A Story About Terrorism

If there is a 21st century Kafka somewhere in America, he will get his inspiration not from working in an insurance company but with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement branch of the Department of Homeland Security.

Consider this Kafkaesque gem from the McClatchy newspapers today:

"Thomas Warziniack was born in Minnesota and grew up in Georgia, but immigration authorities pronounced him an illegal immigrant from Russia.

"Immigration and Customs Enforcement has held Warziniack for weeks in an Arizona detention facility with the aim of deporting him to a country he's never seen. His jailers shrugged off Warziniack's claims that he was an American citizen, even though they could have retrieved his Minnesota birth certificate in minutes and even though a Colorado court had concluded that he was a US citizen a year before it shipped him to Arizona.

"On Thursday, Warziniack finally became a free man. Immigration officials released him after his family, who learned about his predicament from McClatchy, produced a birth certificate and after a US senator demanded his release.

"'The immigration agents told me they never make mistakes,' Warziniack said..."

According to its web site, "US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) strengthens national security and upholds public safety by closing down homeland security vulnerabilities. Created in March 20003 (sic), ICE was tasked with closing down our nation’s vulnerabilities by targeting the people, money and materials that support terrorism and other criminal activities...an approach not taken prior to 9/11."

Warziniack is not alone. In the new-found fervor over illegal aliens, there is evidence that many other American citizens with no foreign ties are being swept up for deportation.

By the 201st century, our Homeland Security heroes may have figured out how to tell the difference.

Fear of the Year

Gays, pro-choicers and the liberal elite can relax. The Republicans have found their domestic target for '08 and, from all indications in New Hampshire, it is now illegal immigrants who are threatening the very fabric of American society.

"It's becoming a litmus test of how conservative you are," according to a professor of political science quoted by the McClatchy newspapers. "Absolutely an important issue," confirms the director of the University of New Hampshire's Granite State Poll.

Following the Karl Rove playbook, GOP contenders are reaching a consensus on this election's objects of fear and loathing for their Base. Rudy Giuliani, Mr. 9/11, has the franchise on external threats--terrorists and, coming up strong on the outside rail, Iran.

But fear-mongering the domestic dangers is up for grabs. Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson want to withhold federal money from cities and states that don't report illegal aliens, toughen border security and speed up the process of deporting them. Duncan Hunter wants to double the fence to keep them out, and Tom Tancredo may soon up the ante with a proposal to nuke them.

Only John McCain, who made the mistake of straight talk on the issue, is not benefiting from the wave of Lou Dobbsian outrage over the threat from people who mow America's lawns and wash dishes in restaurants.

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of such strangers?