Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Colin A Hanna, the president of WeNeedaFence.com, a group seeking federal legislation to build a security barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border.

 
FP: Colin Hanna, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
 
Hanna: Thanks, Jamie.  As a long-time admirer of David Horowitz, it's good to be with you. 
 
FP: Tell us the urgency you see in our Homeland Security situation today that you believe necessitates a group such as yours and the objectives you seek to achieve.
 
Hanna: Many Americans are rightly concerned about the illegal immigration problem, particularly across our southern border. There are upwards of a million illegals a year that are apprehended attempting to enter our country, and probably three to five times that many who are not caught.  So the problem is clearly out of control.  Alarming as those large numbers are, however, what is most disturbing to me is a much smaller subset of these numbers: the several hundred aliens from terrorism-sponsoring or terrorism-harboring countries like Iran, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, and Sudan. Just ask yourself, what are a bunch of Syrians or Iranians doing in Mexico trying to enter the United States illegally?  Is it so that they can taste a McDonald's burger on its home turf?  I doubt it.  And remember, the 9/11 attack that cost over 3,000 lives was the result of the coordinated acts of only 19 illegal aliens.  So the level of illegal immigration from so-called "special interest" countries ought to be matter of sincere and urgent concern.

FP: Especially horrifying is what the terrorists who are easily entering through the Mexican border are bringing with them. They can now carry small weapons that can produce devastating carnage. Can you talk a bit about that?

Hanna: The national security risk from terrorists attempting entry into the US is not defined by what US authorities are known to have found and confiscated, but rather by what kinds of devices terrorists potentially could bring with them.  Syndicated columnist Deroy Murdock has written: "A member of the private American Border Patrol last year carried a fake suitcase bomb — complete with a large radiation symbol painted on its side — from inside Mexico, across the Arizona border, to within feet of Tucson's federal building." 

That's cause for real concern.  Technology has so miniaturized weapons of mass destruction, whether nuclear, chemical or biological, that small packages can now wreak a level of havoc that previously required much larger devices and greater manpower to transport them.  A single terrorist may now carry a backpack or suitcase-sized device that could claim the lives of many thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands, of innocent citizens.

FP: So a border security fence might be a solution to this problem. Tell us, what kind of fence do you envision and how effective do you think it could be? How realistic is this?

Hanna: In order for it be worth the cost of construction and worth putting some measure of faith in, a fence must provide a meaningful physical barrier that is not easily compromised.  That means that it cannot be easily cut thorough, climbed over or tunneled under.  The Israeli fences in Gaza and the west Bank are multi-stage affairs roughly 40 to 50 yards wide, with fences, ditches, patrol roads, cameras and motion detectors.  That kind of width, along with the actual metal barriers and detection devices, makes it extremely difficult to get through.  A state-of-the-art border fence does not need to look like the Berlin Wall (which was designed to keep people in, not out) or the Great Wall of China.   It should more closely resemble parallel bands of agricultural fencing.  Also, there should be a considerable number of ports of entry in the fence, staffed by Border Patrol agents, to permit commerce, tourism and legitimate commuting.  The fence that we propose is between allies and trading partners, after all, and should serve as a barrier only to illegal entry.

FP: How does the potential terrorist threat posed in your television commercials affect the overall debate on the need for a secure border fence?

Hanna: If it was the economic impact of illegal immigration, or the social services costs, or their impact on drugs and crime, then a substantial reduction in the volume of illegal immigrants would be considered great progress, and perhaps that could be achieved without a fence.  But when the concern is a relatively small number of trained, committed terrorists, just reducing their numbers is not enough.  Only a state-of-the-art border security fence will provide the kind of barrier required.

FP: As you know, President Bush favors a guest worker program as one of the key elements of his plan to address the illegal immigration problem.  Is the kind of fence you are proposing compatible with a guest worker program?

Hanna: We argue that a guest worker program is not likely to work unless there is a fence, for the simple reason that without truly securing the border first, merely modifying immigration rules and quotas ignores the present day reality that legal immigration now accounts for less than half of all immigration.  Talking about a guest worker program without securing the borders first is just whistling into the wind.  You may hear yourself, but you don’t really affect anything.

FP: What opposition has there been to the idea of building a security barrier? Why are they against the idea? And what alternatives do they propose to this deadly problem?

Hanna:  Much of the opposition is instinctive and emotional, rather than rational, philosophical or political.  Particularly among Americans who do not live near the border and thus don’t have much first-hand familiarity with the many problems associated with illegal immigration, a security barrier initially strikes them as unfriendly and exclusionary.  Some even say “un-American.”  But recognition that we are indeed a nation of immigrants should include the provision that we are a nation of legal immigrants – and what is un-American about upholding the rule of law as one of the essential pillars of a free society? 

When people think their way through this complex problem, they almost invariably come to the conclusion that no other alternative solution is as likely to be effective.  They typically propose no alternative solutions because, basically, there are none. Occasionally you hear someone make naive and childlike comments about building bridges instead of fences, but there’s no intellectual rigor to such wishful thinking.

FP: What do you make of the recent McCain-Kennedy immigration bill and can it reasonably be expected to cure our immigration woes?

Hanna: To say that it is not de facto amnesty is to engage in self-delusion, and of course amnesty should be unacceptable to anyone but someone trying to build a political base on the backs of the forgiven lawbreakers.  The Kyl-Cornyn bill provides a more palatable way around the conundrum posed by illegals who contribute positively to American society and our economy, by requiring them to return home and then re-qualify under the new program when they re-enter.  But even that bill has its problems. 

We do not take a position in favor of or in opposition to a guest worker program.  What we say is that a fence is entirely compatible with a guest worker program, and in fact a guest worker program will almost certainly be ineffective without a fence to secure the border against illegal immigration.  So if you favor a guest worker program, we need a fence first.  And if you oppose a guest worker program, we need a fence. 

FP: So what are you doing to have this fence built and what are the possibilities that it will be built?

Hanna: We need to get a bill introduced in Congress that calls for a fence like the one we have advocated, or we need to get our fence proposal added to another immigration reform bill. By the end of this week, I will have met with 30 Congressional offices – Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals, from Border States, other states, key Committee members, etc – and I am very encouraged by their reaction. 

There’s already a scaled-down version of what we’ve proposed introduced by Representative Steve King of Iowa, and I am aware of another proposal that is very close to our proposal that should be ready within a month or two.  If that proposal is close enough to what we think is necessary, we’ll get behind it with a petition drive, an Internet campaign, paid TV and radio spots and a nationwide PR campaign.  If it falls short, we’ll keep walking the halls of Congress until we recruit a sponsor. 

The bottom line is not hard to grasp:  we really do need a fence, and there is wide public support for one.  If we can show the breadth and depth of that support, eventually leaders will emerge to get in front of the wave of pubic support.  We intend to be a major catalyst in the process, and we won’t quit.

FP: Mr. Hanna, thank you for joining us today.

Hanna: Thank you Jamie.