USA Today - A once-radical idea to build a 2,000-mile steel-and-wire fence on the U.S.-Mexican border is gaining momentum amid warnings that terrorists can easily sneak into the country.
In Congress, a powerful Republican lawmaker this week proposed building such a fence across the entire border and two dozen other lawmakers signed on. And via the Internet, a group called weneedafence.com has raised enough money to air TV ads warning that the border is open to terrorists.
Even at the Homeland Security Department, which opposes building a border-long fence, Secretary Michael Chertoff this fall waived environmental laws so that construction can continue on a 14-mile section of fence near San Diego that has helped border agents stem the flow of illegal migrants and drug runners.
"You have to be able to enforce your borders," says California Rep. Duncan Hunter (news, bio, voting record), the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. He's proposing a fence from San Diego to Brownsville, Texas. "It's no longer just an immigration issue. It's now a national security issue."
Rep. Hunter hits the nail on the head. All the airport/customs security in the world doesn't amount to a hill of beans when terrorists can simply wander across our porous southern border with the rest of the 3,000,000+ people who do it every year.