May I Ask a More or Less Technical Question?
President Obama, in his speech on immigration reform at American University:
[O]ur borders are just too vast for us to be able to solve the problem only with fences and border patrols. It won't work.
Why not? We support a standing military of some three million soldiers, airmen, and sailors. If it came to it, couldn't they just link arms along our Southern border? We keep dozens of satellites in orbit, constantly monitoring more or less every square inch of the planet, and we send unmanned drones aloft every day to patrol the borders of Pakistan with Afghanistan and of Iraq with Iran. Wouldn't it prove perfectly feasible to direct some of that dazzling technology, designed for the very purpose of looking out for movement on the ground, to the airspace above the Rio Grande and the Sonoran Desert? For pete's sake, I couldn't drive ten miles in New England last week without finding myself forced to slow down for construction funded by Obama's own stimulus bill. Can building a series of fences along the border really prove all that much more costly or difficult than repairing the interstate system?
I'm not arguing that we should seal off the whole darned border. But if we wanted to, couldn't we?
If there are any civil engineers among the happy Ricochet readership, I'd be grateful for their thoughts. I'm just a layman, scratching his head.
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Comments :
Re: May I Ask a More or Less Technical Question?
Peter, come on: You know that controlling illegal immigration is just too big a job for our federal government. There is only so much bandwidth, and running the banks, controlling atmospheric carbon dioxide and, of course, delivering healthcare to 300 million people take precedence.
I think we should thank President Obama for indulging his strong bipartisan instinct in identifying this one area where big government is not the answer.
May '10
Re: May I Ask a More or Less Technical Question?
Speed bumps. You cannot stop a determined interloper with a barrier (ask the French in 1939 and the Chinese against the Mongols).
But- you can slow them down. And add more layers as needed to slow them down more. Even the speed bump sends a message that you intend to enforce laws- the Broken Immigration Windows theory, if you will.
When you attack a viral infection, you don't necessarily kill all of the pathogens. What you is reduce the viral load so that the inherent immune system can then cope effectively with what remains. Right now, our courts, Border Patrol, and ICE can't keep up- but if we narrowed the opening, we could.
And until 2009, Chertoff was making progress with that fence. Thanks to Chris Buckley, Jeffrey Hart, et al, that is stalled.
Re: May I Ask a More or Less Technical Question?
One might as well conclude that, since we can't stop all murders, we ought not enforce those laws either. It's sophistry, and not very good sophistry at that.
What we can do, and what Obama refuses to do, is to erect sufficient barriers to make the risk of getting caught so great that it outweighs the effort generally. But this could jeapordize a potential voting bloc for him, so it won't happen.
You might have a point, Peter, about the construction zones. Maybe we could just repair potholes along the border? No troops needed, and it does bring traffic to a stop.
Jun '10
Re: May I Ask a More or Less Technical Question?
I'm not a civil engineer, but I can tell you from my experience in Israel that there is no technical reason the border can't be sealed. The Israelis have done so with a combination of technology and rapid response vehicles. It can be done.
Nevertheless, I'm going to agree with Duane in part as per comment #2. Ultimately we are facing a mass migration of people due to demographic pressures. The Romans were never able to seal the Rhine-Danube frontier against the Germans. When millions of people are on the move, some of them will find a way in despite our best efforts. Sealing the border will not stop the migration.
Mr. Obama's comments as per his usual habit are completely disingenuous. What he means is, "I don't have the desire to seal the border." The southern migrants should rightly be called "undocumented democrats." I used the term yesterday on one of the comment threads. Two hours later I heard it on Rush's show. It's now part of the lexicon.
Jun '10
Re: May I Ask a More or Less Technical Question?
There are places where nature itself has put up a pretty nasty fence--miles of Sun-baked desert between there and here, eternal home to some immigrants who didn't survive the heat. In some of those cases, a man-made fence would be less cruel, less deadly, than what's there now.
