, illegal entry is just that: illegal. And last time I checked, countries have the right to protect against illegal activities.

We have a fundamental right to make our borders airtight. Good fences do make good neighbors, because they keep the bad neighbors out.