Boston tragedy raises questions of immigration reform

The Boston Marathon bombing this past week has proven once again that although the United States’ national security net grows ever stronger, it is still penetrable.Most people accepted the Orwellian implications associated with the Patriot Act and other post 9/11 security measures, with the assumption that America would be guarded from similar events in the future. Unfortunately, fighting terrorism on a global scale is a nearly hopeless process where intelligence lapses seem less of an exception than the rule.Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano testified to this difficulty when she addressed a Senate panel on Tuesday.Napolitano acknowledged that the FBI closed an investigation on bombing suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, before he took a trip last year to a hotbed for Islamic extremist activity, the North Causacus region of Russia. The bureau stopped monitoring Tamerlan because they needed more substantial information to continue legally, and they were apparently unaware of his destination when he left the States.Napolitano, referring to Tamerlan’s travels, told senators, “Yes, the system pinged when he was leaving the United States. By the time he returned, all investigations — the matter had been closed.”A potential casualty of the Boston bombings could be immigration reform, which President Obama and his fellow Democrats have been pushing hard for. However, contrary to popular post 9/11 national security philosophy, Democrats continue to advocate their recent immigration bill.Amidst dissent from Republicans who wish to hold off reform until the Boston incident is further examined, Democrats have framed their bill as a potential counter terrorism measure. Napolitano, for one, believes that the immigration reform, in lieu of more rigid intelligence measures, is a proper step to prevent future communication breakdowns."One of the real significant improvements made by this bill is to bring people out of the shadows," said Napolitano. "We know who they are. We know where they are. And by the way, from a police perspective, once these people know that every time they interact with law enforcement they won't be subject to removal, it will help with the reporting of crimes, the willingness to be a witness and so forth."Republicans would largely disagree with Napolitano’s assessment.Instead, opponents of immigration reform like Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, doubt that the screening process outlined in the bill could be any more effective than the FBI probing which failed.“What does it say about the automated background checks that this bill would subject 11 million illegal immigrants to, that in-person interviews by FBI agent of Tamerlan Tsarnaev resulted in no action, even though it was actually based on concerns about terrorism?” asked Krikorian.Regardless of their stance on the immigration question and its potential detriments or advantages to national security, one thing lawmakers can agree on is the state of national security spending.In Ohio, for instance, security spending has dropped from $40.7 million to 6.2 million in just past two years. Far from the vanguard of the war on terror, Ohio’s depleted defense purse still speaks for the country’s financial woes across the board.  It also might suggest that future anti-terror measures might come in a similar vein as immigration reform.