ABSTRACT
On 20 September 2004, the US news weekly Time published a special issue dedicated to the issue now known as border security. The cover story was titled ‘Who left the door open?’, and announced that the issue was to be devoted to ‘the lack of national security at theUnited States’ borders’ (Barlett and Steel 2004). The general thrust of the special issue was that a mere three years on from the events of September 11, and despite the massive investment made in homeland security, ‘sneaking into the US is scandalously easy – and on the rise’. As corroboration, Time estimated that ‘the number of illegal aliens flooding into the US … will total 3 million – enough to fill 22,000 Boeing 737-7000 airliners’. But this is not the only scandal reported. If these ‘illegals’ could once have been assumed to be nearly all Mexican, today ‘a small but sharply growing number come from other countries, including those with large populations hostile to the US’. Having established the potential for danger at the border, the special issue proceeds to carry out a sort of audit of the damage and the risks associated with such a leaky border, and asks plaintively: ‘why does the US fail to protect itself?’ and ‘is this the perfect cover for terrorists?’
