The Border Is Broken

According to Senator John McCain, "the border is broken. It's the worst I've ever seen it."

He said this within the last week or so in relation to the passage of Arizona S.B. 1070, relating to the obligation of Arizona peace officers to arrest those suspected of being in Arizona illegally.

Apparently Senator McCain hasn't been watching closely. Or, at all. Or, perhaps he was just saying something he thought sounded good, which wasn't really true. You know. Lying.

Actually, the Border Patrol has nearly doubled in size in the past five years, to more than 20,000 agents. Despite, or perhaps because of, that substantial increase in people patrolling our borders, apprehensions along the U.S.-Mexico border have declined by more than 50 percent over the past four years. Increases in the size of the illegal immigrant population, which had been growing by a half a million people a year for more than a decade, have stopped.

So, the Border Patrol has doubled in size. The number of people those twice-as-many folks can find crossing our borders illegally has dropped by half. And the number of illegal residents of the United States has stopped growing.

Um ... Senator ... exactly what about that is the worst you've ever seen? Are you saying it was better when the Border Patrol was half the size it is now? Or better when more people were crossing our borders illegally? Or better when the population of illegal immigrants in the U.S. was growing?

I'm confused, Senator. Help me out here.