Border damage


10:00 PM PST on Monday, January 4, 2010

The Press-Enterprise

Using public resources to aid illegal behavior is an insult to taxpayers. UC San Diego cannot justify its involvement in creating a device that helps people sneak across the border safely. No publicly funded institution should be actively abetting lawbreaking.

But a team at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology at UC San Diego is developing a cell phone tool for people entering the country illegally. The Transborder Immigrant Tool will use positioning technology to show migrants crossing the harsh border deserts where they can find water, along with other information. The team plans to distribute the devices to churches and nonprofit groups on both sides of the U.S. border by next summer. The money for the project comes from the institute's research fund, including a UC grant.

This effort comes perilously close to breaking the law by itself, legal experts note. Even the UC faculty behind the project admit a real risk of criminal prosecution, but call it a matter of "civil disobedience."

Apparently, the nation's public policies are not so offensive as to prevent these faculty members from making a comfortable living at taxpayer-supported institutions. The researchers call their government employment status an irony, given the research they are pursuing; the people paying the bills might more accurately term it hypocrisy.

Declaring the border "an illegal entity," as one of the UC researchers did, only shows that university professors can be astonishingly naïve. In the real world, nations have a legitimate need to enforce border rules, for reasons that include ensuring sustainable societies and protecting against terrorism and other threats.

And the UC system has far better uses for its money than a crusade to undermine immigration laws. California's universities have been raising fees and capping enrollments to cope with budget cuts, and the financial picture will not improve any time soon. UC hardly needs a project certain to erode public support and raise doubts about taxpayers' investment in higher education.

There is no disputing that people die each year trying to cross the deserts along the nation's border. But understandable sympathy for people who are often merely seeking a better life does not change the underlying fact: Crossing the border without proper authorization is a crime. And the university-developed navigation tool would clearly aid that lawbreaking. No humanitarian argument justifies using taxpayer funding to promote illegal activity.

Granted, current U.S. immigration policies are flawed and inconsistent. The nation needs reforms that would curb illegal entry and set up a fair guest worker program to address labor needs.

But government has a clear duty to control the nation's borders, and good reasons for doing so. Taxpayer-supported universities should not be subverting that public interest.

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