All you folks in Texas,New Mexico,AZ+Southern Kalifornia.I know the security has been beefed up at the border crossing points,but have we done anything to stop the foot trafic out in the desert?In my opinion,this has been a major breech of security for a long time.

Yes.

I live in San Diego, Occupied California Republic.

Yesterday (Friday) morning during rush hour, during which many thousands of people commute north (legally) to work in the southwestern OCR, the wait to cross the border in a car was reported as 2 hours.  Normally it's about 30 - 45 minutes at that time of day.

What I found strange was that they were reporting a 3-hour delay crossing the border northward on foot.  Normally the delay is negligible, 10 - 15 minutes even at the busiest times.

I've heard from the backcountry that the Border Patrol is out in greater force than normal.  I think most people don't realize just how big the border really is.  Even keeping the stretch through San Diego County completely locked down against foot traffic would require many times the number of BP agents we have now.

One of the most effective checkpoints against illegal immigration and smuggling is the San Onofre checkpoint just south of San Clemente, which scrutinizes all northbound traffic on Interstate 5.  To get to anywhere north of Camp Pendleton without going through it requires a major detour to the east.  Usually it's in operation only about half the time.  No doubt it's on duty 7/24 now.

I live in the south eatser corner of Az.
The B.P. has reopened thier check points on the main hiwayshere. Went to Mexico day before yesterday, Customs was checking all vehicles coming in very closely as well as most vehicles leaving. Walking through was pretty much the same as it has always been, except they checked id.
Mexicans had armed police on thier side posted near the p.o.e.
Have seen many more illeagles being picked up in the last few days than I have seen in the last couple of months.
As far as the desert goes, I haven't seen much going on axcept on the roads.
Btw this is the Douglas Port of Entry.
Customs agents were wearing black bands on thier badges. Border Patrol was not.

I'm glad to hear our Southern Border is getting some attention.You folks who live there,watch your six.

A little bit late. The "Terrorists" have been living in the U.S. for many years now and have already built up their "Cell Networks".

Undoubtedly there are many here now.But if we don't lock the doors and bar the windows there will definately be more.In the recent past,illegals have been walking over the border by the hundreds.Cutting fences and malicously depleting watering tanks left unlocked for their benefit.

That's a good sign, but I thought they were coming through the northern border?

A quick way to seal up our leaky southern border would be to have the border patrol agents shoot a magazine or two parallel to the border every half hour or so. The mexicans will believe they will get shot if they try an illegal entry. It would be pretty cheap, kind of fun, and possibly effective.

That should've been mined years ago...

Defending America Against International
Terrorism Requires Better Screening of Aliens

(WASHINGTON - September 12, 2001)

"The heinous terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. yesterday that cost the nation many lives demonstrate anew the need to defend our country better by stopping the easy entry into our country by terrorists" said Dan Stein, executive director of FAIR. "The nation's defense against terrorism has been seriously eroded by the efforts of open-borders advocates, and the innocent victims of today's terrorist attacks have paid the price."

It will take time to identify the perpetrators of these mindless, bloodthirsty actions. Only then will we learn how they entered the United States. Initial evidence, however, indicates that foreign terrorists perpetrated this horrible crime against our nation. Past experience has shown that foreign terrorists take advantage of our lax border enforcement, gaping holes in our legal immigration laws and our political asylum process.

The United States is an open, democratic society, and we cannot shut our country off from the world in an effort to protect our people from terrorism. But we can do a much better job of controlling who comes into our country and who stays here.

The first challenge is to better control our borders against people who sneak into the country. Border control today is seriously weakened by the enormous flow of illegal aliens coming to find jobs. Border Patrol operations have been further complicated by the near total collapse of interior enforcement. This trend has accelerated in recent years with the complicity of Congress and the Clinton and Bush Administrations.

Reforms adopted in 1996 aimed at regulating the flow of foreigners into our country and identifying those who stay on in violation of their visas have not been implemented and some members of Congress are now trying to abolish them. Similarly, bills now pending in Congress would weaken the anti-terrorism provisions adopted in 1996. Yesterday's attacks demonstrate that our national security requires that those efforts to weaken the nation's defenses be defeated.

Second, we must close the loophole that allows illegal aliens to gain permanent residence in the United States without ever having to return to their home countries for full security screening by our overseas embassies. That loophole, Section 245(i), both reduces the nation's defense against undesirable immigrants and encourages others to try the same route to residence in our country.

Finally, we must restore our political asylum policy to its original intent, which was a policy that permits individuals who are legally present in the United States when some unforeseen event makes it impossible to return home safely to remain here temporarily. It was not intended to be a policy that allows aliens to elbow their way into our country and then appeal for permanent residence on the basis of claimed persecution in their homeland.  In recent years, the definition of who is a refugee has been stretched to include people who suffer from harsh family or societal treatment. This has opened our doors to people never contemplated in the definition of refugee.

"Only by restoring an orderly process over admission of immigrants and temporary visitors will we gain greater security for our people against terrorists," noted Stein.

Mattja,I've never heard of Canadians sneaking over the border by the hundreds.I don't know if the terrorists that hijacked the planes slipped in one of our borders or simply entered through an airport.We are in a state of WAR now.

I heard Canada's airport security is pretty weak so some of the bad guys were entering through the north after flying to Canada. But it difficult to believe their airport security is weaker than Mexico's.

Up till now everyones security has been TOKEN,including ours.

Striker, same problem here. That seems to be the most common ploy. I guess that's one drawback to having an open society.