May '10
Re: May I Ask a More or Less Technical Question?
Centuries ago, the Chinese built the Great Wall. You can see it from space. We know that because - until very, very recently - we could send people into space. These are just two examples of the overwhelming scientific and engineering feats we can accomplish. We can also develop aircraft that travel faster than sound. We can put men on the moon. We can send a remote control car to Mars, control it from Earth, drive it around, and test Martian soil samples. We built the Hoover Dam. We harnessed the power of the atom. We even made Vanilla Ice famous - for awhile.
The question is not and never will be "can we?" - the question is one of will (as in "will we?" or do we have the will). Our abilities don't keep us from building the border fence or doing any number of other things. The problem is our lack of ambition and the seemingly conscious desire to avoid reaching for our full potential - but that is and has been a topic for other threads.
May '10
Re: May I Ask a More or Less Technical Question?
The border is almost 2,000 miles long. So, conceivably you could build the Great Wall of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California; after all, the Great Wall of China is 8,000 miles give or take.
But Mexico is not our enemy, they're our third largest trade partner. I know this is anathema to many conservatives, but Bush was right on immigration. We need a mufti-faceted approach which includes securing the border, doing what we can to promote prosperity and stability in Mexico, and a path to legal status (including a requirement to learn English) for those who are guilty of nothing other than trying to work themselves out of crushing poverty.
While I'm on my soapbox - Republicans tend to frame illegal immigration as a "they're breaking the law!" issue. Framing border security as tragic necessity would be a lot more accurate - and a lot more effective, in my opinion.
May '10
Re: May I Ask a More or Less Technical Question?
Dave of course is right. To argue that a matter of national security or law enforcement will not be done because it is too hard to accomplish "perfectly" is in and of itself outrageous.
As quite a few bosses of mine have pointed out, the 80% solution is "perfectly" acceptable. Of course the President's argument reminds me of the phrase "The perfect is the enemy of the good enough".
Exactly!
Secure the border as best we can, and all the other efforts on curtailing illegal immigration will be that much more achievable.
May '10
Re: May I Ask a More or Less Technical Question?
Obama: [O]ur borders are just too vast for us to be able to solve the problem only with fences and border patrols. It won't work.
He's right, fences and border patrols alone won't solve the problem. But they are an integral part of solving the problem. Fences and border patrols will make it more "expensive" (difficult) to come in across the southern border illegally. When something is made more expensive, there's less demand for it.
Here's a test, we hear over and over "fences won't work" so let the "fences won't work" crowd let a credible, complete fence be built to shut up us fencers once and for all. When it doesn't work, according to their prediction, they can say "see, we proved it doesn't work" and we fencers will have to shut up. Since the federal government is currently squirting money around like a firehose on dry sand, may as well squirt a bit on a truly shovel ready project and build a credible, complete fence.
May '10
Re: May I Ask a More or Less Technical Question?
I can agree up to a point, but the problem is we get bogged down with the many "facets" of the approach and don't even get started on issue number one, which is securing the border. Plus, we do have a path to legal status - naturalization. I know it's difficult and takes a long time, but there's a reason for that. American citizenship is not to be given out on the cheap.
I'm probably going to imply a meaning you didn't intend, but "border security" is not a tragic necessity - it is a basic responsibility of the federal government. I do agree that conditions in Mexico that lead to illegal immigration are all too often tragic and I'm hardly unsympathetic to that, but the tragedy tends to spread to our own soil.
Jun '10
Re: May I Ask a More or Less Technical Question?
I have another layman question that has puzzled me for some time now. A Mexican citizen can obtain a visa to come to the U.S. as a tourist and cross the border through one of the legal checkpoints, correct? So it seems to me that yes, with enough effort and money we could seal the border, but to what end? It would be as if the East Germans, having built their wall (to keep people IN rather than OUT, an important distincion), had then allowed anyone to walk through the front gate after signing a form stating they were just on holiday and would return in a fortnight.
