Perhaps they should look south
The Department of Homeland Security sees Morses Line as a weak link in the nation’s borders, attractive to terrorists trying to smuggle in lethal materials. The government is planning an estimated $8 million renovation here as part of a nationwide effort to secure border crossings.
It intends to acquire 4.9 acres of border land on a dairy farm owned for three generations by the Rainville family. Last month, the Rainvilles learned that if they refuse to sell the land for $39,500, the government intends to seize it by eminent domain.
Really? A bit of land in Vermont is where they wonder about loose borders.
May 18th, 2010 at 10:16 am
Well, if they did look to the south, that would be racist, you know.
May 18th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
Sounds like business as usual for the government. They need five acres to keep the cow molesters from illegally crossing the border and wreaking havoc on the farm.
May 18th, 2010 at 12:14 pm
“Well, if they did look to the south, that would be racist, you know.”
Yeah, it would be. If you’re serious about defending the border, you’re serious about defending the entire border. Not just the one that has brown people on the other side. Canada has fairly generous political asylum laws, and it’s a known priority for various Islamic fundamentalist groups to recruit in Canada (http://www.adl.org/terror/tu/tu_0401_canada.asp).
May 18th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
No wonder VT wants to secede. This is all being done because they can’t find anyone on the border who refuses to sell their land for a pittance in order to build a fence, which is one of their favorite excuses for NOT building the fence. They just want to say “Look! Every time we try to build a fence, we have to use eminent domain and we get lots of resistance!” To them, it doesn’t matter where the fence is, it’s just an excuse.
May 18th, 2010 at 1:28 pm
yeah, i see all these illegal canadian muslims wreaking havoc all over the northern UD.
Oh, wait. That’s not happening at all.
suck it.
May 18th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
You’re absolutely right, ray, because looking south would be based entirely on race and not based on where the vast majority of illegal immigrants have actually entered the country.
We’ve got to keep all those illegal Canadian immigrants from getting onto our welfare rolls, eh?
May 18th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
My kid ran home from school one day excited because “I go to school with illegal immigrants!”
“Yeah, no shit,” we thought, being residents of the southwest.
“They’re Canadian!” he said.
They’re white and speak English (oddly, but still), so it’s OK, right? No need to seal that border.
BTW, most border crime is committed by American citizens. Americans made up about 100 percent of my caseload when I was a prosecutor here in the SW. Drunk driving, wife beating, little girl touching goddam . . .oh, wait. How ideologically impure of me.
May 18th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
Apparently I touched a nerve by pointing out the obvious.
ATLien:
A lot of reason for the lack of the same havoc on the northern border is because how free and easy it is to transport drugs across the porous border. But of course, Mexican drug dealers are worse than Canadian ones.
And I was just saying that to your Mom.
Jake:
If you’re worried about welfare rolls, repeal/reform welfare laws. Are you saying you’re fine with Mexicans or whomever entering the country illegally as long as they don’t wind up on welfare?
May 18th, 2010 at 3:14 pm
No, I’m not. Illegal is illegal. Sarcasm doesn’t seem to be transmitting too well over the interwebs today, so I’ll be serious for a moment.
I don’t dispute that we do need to pay attention to the northern border, just like the southern border. What I’m trying to point out is how this illustrates the government’s fundamental un-seriousness about security. They’re spending $8 million and threatening eminent domain to reinforce a border with insignificant penetration, while the southern border resembles a sieve more than a border.
Politics makes for stupid decisions. There are so many places on the southern border where that money and effort could be much more effectively spent, but the southern border has recently become a political hot potato, which is stupid. Compare the number of illegal Mexican immigrants to the number of illegal Canadian immigrants, then try to tell me with a straight face that we shouldn’t be focusing a massive effort on the southern border before we worry about the northern one.