Can't We Just Build A Really, Really Big Wall

There are only 2,000 Border Patrol agents out along the vast Mexican border at any time, and they are not only undermanned but often outgunned. Attacks on them are at record highs--around 200 in the Tucson Sector so far this year, according to Border Patrol. They are increasingly shot at like tin clowns being plinked by high-school hooligans with carnival-booth air rifles--except that it's hot lead flying from smugglers who move aliens and drugs and, in an increasingly common twofer, aliens hauling drugs as their fee for passage.

Not helpful is a negligent President Bush, forever singing the song of homeland vigilance, but providing only 210 additional Border Patrol agents when Congress called for 2,000. All manner of "OTMs" (Other Than Mexicans) are caught crossing the border--119,000 so far this year. Many are released on our home turf with a "notice to appear" for their deportation hearing. (Since last October, 70,624 have been released, including 50 from "special interest" nations, according to Border Patrol.) Many of these OTMs--98 percent in one Texas district--can't be bothered to show up for their hearing, since by the time the special day rolls around they are putting up your siding or driving your cab . . .