Thread: Border fence can't halt illegal immigration

It's effective at stopping vehicles, but some smugglers, migrants walk through its gaps in desert.


Washington Post
By Nick Miroff
Posted: Monday, Jan. 02, 2012


Steel fencing and "Normandy barriers" now cover the sand dunes near Calexico, Calif. The U.S. has added 513 miles of new fencing to its southern boundary since 2006. NICK MIROFF - WASHINGTON POST

CALEXICO, Calif. A decade ago, when illegal immigration from Mexico was at an all-time high, this stretch of border was as good a place as any to sneak into the United States.

Migrants and smugglers could slip through the alfalfa fields outside town or plow their pickup trucks through the desert, where the biggest worries were stuck tires and getting safely across the irrigation canals.

But in the past five years, the international border here has become a harder, tougher, taller barrier - an American Great Wall. Miles of steel fencing now ride the desolate sand dunes west of Calexico. To the east, giant jack-shaped "Normandy barriers," named for their resemblance to the defenses that once lined the beaches of northern France in World War II, block off old smuggling routes.

Overall, the United States has added 513 miles of new fencing to its southern boundary since 2006, raising to 649 miles the total length of border that has some form of man-made barrier. The Rio Grande creates a natural partition along another 1,252 miles, and the government has been putting new fencing there, too.

Now the question is: How much more should be built?

Border Patrol officials say their current plans are to construct just one more mile of fence, in Texas.

But as illegal immigration takes an increasingly central role in Republican campaign debates, several GOP candidates have renewed calls to fence the entire 1,969-mile boundary.

Determining its effectiveness

With such an endeavor projected to cost tens of billions of dollars, this stretch of California desert might be as good a place as any to assess how the existing border fence works.

The new barriers have been particularly effective at stopping vehicles from coming across, Border Patrol agents say. Along one stretch of desert here, the number of drive-through incursions plunged from 350 in 2007 to four last year.

But agents also say it is not the case that smugglers and illegal migrants on foot simply go to the place in the desert where the fence ends and walk around it.

In short, agents say, fencing is a tool and a first line of defense, but it does not bestow border security by its mere existence.

While the Border Patrol tallies the number of migrants it catches, it does not plot the locations of those apprehensions.

But after hitting an all-time high of 1.64 million apprehensions in the government's 2000 fiscal year, the number of arrests dropped to 327,577 in the 2011 period that ended Sept. 30, the lowest level since 1972.

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Build the rest of the fence, fill in the gaps, increase the number of Border Patrol agents with instructions to arrest illegal aliens, and the fence will be one of the several effective tools to stop illegal immigration.

Of far greater importance is to cut off all aid to illegals and their children, end birthright citizenship, stringently enforce Everify. We need to eliminate anything that draws illegals to our country - jobs, free eduation, free medical care, representation in our Congress by liberal elites, etc.