From Matt Welch, at Reason, via Alex Knapp, comes this idiotic rant about how 9/11 has prompted the INS to actually enforce the laws on the books, and how this is a Bad Thing.

On this point, the new Buchananites have a powerful ally: The Department of Homeland Security. Since the Immigration and Naturalization Service was disbanded on March 1, all oversight of the border and immigration has fallen under the single new bureaucracy, which has been busy enforcing a series of rules the INS had long let lapse, all in the name of preventing terrorism.

...

This news should cheer immigration-reformers who have been repeating the mantra "but they broke the law!" for years. (Presumably, these people have never jaywalked or written the wrong date on a check, and were among the loudest critics of President George Bush for appointing convicted felon Elliot Abrams to the office of the National Security Council.)

But ignored laws, suddenly enforced, will do more than weed out criminals and terrorists. It will drive people—including good, hard-working people—into the deepest of the black markets, never to interact with a government agency except maybe in the emergency room, or at the local jail.

Got that? Illegally crossing into a foreign country is just like jaywalking. Oops...I just jaywalked right over the U.S. border.

And I don't know how anyone could argue that doing a better job with enforcement and tracking of immigrants to this country isn't more important after 9/11. What does Matt Welch want? A slackening of immigration laws?