Thread: On the Fence Over the Wall; Weighing 'Anchor Babies'

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On the Fence Over the Wall;
Weighing 'Anchor Babies'

By JENNIFER JOHNSON and AARON RUTKOFF
September 26, 2006

Border Lines is a regular look at the best writing on the immigration debate from around the Web. (Some links may require registration or subscription.)

* * *
ON THE FENCE: With a bill sanctioning a 700-mile border fence cleared by a House majority this week, attention now turns to the upper chamber where the Republican leadership will work against a ticking legislative clock ahead of the midterm elections. Sen. Bill Frist (R., Tenn.), the majority leader, makes the case for the fence legislation -- even apart from the "comprehensive reform" package he has supported -- in a San Diego Union-Tribune op-ed. "All in all," he writes, "I'm convinced that the finished network [of fences] would give us the protection we need to achieve what immigration law enforcers call 'operational control' over the entire border." A border fence around San Diego achieved just that, Mr. Frist notes, but the rest of the California border remains largely unobstructed: "Today, one can walk in a more-or-less straight line from Mexico's Baja California to Riverside without encountering a single physical barrier."

Meanwhile, a newspaper in Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy's home state of Vermont accuses the politician of straddling the fence issue. A double-layered fence extending 700 miles would be "a scar on a fragile desert ecosystem, and a scar on our legacy as a nation of immigrants," Mr. Leahy argued in a speech on the Senate floor. But, writes Battleboro Reformer reporter Evan Lehmann, "Four months ago, he was on the other side of the fence issue when he supported construction of a barrier along 370 miles of the southwest border. … Leahy voted yes to the shorter fence."

For National Review editor Rich Lowry, writing an op-ed in the Salt Lake Tribune, the momentum behind the fence is a victory for the Neanderthals -- and he means it in a good way. Today's bipartisan support for the border fence marks a reversal; earlier in the year, when immigrants and their supporters took the streets, "polite opinion scoffed" at the fence in favor of reforms that included a guest-worker program and citizenship for some illegal immigrants. "But a funny thing happened on the way to 'comprehensive reform' -- the political marketplace worked," Mr. Lowry says. The Minutemen, with their border vigils, "have shown that Washington can be made to respond to public opinion on immigration, for a change."

Finally, Los Angeles Times columnist Patt Morrison goes one better than the Minutemen: "What, no land mines?" she asks. "If this is about keeping our nation safe, let's stop at nothing!" Smelling a political stunt timed for the elections, Ms. Morrison calls for some quick math and finds that the U.S.-Mexico border runs some 1,300 miles longer than the proposed fence. The columnist also notes that the San Diego barrier cited as a model has only moved the border-crossing hotspots east, argues that environmental regulations will be gutted by the fence legislation, and casts doubt on the senate's seriousness about funding the bill. On the plus side, Ms. Morrison writes, "Everyone who votes for this photo-op law now gets to go home and campaign on how tough he is on homeland security, voting for a monster fence, never mind that there may never be any money to build it."

* * *
HOLE IN THE FENCE? Boeing's plan to build a "virtual fence" along the U.S. border "rests heavily on adapting military technology from the battlefield to the border," but its success "hinges on overcoming obstacles that doomed past efforts," writes Spencer S. Hsu and Griff Witte of the Washington Post.

C. Stewart Verdery Jr., a former Bush administration assistant secretary for border policy, agrees that a fancy, high-tech fence alone is "doomed to fail," the duo write. "Boeing and its subcontractors should be pushing the hardest for a comprehensive immigration solution," Mr. Verdery says.

Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff has said that his department will call the shots and keep close watch on the company's progress, but even Boeing executive Wayne Esser admits that more surveillance won't be enough to stop the flow of immigrants. "It'll put a lot more pressure on the ports of entry, and it's going to put a lot more pressure on our coastal borders," he says.

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ALLEGIANCE TURNS SOUTH: How do you control illegal immigration if some of those guarding the gates are susceptible to bribery and corruption? Associated Press writer Pauline Arrillaga reports that more than 600 criminal probes of U.S. immigration employees have been launched this fiscal year. One border officer turned out to be an illegal immigrant himself.

Border agents can earn from $300 to $1,500 for each immigrant they let into the U.S., and with some cars packed full, that can add up to $60,000 profit in a single shift, Ms. Arrillaga writes. "We don't do anything, just clear the way, and we get $300 per head," said ex-Border Patrol agent Eric Balderas in a wiretapped phone call last year. He pleaded guilty in a California corruption case and is awaiting sentencing.

* * *
TANCREDO'S TURN: One of the earliest and most vocal supporters of the border fence visited the Heritage Foundation last week to reflect on the emergent political strength of his position. Rep. Tom Tancredo (R., Colo.) used the occasion to blast the White House as "tone deaf on border security and immigration reform" and push for his strong enforcement agenda.

