Legalization Would Enhance National Security

The impulse to crackdown on undocumented immigrants toimprove national security has been hard to resist since 9/11. After all, the 19hijackers were foreigners who somehow made it into the country to commit evil.But foreign terrorists have nothing to do with the 10 or 11 undocumentedimmigrants (mostly Mexican) who are here.

The 9/11 Commission’s investigation revealed that thehijackers entered the United States a total of 33 times using either tourist orstudent visas. They arrived through ten different airports, though more thanhalf came in through Miami, JFK, or Newark. All but two of the hijackers wereadmitted with tourist visas and were admitted for the customary six-month visitorsperiod. One hijacker had a student visa and was admitted for a stay of twoyears, while another sought and was admitted for a stay of 20 days. AlthoughU.S. law allows nationals of certain countries to enter without visas on areciprocal basis under the visa waiver program, none of the 9/11 hijackers werenationals of a visa waiver country. None of the 9/11 hijackers entered or triedto enter without inspection across the land borders with Mexico or Canada.

Immigration legislation passed in the House in December(Sensenbrenner bill) and the legislation debated in the Senate last weekcontain clear commitments to stronger immigration enforcement, but fail to takewhat some might deem the counterintuitive step of legalization the undocumentedpopulation in the name of national security. Why would legalizing theundocumented population improve national security? The answer is fairlyobvious.

As a matter of logic, granting legalization and encouragingthe undocumented to surface would seem to be more conducive to nationalsecurity. None of the 19 hijackers entered the country illegally across a landborder. Most entered with tourists visas, and one with a student visa. Fifteenwere Saudi nationals. All but one obtained some form of U.S. identificationdocument, some by fraud. Given the difference between the terrorists andundocumented migration from Mexico, taking actions that would further alienatethe undocumented population in response to 9/11 makes little sense. Althoughthe 9/11 attacks revealed serious management and resource deficiencies in thebureaucracies that administer our borders, U.S. immigration laws in and ofthemselves did not increase our vulnerability to attack. In fact, U.S. immigration laws already are among thetoughest in the world and have long provided the federal government with broadpowers to prevent anti-American terrorists from entering or residing in theUnited States.

The connection between the September 11 attacks and illegalimmigration from Mexico is tenuous. Legalizing and regularizing the movement ofworkers across the U.S.-Mexican border could enhance our national security bybringing much of the underground labor market into the open, encouraging newlydocumented workers to cooperate fully with law enforcement officials, andfreeing resources for border security and the war on terrorism.

National security experts have recognized the connectionbetween legalization and the nation’s safety. Before stepping down as the firstSecretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge recognized that a legalizationprogram would be necessary to “come to grips with the presence of 8 to 12million illegals.” Ridge’s Undersecretary of Border and TransportationSecurity, Asa Hutchinson, appearing before a Senatecommittee in 2004, noted, “Illegal entry across our borders makes moredifficult the urgent task of securing the homeland. Our homeland will be moresecure when we can better account for those who enter our country, instead ofthe current situation in which millions of people are unknown.” ProfessorMargaret Stock, a national security expert at West Point, has noted, “Bybringing the people that are here out of the shadows, and creating an orderlymechanism for identifying and documenting the low-risk individuals who travelto this country to work, and by curbing policies such as separating familiesthat entice otherwise low-risk individuals to cross the border illegally, acomprehensive immigration reform plan would help these initiatives better focuson those who have come here to do us harm.” 

The choice is clear: legalizing undocumented workers coupledwith ways to regularize the flow of foreign workers is in the interest of ournational security and constitutes a step that would aid our country in itsefforts to combat terrorism. By offering a program that would encourageundocumented workers to come forward, we would be able to conduct backgroundchecks on a large group that currently lives underground, while freeing upinvestigative resources to concentrate on real threats of terror at the borderand within our shores.

bh