The border: El Paso in the middle

“Leaders of this sunny desert city peppered Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff during a recent visit with complaints about trade-crimping border-crossing delays, unwanted calls to enlist local police in enforcing immigration laws and recent deaths of immigrants at the hands of U.S. Border Patrol agents.

“Second-guessers and hindsighters,” Chertoff retorted, defending such agents against critics who he said “have no idea how difficult it is here at the border.”

But to many in El Paso, it is Washington’s understanding of what it means to be on the border that is increasingly in question. As the political stalemate continues on how to revamp immigration laws, the Bush administration has taken aggressive new measures to tighten border security and deal more harshly with illegal immigrants.”

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