Richard Marosi of the Los Angeles Times offers the sleepy "Plunge in border crossings leaves agents fighting boredom/ Arrests of illegal crossers along the Southwest border dropped more than two-thirds from 2000 to 2010, from 1.6 million to 448,000" (link). The correct title of the false impression the LAT is trying to give would be something like: "Obama has secured the border so much, agents are falling asleep on the job./ Border security no longer required, everything OK now."

The LAT's sales job aside, the fact remains that hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens are still coming across the border. And, when the U.S. economy picks up, so too will the numbers trying to cross illegally. Now is a good time to invest in more border defenses, including fencing in areas where it's appropriate.

And, now is a good time to point out that those who claim that illegal immigation can't be greatly reduced are liars: potential illegal aliens do respond to signals. In the current case, the signal they're responding to is a bad U.S. economy.

And, if we could make the U.S. less welcoming to illegal aliens, potential illegal aliens would respond to that signal too. In that case, some of the current illegal aliens might decide to return home and not try to come back (i.e., attrition).