Security, Sensenbrenner, and DarthDoyle, Part 2

Just this morning we mentioned that the Doylies are crying about REAL ID--the Federal legislation which requires States (like Wisconsin) to tighten up issuance of Drivers' Licenses.

The Doylies, led this time by Pedro Colon, cry and wail that it will cost tooooooooo toooooooo much.

Try this:

On Sept. 5, a man calling himself Miguel Alfonso Salinas was apprehended off a deserted highway near the U.S.-Mexico border.

The tinted windows on Alfonso Salinas' vehicle aroused the suspicion of Border Patrol agents patrolling a dark and desolate stretch of Highway 9, which runs parallel to the border and is the site of large numbers of illegal crossings.

The agents discovered three Mexican migrants in the vehicle with Alfonso Salinas.

But what they discovered several days later made a far greater impression.

Alfonso Salinas was not who he seemed, according to U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security documents. He lied to the agents about who he was, where he came from and what he was doing.

It would take nearly a week of interviews with federal agents before Alfonso Salinas would give his real name: Ayman Sulmane Kamal, a Muslim born in Egypt - a country designated as "special-interest" by the United States for sponsoring terrorism.

Kamal's case is not an isolated one.

A terrorist-supporting country. Hmmmmmm.

In 2005, the Border Patrol apprehended approximately 1.2million people illegally in the U.S. Of those, 165,000 were from countries other than Mexico, and roughly 650 were, like Kamal, from special-interest countries, according to the Border Patrol

According to an intelligence report written by the DEA, "La Entrada al Pac fico (Gateway to the Pacific)" - also the name of a Texas-Mexico plan to expand border trade - Asian narcotics traffickers, in collusion with Mexican drug trafficking organizations and terrorist groups, could use expanded trade routes to bring contraband into the United States.

According to DEA intelligence reports, the link between terrorism and narcotics has been well known since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks

It's not just the cartels' connections to Mexican officials and the military that have U.S. intelligence officials and law enforcement worried. It's also the growing evidence that terrorist organizations have become increasingly dependent on narcotics and weapons sales to support their activities, and that they see the Southwest border as an incubator for their activities.

"Intelligence indicates that terrorist organizations are increasingly probing the U.S.-Mexico border," El Paso County Sheriff Leo Samaniego told the House Judiciary Committee in August, during hearings about border security.

Pedro, I don't take this stuff lightly. You can say, "Well, that's the border." True.

But you can't guarantee, Pedro, that those folks aren't migrating to Wisconsin, can you?