Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Because cameras solve everything

U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Saks, said a couple of months ago that a contract to use surveillance cameras to guard the United States' 2,067-mile border with Mexico was a waste of tax money. But after a tour of a few border areas last week, he thinks cameras are a great way to fight illegal immigration, The Birmingham News reports today.

Rogers also wants Congress to pay to hire 10,000 more border agents over the next five years and to pass the Border Protection Corps Act, which would "create organized militias to catch illegal border crossers and turn them in." U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Texas, who was on the same trip as Rogers, blasts the militia plan as "dangerous," "foolish," and "anti-immigration hysteria."