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Discussion Post 1

Decent Essays

1) Is current immigration policy seriously treated as a national security issue? How was it treated prior to September 11th? 2) Was lax border enforcement the only factor that caused the September 11, 2001, attack? 3) What does open, but closed borders mean? After reading the assigned material, I have come to some pretty harsh realizations concerning immigration policy and how it relates to national security both pre and post 9/11. Up until taking this course, I paid only a passing interest to border security. I had some rather broad opinions on its impact on the border states, the enforcement agencies responsible for patrolling the borders, and the porous nature of the seemingly impossibility of accomplishing this task along …show more content…

9/11. Searching every person attempting to board a flight is easy compared to securing a huge land border. While national security is taken seriously concerning border crossings, it is also a contentious political subject. Politicians and business leaders have a large stake in keeping the border as open as possible and (I suppose) must balance this need with also defending the nation and meeting immigration laws. It is a mess that is made all the more difficult by the fourth amendment rights afforded every person from unreasonable search and seizure. The report “Protecting Our Perimeter: “Border Searches” under the Fourth Amendment” highlights the difficulties placed on border agents when it concerns searching people at or around the border. This coupled with the impossibility of searching 100% of all people entering or leaving the country by land, truly endangers national security as a whole. Where the fourth amendment is concerned, I feel the last sentence in the report really sums up the difficulty: Implementation of these and other border security measures might raise Fourth Amendment concerns, forcing courts to reconsider the parameters of the border search exception — this time, however, within the context of the “age of terrorism.” I wonder if a large terrorist attack occurred and was directly linked with the porous nature of the land border,

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