"I am attempting to fix the most urgent problem connected to immigration policy and suggesting that the other problems can wait," Mr. Tancredo said of his fence-first strategy. "That approach does not make me 'anti-immigrant.' This approach is in keeping with the old adage that when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is -- stop digging."

The speech offers Mr. Tancredo's triumphant assessment of why his policies have come to dominate the legislative agenda while the broader reforms backed by President Bush have stalled. But the congressman also turns his focus to political instability in Mexico and the cultural implications of unrestrained immigration as reasons why the fence has become imperative.

Finally, Mr. Tancredo outlines a new strategy that the pro-enforcement forces will pursue if fence legislation fails. If the Senate balks, he says, "advocates of border security and immigration law enforcement should move to a new strategy, a strategy aimed at local initiatives in lieu of federal action."

(To listen to streaming audio of Mr. Tancredo's speech, click here. To see video of the event at the Heritage Foundation, click here.)

* * *
BORDER BABY BOOM: A tide of undocumented immigrants "are streaming into Texas to give birth," overwhelming doctors and straining hospitals, writes James Pinkerton in the Houston Chronicle.

Mario Rodriguez, an obstetrician in South Texas, says immigrants want a U.S.-born baby -- sometimes called an "anchor baby" -- and know that emergency room staffers don't collect any money up front. "The word is out: Come to Starr County and get delivered for free. Why pay $1,000 in Mexico when you can get it for free?" Dr. Rodriguez asks in the article.

An estimated 70% to 80% of the 10,587 births at Ben Taub General Hospital and Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital in Houston last year were to undocumented immigrants, administrators say in the article.

* * *
THE IMPORT ECONOMY: Researchers at Northeastern University crunched numbers in the labor market and found that between 2000 and 2005, illegal immigrants accounted for up to 56% of the U.S. economy's employment gains. Over that same interval, the study found, 1.7 millions native-born male workers dropped out of the labor market -- a number that nearly corresponds to the 1.9 million men who crossed the border illegally to join the labor force.

Published by the pro-enforcement Center for Immigration Studies, the study found bleak news for native-born and legal immigrant workers. Not only have illegal workers captured a large share of the jobs created since the millennium, but the increasing numbers of undocumented labor has made the market more hostile to worker-friendly policies. Principally, the report suggests, the glut of illicit workers has fueled the rise of labor contractors, who help companies keep staff off their payrolls and minimize burdens like health-care coverage and pension benefits.

Hardest hit, the study suggests, are native-born teenagers: "[A] major proportion of the native-born job deficit of teens and young adults that has developed in the U.S. over the past five years is the result of newly arrived…male immigrants displacing these potential workers from employment."

* * *
SOMETHING ROTTEN IN CALIFORNIA: The most abundant pear harvest in a decades sits rotting on the ground in Golden State orchards -- and the farmers, according to a front-page report in the New York Times, blame the nation's new militancy against illegal workers. "Stepped-up border enforcement kept many illegal Mexican migrant workers out of California this year, farmers and labor contractors said, putting new strains on the state's shrinking seasonal farm labor force," reporter Julia Preston found.

The dynamic behind this year's labor shortage is complicated: Undocumented workers, who normally travel back and forth across the border for seasonal farm work, now fear arrests on trips south. But as they stay in the country fulltime, these workers have begun abandoning agricultural work in favor of more stable and less strenuous jobs. At the same time, stepped-up border security and the threat of apprehension has deterred new workers from entering the country to fill the farm-labor void.

Efforts to make use of existing guest-worker programs failed to help these ranchers, as have efforts to go native. "Americans do not raise their children to be farm workers," one farm manager says.

* * *
ROVE'S RUIN? Rachel Morris, an editor of the liberal Washington Monthly magazine, sees immigration reform as the foremost factor that has undermined master strategist Karl Rove's push to create a lasting Republican majority by courting Latino voters.

Ms. Morris argues that Mr. Rove succeeded over President Bush's first term in keeping appeals to Hispanic voters largely separate from his appeals to the Republican base. The two threads started to come into conflict last year "on right-wing talk radio," she argues. "Casting around for something to talk about, hosts discovered the Minutemen." A former senior White House official makes it clear to Ms. Morris that the Bush team was caught flat-footed by the sudden intensity right-wing voters expressed on immigration issues. "Two years ago, this wasn't on the radar screen," the unnamed official says.

And that intensity, combined with the weakened overall position of the White House, spelled doom for the Hispanic outreach strategy. "Rove's grand designs have disintegrated," she writes. "Historians may look back at the GOP's struggle over comprehensive reform and pronounce it the moment when its chances for an enduring majority slipped from its grasp."

Write to Jennifer Johnson at jennifer.johnson@wsj.com and Aaron Rutkoff at aaron.rutkoff@wsj.com

Meanwhile, a newspaper in Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy's home state of Vermont accuses the politician of straddling the fence issue. A double-layered fence extending 700 miles would be "a scar on a fragile desert ecosystem,

What, and the millions of pounds of garbage and human waste they leave behind are for scenic deseret viewing and won't leave scars?
Pathetic.