Non-Discrimination in Border Enforcement

By Mark Krikorian on April 1, 2009

No, I don't mean avoiding profiling of people at the border. Instead, the Obama administration is avoiding profiling of borders themselves. The kind of camera towers that are part of the "virtual fence" along segments of the Mexican border are now planned for the northern border as well. On its own, this is probably a good idea, but DHS Secretary Napolitano revealed the administration's thinking behind the move when she told a border conference last week that "One of the things that we need to be sensitive to is the very real feelings among southern border states and in Mexico that if things are being done on the Mexican border, they should also be done on the Canadian border." In other words, this is just the global application of the Norman Mineta Doctrine that Norwegian-American grannies from South Dakota pose exactly the same risk as single, young, Muslim men from Saudi Arabia.