the tindog coffeehouse

My wife and I stumbled on to ABC’s new documentary series Homeland Security USA last night, and it turned out to be more interesting than I expected but also pretty frustrating.

The series follows agents from border control, customs, and the TSA as they hunt down illegal immigrants, inspect imported products, and attempt to secure the border against drugs and terrorists. And it’s that “attempt” part that’s so maddening.

The show plays out like an infomercial for the DHS: no illegal aliens evade capture, no drugs or weapons get through the border, every agent gets their man.

But it’s not that simple in real life, is it? For every illegal alien that gets arrested and deported, there are dozens of others who aren’t caught. For every kilo of cocaine found inside a spare tire (bundled in diapers to throw off the dogs!), there’s more that isn’t. For every emotional TSA agent vowing to protect the little children who fly our airlines, there are others who frankly don’t care. For every Swiss belly-dancer trying to enter the country illegally… um… well, OK, that might be a unique case.

Anyway, the point is that while we absolutely need ICE and the TSA and the DHS, it seems like a never-ending cat-and-mouse game. You catch someone trying to cross the border illegally and deport them, but they’ll almost certainly be back again and again until they succeed. How can that not be demoralizing to the agents that have to deal with it day in and day out?

Like most other people, I don’t really have any definitive answers. I don’t know how you can effectively secure the borders by building a huge fence or passing some new legislation. The drugs, the illegal immigration, it’s all fueled by supply and demand. As long as there is a demand for cheap, unskilled, undocumented labor in the U.S., there will be a ready supply. As long as there is a demand for drugs, there will be someone willing to risk their lives to provide them. As long as there is a demand for inexpensive products from other countries, there will be companies willing to cut corners at any cost in order to put them into consumers’ hands.

If anything, I suppose, the point of the show is to remind viewers that there are thousands of men and women out there fighting these battles daily. Believe me, I’m thankful for the all the ones they win. It’s the ones they don’t that we should be concerned about.