Over the past four years, politicians have tried to fold every issue imaginable into the “war on terror.” The temptation is understandable. It would be wonderfully convenient if America’s disparate problems all had the same solution — if the government could ease Americans’ economic and cultural anxieties about illegal immigration at the same time it safeguarded them against the jihadist threat. Unfortunately, it can’t. And when politicians conflate immigration and terrorism, they not only subtly tar illegal Mexican immigrants as violently anti-American, which they are not, but they also give Americans a false sense of security. Sinking billions into enforcement along the southern border may or may not safeguard American culture and American jobs, but it will do precious little to protect American lives. ~Peter Beinart, The Washington Post

Mr. Beinart does have a point that the tendency to roll everything into the “war on terror” rubric is ludicrous in the lengths to which politicians will take it. No one has gone as far as to say, “We must reform Social Security to win the hearts and minds of potential recruits for al-Qaeda…,” but it is only a matter of time at this rate. That being said, nothing in his piece convinces me that the southern border is the “wrong” place to stop terrorists, only that the northern border is equally important.

The solutions to jihadi threats and illegal immigration are not the same, but it is the sorry state of our national debate on immigration that the only way most politicians feel confident about supporting border security against illegal immigrants is by covering it up in a national security coating. One might get the impression that Mr. Beinart is markedly less troubled by the intense diversion of resources from our primary antiterrorist efforts that the Iraq war itself represents than he is by $2 billion dedicated to reinforcing a porous southern border. Besides, what does he have to complain about? In today’s Congress, $2 billion is chump change compared to the umpteen hundreds of billions poured into our misbegotten colony, er, free and sovereign ally.