Private Security to Seal the Border?

 

US-Mexico-Border-StnsThe fundamental problem with every immigration reform proposal is that most of us don’t trust politicians, Republicans or Democrats, to enforce the border. In principle, this is one of a government’s primary duties. But, assuming the Feds want no part of it, perhaps there is a private alternative.

Might it be feasible for a private security firm, funded by donors interested in border enforcement, to set up along the Mexican border with the permission of individual land owners?

A 24/7 presence of armed men not restrained by bureaucratic policies and politics could be an intimidating presence that would deter trespassers. Legally, it would be no different than any business protecting its own property with security guards.

It’s not a plan without risks and weaknesses. Obviously, federal politicians and bureaucrats would find ways to harass and deter such initiatives. If trespassers were detained, there remains the problem of federal officials refusing to send them immediately back to Mexico. Some properties might become war zones between guards and cartels, but anyone signing up for the security role would know the risks and difficulties.

Yay or nay?

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There are 12 comments.

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  1. user_44643 Inactive
    user_44643
    @MikeLaRoche

    Works for me.

    • #1
  2. user_3130 Member
    user_3130
    @RobertELee

    Why pay for security other than at ports?  Sell hunting licenses for the areas between the ports of entry.  It will ensure the security of the border and pay for itself.

    While I believe the immigration system is broken and in desperate need of reform, immigration and border security are two separate issues.  The border needs to be secure, period.  The use of deadly force should be not only authorized but encouraged.

    • #2
  3. iWc Coolidge
    iWc
    @iWe

    I think enforcers would need some kind of umbrella coverage before they would take the risk. So maybe this starts with an innovative insurance broker…

    • #3
  4. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    Cant. Too much is Federal land. They will block it.

    • #4
  5. user_139005 Member
    user_139005
    @MichaelMinnott

    Bryan is correct. Without the Federal Government backing you, there is no hope to succeed. Even governments at the state level have tried and been blocked.

    • #5
  6. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    If you pay them X dollars to stop migrants what’s to stop cartels from paying them X plus Y dollars to let migrants and smugglers through?

    • #6
  7. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    Bryan G. Stephens:Cant. Too much is Federal land. They will block it.

    They can block enforcement on the Federal land, but manpower is fungible here. If the private security eliminated crossings on stretch x, allowing the CBP guys from that stretch to move to stretch y, that would totally help.

    The problem isn’t that it’s impossible for private guys to make any difference; remember the Minutemen? They absolutely made a difference.

    The problem is that it’s impossible to make a non-trivial difference. The CBP’s budget for next year is $13.56 billion. For those conservatives keen to spend money to improve border security, giving to the GOP or to the Republican nominee when they win would be dramatically more effective and efficient than spending it on border guards directly.

    People on the border can, and do, hire private security. We could improve the mechanisms by which they interact with the CBP (this is probably a good idea, and is one that I suspect every Republican candidate for the Presidency would support, and which could be done by executive order).

    We can’t expect them to make a serious dent on the immigration statistics.

    • #7
  8. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    Zafar:If you pay them X dollars to stop migrants what’s to stop cartels from paying them X plus Y dollars to let migrants and smugglers through?

    In general, American security guards are not willing to look the other way for a bribe similar to the size of their paychecks. It’s possible that some might be corrupt, and that others would look the other way for very large pay checks.

    It’s certainly true that no level of security will totally stop illegal immigration; the Berlin Wall was about as secure as is physically possible, but people still got through that. Rather the policy here, as almost everywhere else in criminal law, is to disincentivize crime and thus reduce its occurance. As with other uses for security guards, their presence does reduce crime, although it doesn’t reduce it to zero.

    • #8
  9. Aaron Miller Inactive
    Aaron Miller
    @AaronMiller

    What incentive would politicians have that they have not had for decades?

    Elections are only ever concerned with a candidate’s comparative value overall, and offer no influence over any particular issue. When the alternative is a lawless totalitarian (Democrat), any Republican will do.

    Bryan G. Stephens:Cant. Too much is Federal land. They will block it.

    Most of the Texas border is privately owned, best I can tell. At least, the land belongs to the state of Texas, which should enforce its border regardless of federal cooperation.

    Federal Lands

    • #9
  10. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    Aaron Miller:What incentive would politicians have that they have not had for decades?

    Elections are only ever concerned with a candidate’s comparative value overall, and offer no influence over any particular issue. When the alternative is a lawless totalitarian (Democrat), any Republican will do.

    The last two and and half decades have mostly been pretty good from an immigration enforcement perspective. Clinton reduced immigration on the San Diego border dramatically with Operation Gatekeeper. Bush built a fence over just about all the non-Texan border. E-verify has come into existence and expanded. A couple of years back, we’d gotten so good at stopping border crossings that Asian illegal immigration exceeded Mexican for the year; it’s still too easy to overstay visas, but the border is becoming ever tougher.

    It’s true that the amnesty which preceded that was awful, but even the IRCA had a silver lining; it’s the basis for e-verify. People often rag on Reagan for not getting the enforcement part of the amnesty-enforcement bargain, but he did get some enforcement out of the deal.

    As with so much else in the world (murder being the most famous example), southern border crossing looks like it’s getting worse, and conceivably might be (it’s hard to tell what the long term impact of the child crossings will be), but from Bush ’41 to the start of Obama’s second term things were improving.

    • #10
  11. user_370242 Inactive
    user_370242
    @Mikescapes

    Some or much of the property is privately owned by Mexican American farmers. They’d never be able to go along with the scheme even in the unlikely event they wanted to. Latino pressure groups would make their lives impossible.

    • #11
  12. user_44643 Inactive
    user_44643
    @MikeLaRoche

    Mike Silver:Some or much of the property is privately owned by Mexican American farmers. They’d never be able to go along with the scheme even in the unlikely event they wanted to. Latino pressure groups would make their lives impossible.

    I can’t speak for such individuals in California, Arizona, or New Mexico, but I can assure you that would not be the case in Texas.  Latino pressure groups are largely irrelevant and ignored on the Texas-Mexico border. Growing up in Laredo, Texas, where nine generations of my family (mother’s side) have lived, I never heard *any* Chicano/La Raza nonsense.  Didn’t encounter it at all until my undergraduate studies in San Antonio.

    • #12
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