Heather MacDonald:

Now that the Bernard Kerik nomination has crashed and burned, President Bush should ask the next candidate for Department of Homeland Security chief the most important question for the job: Will you enforce the law against border trespassers?

...Yet fear of offending the race and rights lobbies has trumped national security at DHS. This spring, for example, Asa Hutchinson - the department's undersecretary for Border and Transportation Security and now a contender for the top job - shut down a successful border-patrol initiative to catch illegal aliens.

A specially trained team had apprehended about 450 border trespassers in several southern California cities. The Los Angeles Times, La Raza and every other advocacy group for illegal aliens protested that the arrests were racially motivated and that they were "scaring" illegal aliens.

The White House promptly called the team off, and Hutchinson appeased the race hustlers by denouncing the initiative as "racial profiling." He followed up with a memo to every U.S. immigration, border patrol and customs agent declaring that "preventing racial profiling is a priority mission of this department."

... These authorities seem to believe that they can give a pass to the hundreds of thousands of Mexicans who cross illegally every year and still strengthen the border against terrorists. But since the government forswears consideration of national origin, race, religion or ethnicity in its law-enforcement activities, strict immigration policing across the board becomes even more crucial for catching terrorists.

Without real enforcement, terrorists will make use of the infrastructure of illegality - such as corrupt Mexican officials. In 2003, authorities busted Mexico's consul in Lebanon for selling fake visas for up to $4,500. Her ring had smuggled about 300 Lebanese into the U.S. from Tijuana from 1999 to November 2002...

I don't necessarily blame Hutchinson for this. He was probably just doing what he was told.

However, in an administration where symbolism means everything, choosing Hutchinson would send the completely wrong message.