Welcome to America. Thank you for entering unlawfully. Please pass on into our country and show up for a deportation hearing if you feel inclined.

New York Post Online Edition: postopinion:
"Every week, agents in the border patrol's Swanton sector [Vermont and part of New York] 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."

This is one of several interesting tidbits in a NY Post opinion column by Heather MacDonald of the Manhattan Institute. Here is another:
" In 2003, authorities busted Mexico's consul in Lebanon for selling fake visas for up to $4,500. Her ring had smuggled about 300 Lebanese into the U.S. from Tijuana from 1999 to November 2002."

The borders are sieves, "catch and release" (the policy that turned young Malvo, the junior partner of the Beltway sniper team loose on America) is a cruel joke, the administration has no interest whatsoever in enforcing our border controls. That last may sound extreme, but Ms. MacDonald notes that the government has asked for only 117 new detention spaces in 2005 while it may lose as many as 1,400 beds for failure to pay promptly or adequately for rented space in local jails across the country.