Forty-Four Illegal Entry Attempts: No Reason Not to Keep Trying

Consequences of unlawful entry depend on who’s threatened. This weekend, Omar J. Gonzalez scaled the White House fence and managed to open the door to the executive mansion. Law enforcement officials promptly arrested Gonzalez who was armed with a folding knife.

Americans are duly concerned about the lax White House security that allowed the breach and could have put President Obama at risk. But citizens are equally worried about nonexistent border and interior immigration enforcement that allows hundreds of illegal entries daily and ignores visa overstayers who infiltrate mainstream America where they take jobs, collect social services and otherwise infringe on citizens’ rights. Even though first-time illegal entry is a misdemeanor and two or more are a felony, arrests are rare.

Despite Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid’s insistence that the border is secure and Obama’s insulting comments directed at the GOP suggesting that it wants to build a moat and stock it with alligators, illegal immigration continues unabated with little disincentive for aliens not to keep trying until they finally get in. On Friday, U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) told an audience that during his recent border trip, an agent confided in him that he had caught the same alien 44 times.

The alien’s tenacity goes counter to comedian/actor W.C. Fields’ wisdom of an earlier era. Fields came up with this variation of an often quoted proverb: “If at first you don’t succeed, try again. Then quit. There’s no sense in being a damn fool about it.”

If Fields were alive, he’d have to revise his thinking to allow for preposterous U.S. immigration nonenforcement. Aliens’ multiple unlawful entries carry no penalty for them. But for Americans, the consequences can be dire.