Bogeyman du jour

A resident of Bessemer recently wrote to The Birmingham News' editorial page and commended the paper for its series on immigration. In her comments she said:

[Immigrants] come from many countries, and some of them are probably terrorists.

To reference an old saying, when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Apparently it is not enough to encourage enforcement of immigration laws for the sake of immigration policy. We must now enforce the immigration laws because of all the terrorists slipping across the border from Mexico.

Now, I'm not saying that terrorists aren't smart enough to exploit a real hole in our nation's borders (although obviously we have not encountered waves of terrorism imported from Mexico). And I'm not saying that we shouldn't be imaginative when trying to determine our national security weaknesses.

But I grow tired of hearing that defeating the bogeyman du jour (e.g., terrorism, communism) is a primary reason for any and every conceivable action government may take.