Other Columns by Kevin Fobbs
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This past week Texas Governor Rick Perry sent out what has now become a familiar alarm. He was frustrated and angry about what appears to be the inability of our nation to handle the teeming millions of illegal alien immigrants who are invading our borders daily.

Governor Perry has thrown down the gauntlet and, working with advisors from the Arizona Minuteman and Civil Defense Project, has developed what he is referring to as a comprehensive blueprint for securing the Texas border with Mexico. Part of that security element involves the use of the Texas National Guard.

Perry believes that the illegal alien problem is now a border security emergency because drug violence and unparalleled illegal immigration is washing across the border into the towns and cities of his state.

He is adamant about protecting the lives of his state's citizens. He said that he is not going to allow his constituents to continue to be placed in the type of danger where their lives, their homes and their communities are put at risk and the economy and their health are seriously and irreparably jeopardized.

Some, like Cindy Sheehan -- who is busy trying to hustle around the nation in a seriously misguided attempt to convince the state governors to pull their National Guard troops out of combat in Iraq -- would probably engage themselves in a new ill-advised cause of challenging the authority of the governors to place their troops on their own state border (especially if it gained them another 15 minutes of fame -- but that's another story).

The ever media hungry Cindy Sheehan and MoveOn.org would probably come up with a catchy campaign theme like, "Let The Illegals In...Bring The Border Troops Home... Get Them Off Their Border" -- like the National Guard should only be just another government subsidized scholarship program with free discipline instruction -- but not too tough.

Cindy Sheehan aside, there are probably those who would have serious misgivings about using state National Guard troops to protect the state's borders between the United States and Mexico. Those who support this proposition would be incorrect in assuming that a state's sovereign right is not to protect life, liberty and security of its citizens.

Governor Perry makes an airtight case for his recommendation to use his state's National Guard. He believes they should be utilized as part of an overall strategy for Texas to be able to take control of its own border. The proof is in the numbers. Over 119,000 illegal aliens have crossed his Texas border this year and guess what; they are not just from Mexico but from countries like Brazil, El Salvador, Iraq and Iran. Do al-Qaida operatives come to mind? Well they should.

According to reports of President Bush's statement this week in signing the Department of Homeland Security's Appropriation Act for 2006 he said, "To defend our border we've got to enforce our borders. When our borders are not secure, terrorists and drug dealers and criminals find it easier to come to America."

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