Thread: BORDER CONTROLS NOT WORKING, EXPERTS SAY

http://www.pe.com/breakingnews/local/st ... 58396.html

Border controls not working, experts say

IMMIGRATION: They contend the risk and cost of the trip only means that migrants stay longer.

11:33 PM PST on Monday, March 21, 2005

By SHARON McNARY / The Press-Enterprise

AT THE BORDER

Border Patrol agents are stopping more people from illegally entering the United States

Apprehensions

2004: 1.16 million

2003: 931,557

Individuals detained

2004: 741,115

2003: 638,480

Source: Migration News, a publication of UC Davis

The same border controls that have made it riskier and more expensive to enter the United States illegally are inducing undocumented Mexicans to stay here longer and return home less often, immigration experts say.

"People are making fewer but longer trips to the U.S. This implies that in the long run more of them will stay in the U.S.," said Fernando Riosmena, a University of Pennsylvania scholar who is studying the motivations and socio-economic profiles of immigrants using data from the Mexican Migration Project. The joint project of Princeton University and the University of Guadalajara surveys families in Mexican villages and towns about their relatives and friends in the United States.

"People are charging more to smuggle people across the border. It's more risky and they are more likely to go less often," Riosmena said. "They settle for three to four years. It's longer, compared to the past."

Still, they come.

A new study by the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington released Monday said that the number of undocumented immigrants to the United States from Mexico has grown by about a half-million each of the past four years and stands at 5.9 million. Undocumented workers from all nations number about 7 million in the United States and comprise about 5 percent of the overall workforce, the Pew study said.

California is home to about one-quarter of the undocumented Mexican population, about 2.4 million.

Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at UC San Diego, said in a December 2004 report that a decade of increased U.S. border enforcement has not deterred people from trying to enter the U.S. illegally, but made it more expensive and dangerous.

In the past decade, federal spending on border security has quintupled, Cornelius said, but comparatively little federal effort and money has gone into punishing employers of undocumented migrants, so the supply of potential jobs for them remains high.

Carlos Giralt-Cabrales, the Mexican consul for Riverside and San Bernardino counties, said more research is needed to determine the impact of tougher border crossings. "It is possible," he said, "that because of controls at the border, that people don't return as often as they used to."

San Bernardino resident Robert Andrade, 39, who became a permanent resident in 1987 under a Reagan administration amnesty program for undocumented immigrants, said he knew of no undocumented Mexican families that avoided returning to Mexico because of fear they could not return to the United States.

"It's important to see our families," Andrade said.

The Pew study said that large numbers of Mexican migrants are settling in areas where they did not have a historic concentrated population -- places like North Carolina, for example. However, migrants are still drawn to places where friends or relatives have been before, with California high on the list.

"It's less risky for them," Riosmena said. Also, a young man whose parent, friend or relative had gone to the United States was more likely to make the trip himself.

Young men still see a money-making trip to the United States as an adventure, Riosmena said. They see their older siblings and friends return from a few years north of the border with vehicles, money and new mannerisms.

"In some communities young Mexicans would be very attracted by the idea of coming to the U.S. It could be a rite of passage to adulthood in some places," Riosmena said. "They see them coming back from the U.S. with their trucks."

Reach Sharon McNary at (909) 806-3062 or smcnary@pe.com


OUR BORDER CONTROL SYSTOM IS NOT BROKEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


THE ENFORCEMENT OF OUR LAWS ABOUT HIRING ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS IS WHAT IS BROKEN!!!!!!!!

IF WE STOP GIVING THEM OUR JOBS THEY AND THEIR ANCHOR BABIES WOULD GO HOME, AND LET THEIR GOVERNMENT TAKE CARE OF THEM!!!!!!!!!!

What???
Our borders broken??

Why didn't anybody tell us???