Outside the Beltway

The Wrong Focus?

· Wednesday, May 9, 2007 · 3 comments

In a update to this post about Michelle Malkin and President Bush on Homeland Security, James made an interesting observation,

It also occurs to me that, if “homeland security” is one’s chief concern, it would make sense to direct one’s limited resources to rounding up potential terrorists than migrant farmworkers.

This seemed quite sensible to me. I’d grant that resources aren’t so limited that we couldn’t also direct some of them towards border security as part of homeland security efforts, but worrying about all the migrant workers who aren’t terrorists seems more than a bit like focusing on the wrong thing (and I think Malkin’s concerns about La Reconquista are just paranoia). Then in looking at Malkin’s blog there is this post,

Update: The names of the suspects via one of the filed complaints:

Dritan Duka (illegal alien); Eliver Duka (illegal alien); Shain Duka (illegal alien)
Serdar Tatar (the pizza deliverer…his family owns a pizzeria near Ft. Dix)
Mohamad Shnewer; Agron Abdullahu

If we worried just about the illegals it seems that some of these guys might have eluded notice at least until the illegal aliens spilled the beans. However, focusing primarily on terrorists would tend to capture both the citizens (legal residents, etc.) as well as the illegals.

FILED UNDER: National Security, Terrorism,
Steve Verdon
About Steve Verdon
Steve has a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles and attended graduate school at The George Washington University, leaving school shortly before staring work on his dissertation when his first child was born. He works in the energy industry and prior to that worked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Division of Price Index and Number Research. He joined the staff at OTB in November 2004.

Comments

  1. Anderson says:
    Wednesday, 9 May 2007 at 08:07

    Pace JJ, that was not one of the best parts — “potential terrorist” could mean “just about anybody.”

  2. carpeicthus says:
    Wednesday, 9 May 2007 at 09:51

    I think the difference is measures that are primarily focused on security — say, tightening and enforcing arms licensing regulation, examining cargo, etc. — versus just focusing on people in general. Terrorism is a smokescreen in immigration policy, since it’s a pretty ineffective way to spend a dollar if security is your goal. There are 300+ million people in America; think we don’t have any legal dangerous idiots? A few of them are on that list above.

  3. Steven Taylor says:
    Wednesday, 9 May 2007 at 13:57

    Further, Malkin’s obsession with illegals is mostly aimed at Latins. The Duka’s are probably illegal in that they entered legally but didn’t leave when they were supposed to (i.e, when their visa’s expired). If they sneaked into the country, then they probably did so from Canada.

    The “Reconquista” business is nothing more than xenophobia.

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