Obama Sign Border Bill as "Birth Tourism" Comes Under Fire

President Obama today signed into law a $600 million plan to bolster the nation's borders. Any belief that will quell the political fight in Washington over immigration is seriously misguided.

The money—half of which will go to pay for 1,000 new border agents, $200 million more going to pay for additional resources for U.S. Marshals and other law enforcement agencies, and the remainder going to pay for two surveillance drones and other tools—is part of a shift by the administration to put ground forces into the fight to stop illegal immigration.

Obama signed the bill at the White House but did so without making any comment about the measure or talking about the broader challenge of combating the immigration problem.

Others, however, are doing plenty of talking. The longstanding challenge of how to deal with illegals, primarily those who cross into the United States over the Mexican border, has led to a call from some to repeal the constitutional amendment that grants U.S. citizenship to anyone born in the country. This, in turn, has led to scrutiny of a "birth tourism" industry, which has led some in Congress to sound the alarm that those babies could one day grow to be terrorists bent on bringing down the United States.

For a glimpse into the rhetoric fueling this debate, check out the clip from CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 show. Cooper challenges Representative Louis Gohmert, a Texas Republican, for some kind of evidence of a birth tourism-terror link.

"I’m not comparable to Winston Churchill but the detractors like you are comparable to his detractors," Gohmert said. "He tried to tell people these things were going on. Anderson, do you want to believe that those who want to destroy the United States are more stupid than these entrepreneurs in China, than these people in Mexico coming across having babies?"

The back and forth between Cooper and Gohmert was a display of the kind of unbridled anger I mentioned earlier this week. Both parties in the interview were clearly frustrated with the other, as Cooper tried to pin Gohmert down on evidence and the congressman suggested we wouldn't have any real evidence for 15 or 20 years when one of these babies grows up to be a terrorist.

"This isn't a courtroom. We're trying to protect America, Anderson," said Gohmert, a former county judge who entered the House in 2005.

"Everyone wants to protect America, congressman," was Cooper's response.