No go on quick immigration fixes
ROLAND NETHAWAY

WACO, Texas -- Surely, the day is approaching when Congress will recognize that gimmicks will not solve the nation's immigration problems.

The latest evidence arrived in a Thursday Washington Post story by Spencer S. Hsu who reported that the Department of Homeland Security is pulling the plug on current efforts to build a "virtual fence" along the U.S.-Mexico border.

American taxpayers have already kicked in $20.6 million to Boeing Co. for Project 28, a high-tech virtual fence along a small stretch of the international border in Arizona.

Boeing was the prime contractor to build a measly 28 miles of virtual fence near the border southwest of Tucson to demonstrate how 98-foot towers, radars, sophisticated cameras and sensors tied into the Border Patrol could curb illegal immigration.

The virtual fence project was part of a $1.2 billion immigration bill passed by Congress that emphasized building 700 miles or so of fencing along the border with Mexico.

The idea of preventing illegal immigration by constructing only 700 miles of fences along a 2,000-mile border is an assault on common sense.

Congress arrived at the decision, however, after President Bush could not gain enough support to pass comprehensive immigration reform that would attack the problem at the source -- the jobs that attract impoverished foreign citizens to risk brutal hardships and even death to find work in the United States.

At a joint hearing of the House Homeland Security subcommittee on border, maritime and global counterterrorism and the subcommittee on management, investigations and oversight, Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-N.J., described the delays and problems with building the border fence as "unacceptable."

"We are 98 yards from the goal line, which is where we started five and a half years," Pascrell said when no one representing Homeland Security or the multibillion-dollar Secure Border Initiative could answer how much it would cost taxpayers to secure the border or estimate when it could be accomplished.

"After five and a half years, someone should be able to answer the question without a bunch of malarkey," Pascrell reasonably observed.

The problem with Boeing, which is now off the virtual fence project, was blamed in part because Boeing's software could not process the sensor data, the cameras could not resolve images as planned, the radar systems were triggered inadvertently and the Border Patrol was not adequately tied into the system.

Other problems included the realization that no one understood the type of terrain where the fencing is to be constructed, what materials would be required or factored in the cost of the land.

Somehow it never occurred to members of Congress or the Department of Homeland Security that most of the property on which the fence was to be built is privately owned and would have to be purchased.

It especially did not occur to anyone that no one in Texas who owns land adjoining the Rio Grande wants to have property taken so the government can construct a border fence.

The Project 28 virtual fence now has been pushed back to at least the end of 2011 at an unknown cost.

Earlier estimates that the entire southern border could be fenced for $7.6 billion also must be scrapped.

As the recent congressional hearings revealed, no one knows when or if a border fence can be constructed or even offer a guess at how much it will cost.

In the meantime, the economic pull of U.S. jobs brings an estimated 500,000 illegal immigrants into the United States every year.

While some 500,000 unskilled foreign workers find jobs in the United States every year, the government issues only 5,000 year-round legal work visas for immigrants.

Congress should concentrate on the source of the problem -- jobs. Employer sanctions must be enforced and foreign workers should be legally matched to U.S. jobs.

Rowland Nethaway writes for the Waco Tribune-Herald. E-mail: RNethaway@wacotrib .
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/3 ... source=rss