May '10
Re: May I Ask a More or Less Technical Question?
Matthew, for most of our history, American citizenship has been cheap, at least administratively. My grandmother arrived from Germany with no money, no papers, no education. Her price was that, at 13, she had to bid farewell to her parents and family, never to see them again.
We could all tell similar stories about our ancestors. It's not the paper, it's the opportunity and what you do with it. The folks crossing the desert in cattle cars or on foot for the opportunity to work cutting grass or whatever certainly are paying a price. If they could go through the visa/naturalization process- a decades long process for most Mexicans - they would.
You're right about border security being the responsibility of the federal government. I just think that unless other measures are taken, walling off Mexico won't stop tragedy from spreading and may actually speed it up.
May '10
Re: May I Ask a More or Less Technical Question?
Matthew, Suzanne is correct, her terminology "tragic necessity" is a PR description to try to drown out all the nativists who scream "AMNESTY" at the tops of their lungs every time someone says the words "immigration reform".
Obama is doing this right now specifically to goad the Usual Suspects (Mark Krikorian, Michelle Malkin, Laura Ingraham, et al) into spending the next few weeks reminding Latinos why they should always vote Left- and especially come out in November.
We should build all of the physical fences fast, and deploy many cheap UAVs along the border- but do it quietly instead of unnecessarily turning people off. We need to speak softly, for once, on this subject, and carry a big wall.
May '10
Re: May I Ask a More or Less Technical Question?
Obama, or B-ego as I prefer labeling him, has again set up a straw-man argument. We can and must control or borders. America has and will continue to benefit from an influx of legal immigrants. Once the borders have been secured we need to stream line the immigration process for legal immigrants.
May '10
Re: May I Ask a More or Less Technical Question?
Suzanne Pacheco: If they could go through the visa/naturalization process- a decades long process for most Mexicans - they would.
Jul 2 at 12:16pm
I have to disagree. I have worked side by side for over 15 years with illegal immigrants (probably hundreds) from Mexico and Central America. Their desire is rarely, if ever, to become a US citizen. I am extremely interested in this topic because over those 15 years, I have come to realize one certainty. Every single one of them is sending money home in baskets with the intent of returning there in 5, 10, 15 years to buy a home and in some cases, never ever work again. I know this because they are my employees, co-workers and friends.
What America needs is a more secure border and a system to register migrant workers. That's it... We need to know they came here and who they are. It would be nice to stop the murderers and rapists at the gate (oh, and the ones that are 8 1/2 months pregnant).
May '10
Re: May I Ask a More or Less Technical Question?
@ Duane and Suzanne - I'm with both of you in terms of taking the demagoguery out of this issue and agree totally that the fence will not end immigration as an issue. I always hope immigration is a timely issue - it's what makes us what we are.
Jun '10
Re: May I Ask a More or Less Technical Question?
Perhaps slightly OT, but what has disturbed me all along is what seems to be an all-or-nothing attitude about the border from this administration:
- Drug runners are terrorizing and even killing citizens on their own property along the border.
"So, we need comprehensive immigration reform"
- The cartels have set up semi-permanent observation points on the US side of the border.
"So, we need comprehensive immigration reform"
We often treat persons apprehended from places like Yemen, Pakistan and Libya which the same catch-and-release procedures we do the everyday Mexican crossers.
"So, we need comprehensive immigration reform"
- Phoenix is now the 2nd most dangerous city in the world for kidnapping.
"So, we need comprehensive immigration reform"
- Portions of National Parks have been closed off to tourism as too dangerous due to drug traffickers.
"So, we need comprehensive immigration reform"
Aren't there a few national security issues we could deal with before we get all "comprehensive" on "reform"?
May '10
Re: May I Ask a More or Less Technical Question?
I was looking at per capita GDP numbers on Wikipedia and noticed that Mexico is **by no means a poor country**.