It’s not just whining policy wonks who think our commitment to border control is inadequate–it’s also the people actually trying to control the border. The unions representing border agents and inspectors released yesterday a survey of members finding widespread dissatisfaction. Sixty percent or more responded that they did not have the necessary tools and support to combat terrorism; that morale is low; that the current hiring freeze (yes, there’s a hiring freeze–and budget cuts!) will have a negative effect on the agency’s ability to protect the country; and that the Department of Homeland Security could be doing more (41 percent said “much more”) to protect the country. (Read the Post and Times stories.)

Now, you could take this with a grain of salt–it is the unions, after all, who commissioned the survey, which was conducted by Democrat pollster Peter Hart. But that would be a mistake. The fact is that under both the old INS and the new DHS, immigration enforcement has always been an embarrassment to the higher-ups. If anything, the commitment to immigration enforcement seems to have been diluted since the creation of DHS, because the “merger” of the Customs Service with the old INS’s enforcement personnel is turning out to be more of an acquisition–the new corporate culture is being set by Customs, with immigration law seen only as an occasionally useful tool. The analogy is to prosecuting Al Capone for not paying his taxes–using immigration violations against suspected terrorists (or dope dealers, money launderers, et al.) is a perfectly good tactic, but there also needs to be an agency whose sole institutional imperative is immigration law. There no longer is such an agency.