Free, Free, Set Them Free!
Heather MacDonald tells a story, not-to-be-believed, but true, in the New York Post, of illegal immigrants sneaking into Vermont, who are simply let loose into this country, and warned that they'd better show up at a deportation hearing. Wooo, how intimidating. Wonder what the count is on how many of them are stone-dumb enough to show up?

Every week, agents in the border patrol's Swanton sector catch Middle Easterners and North Africans sneaking into Vermont. And every week, they immediately release those trespassers with a polite request to return for a deportation hearing. Why? The Department of Homeland Security failed to budget enough funding for sufficient detention space for lawbreakers.

In May alone, Swanton agents released illegal aliens from Malaysia, Pakistan, Morocco, Uganda and India without bond. Since all these aliens chose to evade the visa process, none has had a background check by a consular official that might have uncovered terrorist connections. All are now at large in the country.

The failure to interdict northern trespassers is particularly worrisome, since Canada is a proven springboard for terrorists. Ahmed Ressam, the Algerian caught at the Canadian border with 100 pounds of explosives destined for the Los Angeles airport in December 1999, ran an al Qaeda cell in Montreal, despite having previously been ordered deported by the Canadian government. Two of the seven most wanted al Qaeda members are naturalized Canadians.

This "catch and release" policy is in force all across the country for the same reason: no detention space. On June 8, agents in the Las Cruces, N.M., station apprehended three illegal Pakistanis and promptly let them go. The same day, guards at Texas' Uvalde station released a Bosnian wanted on an Interpol warrant for aggravated rape.

The number of people caught at the southern border from "countries of interest" — terror dens — is on the rise: This year's list includes people from Afghanistan, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Yemen and — in greatest numbers — Pakistan. Law-enforcement authorities told The Washington Times that al Qaeda is well aware of the border patrol's detention-space crisis and resulting "catch-and-release" policy, which it hopes to exploit to loose its agents into the country.

If the government were serious about ending illegal entry and its threat to national security, it would fund adequate detention space. Instead, the Bush administration plans to add only 117 new detention beds in 2005 (while probably losing another 1,400 beds for failure to reimburse county and local jails for the space it rents from them).

The government is serious -- serious about funding abstinence programs that have been proved not to work (kids in them do wait to have sex [about a year and a half later], but when they do, they are, of course, unprepared to protect themselves from pregnancy and disease). The tough-on-terror stance? Lip-service!