Is US-Mexico Border Secure Enough? Immigration Reform Could Hinge on Answer Lourdes Medrano - The Christian Science Monitor
go to original March 6, 2013

Top DHS Checkpoint Refusals - Checkpoints (some would say illegal checkpoints) have been popping up quite frequently in the USA. As you see in this video, you DO NOT have to comply with their question's or demands. Don't forget, you have rights. (millsmost)

TUCSON, AZ - Travelers on Interstate 19 don't need any "Welcome to Mexico" signs to know that the border is near.

Protesters show support for victims killed by US border patrol agents in 2011. The event was a rally at the US-Mexican border in San Ysidro, Calif., on Feb. 23. (Sandy Huffaker/Reuters)

Twenty-five miles north of the line, a giant white canopy stretches over the northbound lanes, with green-shirted border patrol agents and drug-sniffing dogs buzzing around the checkpoint. Farther south in Nogales, Ariz., green-and-white border patrol vehicles are as conspicuous as yellow cabs in New York, and stadium lights trained on the border fence dwarf the rustic Sonoran homes below.

Ten years ago, the permanent checkpoint, the stadium lights, and the ubiquity of those green-and-white cars would have seemed jarring. But since 9/11, America's southern border has changed. President George W. Bush's most famous surge might have been in Iraq, but along the US-Mexican border, he also presided over a doubling of manpower and a shift in the border patrol's mission to make it a tool in the war on terror.

Now, as Washington considers immigration reform, the border patrol and its mission are again in the spotlight. Many Republicans say reform, without increased border security, is a nonstarter. But Mr. Bush's surge offers lessons about what can realistically be accomplished – and what tops an unfinished to-do list.

Read the whole story at The Christian Science Monitor

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