The NORTH Border

Remember the argument about terrorists crossing the SOUTH border (aka, the Mexican-US border)? Well, it turns out that all that hoopla was a bunch of bull.

3. Terrorists are likely to cross into the United States from Mexico.

This is a favorite chestnut of some activists and politicians keen to tighten immigration and build a fence on the Mexican border. But the historical record doesn't bear it out. Of course, the past may not be a good predictor of the future, but terrorists have rarely crossed into the United States from Mexico. In a recent Nixon Center study of 373 Islamist terrorists, Robert Leiken and Steven Brooke concluded: "Despite widespread alarms raised over terrorist infiltration from Mexico, we found no terrorist presence in Mexico and no terrorists who entered the U.S. from Mexico." By contrast, the authors found "a sizeable terrorist presence in Canada and a number of Canadian-based terrorists who have entered the U.S." For example, Ahmed Ressam, the Algerian terrorist who tried to blow up Los Angeles International Airport in December 1999, was caught trying to cross the border from Canada into Washington state.

As soon as we stop arguing from an ideological point of view, and argue the facts the better off we will be.