Originally Posted by
TSORon
OMNI here we come.
One question and I’ll leave this one alone. “any law that would imprison a citizen”. That word in bold in the main thrust of the entire argument. Your words. Who is and who is not.
In this country we prosecute law breakers, and imprison them. Immigration laws are indeed laws. Here where we try to treat everyone as equally as possible (there are countries who don’t even pretend to do that), why are we giving one class of law breaker a pass?
It’s a complicated subject with many views. We cannot solve it here at TS/S.
But in the interest of trying to keep the TS/S portion of this alive, ID checks at the checkpoint serve several purposes. You can “what if” that away all you like, but fact is fact. Attempting to validate the identity of the individual holding a boarding pass is good practice, but there is nothing in this world that is 100%, and most things don’t even come close to 100%. Attempting is better than not attempting, and criminals are not the smartest people in the world (Yes, terrorists are also criminals).
Control of borders with ID checks is ok, but ID checks to enter the sterile area of an airport is totally different because TSA is only authorized to screen for WEI.
A person with ID or no ID is of no greater risk to have or not have WEI. The screening for those items is not dependent on ID and TSA is not conducting a dragnet for violations of the law, at least TSA is not suppose to be doing such dragnets.
As far as illegals, I think the first step is to prohibit any government paid services to people who are in the country illegally. No tax supported assistance of any kind. Then any employer who is found to have in their employment illegals would suffer serious penalties including prison.
As a country we have to make being illegal so painful that no one will want to be in that position.