Who are they protecting?

Some years ago, we took a family vacation trip to Boston. Our girls, ages eight and four, had a blast and so did we. Thanks to Laura, I got to mark a trip to Fenway Park off my bucket list.The trip turned sour at Logan International Airport on the way home, however, when TSA agents targeted our youngest for an enhanced security check.She went wailing off to the side of the security area carrying Rosie her teddy bear asking, ‘What did I do wrong?’We were seething but somehow managed to control our tempers for the kids’ sakes and, eventually, our four-year-old was allowed to rejoin us. In the meantime, four Muslims in complete regalia – those of the same religion who carried out the attacks of September 11 that give rise to the heavy hands at TSA, sauntered through security without more than a glance.I have had little respect for TSA since and I am sure I am one of thousands who feel this way.It was with that mental backdrop that I read of an incident involving the TSA’s kinfolk at ICE/Border Patrol/Homeland Security over the weekend.Apparently the Mexican mafia has a big presence on U.S. Indian Reservations (side question: why do we still have those?) where many of those interned have heroin and other drug problems.Border patrol task force agents took an illegal alien to an emergency room where it was learned he used a gram of heroin per day and also dabbled in meth on the side. At this point the fine folks at Homeland Security got involved.Turns out the illegal had been caught selling heroin.Was he deported? No.Was he jailed? No.He got to fill out some paperwork and was released after promising to appear voluntarily in court – like that was going to happen.American citizens are routinely hassled returning home after trips overseas with a few Cuban cigars or bottles of Jamaican rum in their possession but illegal alien mafia types with heroin habits are free to come and go and do as they please.The agents of all these redundant, power hungry bureaucracies are running amok and have lost sight of whom they are supposed to be protecting and what they are supposed to be protecting us from. Walter Geiger is editor and publisher of The Herald Gazette and the Pike County Journal Reporter.