Posted on 05/10/2009 11:54:35 AM PDT by HiJinx
To the Editor:
I recently read that Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, urged Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano during public hearings in Washington on April 29 to do more to prevent flu carriers from entering the United States at ports of entry.
Collins reportedly told Napolitano: “I am not advocating closing the borders, but I am advocating for a stepped-up medical presence at the borders … the use of technology, perhaps these scanners that six other countries are using.”
Senator Collins is apparently unaware that undocumented aliens avoid ports of entry, choosing instead to trek across mountains and desert, trespass ranches like mine, cut fences, drain stock watering tanks, to enter the United States illegally.
Does Senator Collins really believe all illegal aliens caught each year are apprehended by Border Patrol at ports of entry? If so, she’s unbelievably misinformed and terribly naïve.
According to the Border Patrol’s apprehension figures, 800,000 undocumented aliens, mostly Mexicans, were apprehended and deported during fiscal 2008. Most were caught in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
But wait, 800,000 represents just a third of those who set out to unlawfully enter our country.
For every undocumented alien caught by Border Patrol, at least two and perhaps as many as three get clean away. Allowing that 95 percent of those deported try again until they succeed, all undocumented aliens bent on illegally entering the United States eventually make it across the border scot-free. How else did the U.S. end up hosting 25 to 30 million illegals?
I, for one, would like to see Senator Collins and her colleagues do more to pressure Secretary Napolitano into securing our international borders. Multiply 800,000 by three and that’s the approximate number of illegals who successfully managed to enter our country just last year — during a time when there was no swine flu epidemic.
Perhaps it will take a really bad swine flu pandemic to wake up Congress to the absurdity of Homeland Security’s half-arsed border security efforts. If a lot of people in this country contract the flu, it won’t be because Mexican carriers walked into the U.S. through ports of entry but because they coughed and wheezed their way across the border, out of sight and out of mind of Border Patrol, public health officials and Secretary Napolitano.
Roger Barnett
Rancher/businessman
Douglas, AZ
Roger Barnett Ping!
Yesterday I flew from Atlanta to Detroit next to a lovely woman who later told me that she lives in Mexico City. She was on her way to Detroit to visit her son. We talked about all the efforts and precautions that are being taken in Mexico City to thwart to the spread of H1N1. Before you can get on a plane there or on the train, you have to touch something that reveals whether or not you have a temperature. You are asked a few questions about your health. If there is any temp or issue, you are not allowed to tavel. This technology is available in Mexico, but unseen throughout my travels this past week in the good ol’ USA. This lady normally could fly direct to Detroit, but now she had to make a few stops into countries that don’t have a problem and then on into the US. She was well equipped with surgical masks and disinfecting wipes. She is an American citizen who lives in Mexico City (husband works there) and is very impressed with the actions the Mexican govt. took to protect the people.
That reinforces the comment made by Sen. Collins re: sensors in use in 6 other countries to detect ill people. As far as that goes, the Senator is correct. We should take advantage of technology to protect ourselves.
The problem is, as Mr. Barnett stated, for every person coming into the US by air or rail, there are a thousand crossing the border between US Ports of Entry. Those thousand individuals are not screened for anything; there is no way to know whether or not the flu comes across the border in the dead of night...
If I didn’t know better I would think that Collins was from Fla. she is so dumb.
Unfortunately, these scanners cannot detect those who are contagious, but asymptomatic. The period where people are contagious, but not yet sick, is not something that a scanner, or any technology can detect. Not that they are not a good idea, because I believe that they are. They cannot prevent the transmission of the flu, only help to prevent the most obvious cases.
Good to hear that the Mexican government had a strong response.
Question.
These new thermometers, the ones that go in your ear, are instant. Why can’t they, during these ‘pandemics’, check people in line for temperatures. I suppose that might present a ‘disinfection’ problem. Does it really take multimillion $$ equipment?
BTW, I wouldn’t be surprised if Collins doesn’t have a clue what goes on down on the border. They don’t read bills, why would they know anything else. We really need to hit these legislooters one at a time, in force with letters, calls until they ‘get it’.
Hello... I think senator casey of pennsylvania is the Susan collins of the Male gender!
for sure!
No offense to Barnett, who should know that Border Patrol has nothing to do with the ports of entry, but every case of swine flu in the US is traceable through a port of entry!
Exactly - the lady I was sitting next to in the plane was only screened in Mexico City - she had to go considerably out of her way to get to Detroit, but she did it all with any “interference” from the US govt.
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More Caca de Toro from La Times...
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-birth9-2009may09,0,7832290.story
What do you think ???
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Thanks for the input, MI.
When I read the editorial this morning, I tended to give Sen. Collins the benefit of the doubt - ‘closing/sealing the border’ has different meanings to different people.
In her statement, she probably wasn’t even thinking about the border so much as the PoEs.
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