Border Security

- A conservative group pushing for a $4-billion security fence along the Mexican border has run a TV ad showing the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center while claiming "illegal immigration from Mexico provides easy cover for terrorists.

The ad identifies a real problem – scores of persons from Middle Eastern countries are caught each year trying to slip across the southern border, and many more doubtlessly go uncaught. But statistics show twice as many come across the Canadian border. And so far we have little or no evidence that any of them are terrorists.

Furthermore, all the 9/11 hijackers had visas and entered the US legally , mostly through Orlando, Miami, Washington, or New York. None came across the Mexican border. To that extent, the ad is misleading.

But, according to the 9/11 Commission, none of the 9/11 hijackers entered the United States by crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, and all of them had visas issued by the US State Department.