Ignore the misleading headline; the actual institutions “tackling” the purported scourge of merchandise unapproved by the National Football League are local law enforcement agencies and the Department of Homeland Security. That’s right, the cabinet-level, taxpayer-funded agency designed to ensure the safety of American citizens is acting as the Pinkerton (agency) for Roger Goodell’s incredibly flush, tax-exempt, legally protected monopoly.

Beyond the dubious assertion of privilege-the NFL has a history of legally threatening small business owners-there’s the obscenity of ICE and CBP allocating extraordinarily scare resources-or so we’re told-to matters which have absolutely nothing to do with immigration enforcement. Is it any wonder that virtually no illegal aliens, in any substantial numbers, are being deported?

If this post seems like a broken record, it’s probably because you remember reading identical complaints in years past. As Mark Steyn has observed, the more the state grows, and the more duties accrue to its subsidiary arms, the less proficient it becomes at managing one of its chief duties, i.e. ensuring the survival of its citizens from foreign threats. There’s no better illustration of this maxim than the transformation of the Department of Homeland Security into the enforcer for the NFL. It’s something to contemplate as you sit down to watch Super Bowl XLIX later today.

It’s nice to know that as our nation’s immigration enforcement mechanisms are being systematically dismantled, ICE has its priorities in order. Even as the latest iteration of an economically backbreaking, national security imperiling amnesty is cooked up by esteemed members of the United States Senate, John Morton is once again hard at work ordering his bureaucrats to act as Roger Goodell’s Pinkertons. It’s not as if  the nation’s immigration agents have any more pressing matters to address, right? Apparently not.

Read the official press release and weep. Then try to enjoy tonight’s match-up between the  San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens. It will probably be less stressful than watching C-SPAN.

For those of you who still want to watch something worthwhile this Super Bowl Sunday, I suggest you check out a fantastic, yet also somewhat obscure, film called Paraiso Travel.

 As the synopsis describes, the basic plot of the film revolves around a comfortable young man living in Colombia who’s in love with a beautiful girl who’s desperately seeking to emigrate from her homeland. He wants her, while she wants to leave Colombia. You see where this is headed, don’t you? 

At turns comic, but mostly dramatic-with great pathos and tragedy generously limned throughout the film-Travel Paraiso is a fictionalized account of the lengths to which someone will go in order to get into the United States-whether illegally or through proper channels. The film is driven primarily by the conflict between the protagonist’s reluctance to leave his life behind for the dream of happiness with his scheming, ambitious girlfriend, and his own ambivalence about remaining in a country that holds out both promise and peril for him.

Although the beginning of the film charts a familiarly tiresome course, i.e. hardworking migrants brave numerous obstacles to make a thriving life in a “land of immigrants,” this film is far from a cliche and takes the viewer into unexpected depths. It’s well worth watching, especially for those of you who are concerned about the human smuggling industry and the costs associated with our country’s open borders policies.

For those of you interested in film more broadly, I suggest you check out the film reviews of our own Marion Dreyfus, which you can find here. I’m sure her eclectic taste in cinema will lead you to something worth watching this weekend, even if it’s not the apex of the NFL season.

One of the problems I have with the immigration bureaucracy within the federal government, other than the current administration’s tendency to sue state and local officials for enforcing laws it should be administering, is its misplaced priorities. A perfect illustration of  this problem can be found in the recent discovery that ICE has shut down over 70 different websites which the federal government accuses of selling counterfeit goods or engaging in music piracy. 

Now, while the issue of copyright infringement is of extreme importance, I don’t think that an agency tasked with enforcing over 400 statutes, and responsible for ensuring the security of our nation’s vast, lightly or unguarded borders, should be diverting resources to investigations of illegal file-sharing sites. Unfortunately, these sorts of investigations have only increased in the past few years, which have seen more threats emerge both from foreign and domestic sources seeking to exploit our lax immigration enforcement policies. In fact, the ICE hierarchy is so concerned about this issue that they have agents policing the sale of unauthorized NFL apparel. 

It is absurd to think that while we have entire communities of potential recruits for Al-Shabab and paramilitary prison gangs filled with illegal aliens, the most pressing issue for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and by extension, the Department of Homeland Security, is the sale of counterfeit merchandise and illegal downloading of music. Protecting the integrity of this nation’s borders is too vital to be merely a part-time assignment.

You would think that after the September 11th massacres, the United States would be a little more selective about who it allows to participate in flight-training programs. You would think, but you would be wrong. According to the New York Times, 33 Brazilians in this country illegally-and awaiting deportation-were allowed to take lessons at a flight academy just outside of Boston. They were taught (quelle surprise!) by an illegal alien, who just happens to be from Brazil.

Now, what does this story tell us?

1. Despite the rosy picture painted by the Department of Homeland Security, the implementation of recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission Report is sorely lacking, and in some cases, non-existent.

2. While the Transportation Security Administration serves some purpose in making a dent in this country’s chronic unemployment, more often than not it does not fulfill its intended purpose, unless that purpose is to lull the public into a false sense of security.

3. Finally, and most importantly, this report substantiates the charge that the hierarchy of ICE is more concerned with face-saving measures and publicity stunts, and policies that are astoundingly irrelevant the agency’s mission, than actually ensuring that its agents receive adequate support to bolster this nation’s defenses against threats originating overseas and potentially lethal foreign nationals transgressing our borders.

In short, ten years after the ineptitude of federal agencies allowed Islamic terrorists to enter our country and obtain the weapons necessary to murder thousands of American citizens, we are still stumbling along in the dark.