With all due respect to our friends championing the green cause and saving our planet, it sometimes seems as though their fight treats other, equally worthy issues too dismissively. Take, for example, this new lawsuit brought against DHS Secretary Chertoff. The complaint alleges that the REAL ID act is unconstitutional because it gives the secretary the authority to void any law that would impede construction of a border fence. Defenders of Wildlife filed this suit after Chertoff voided laws that would force an environmental impact survey of plans to build the fence across the San Pedro River. They argue that striking a law is the same as changing it, which thereby violates the principle of separation of powers.
Protecting the earth is a noble cause, but making flowers and bushes a higher priority than the American people and the American economy strongly challenges basic common sense. According to Chertoff, some 20,000 undocumented persons crossed illegally through the San Pedro Riparian Natural Conservation Area last year. They left behind trash, human waste and abandoned vehicles, and also introduced parasites to the area’s aquifer. This is the cost of not having a secure border. Though the fence is understandably not the greatest solution to this problem, it is the one that Congress mandated by law, and Secretary Chertoff is only doing his job by ensuring that it gets built timely and properly.
Read more about the REAL ID Act here.
