Thread: Walling out or walling in Mexico won’t work

http://www.mexidata.info/id725.html

Monday, December 26, 2005

Walling out or walling in Mexico won’t work


By Jerry Brewer

Many supporters in the United States, plus their legislators, are desperately pushing for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. But the time has come to think about this a little more strategically.

After all, what is a wall?

Obviously walls enclose our homes and businesses, and make us feel secure. They also keep the unwanted out. Webster’s Dictionary takes it a little further: “A high thick masonry structure forming a long rampart or an enclosure chiefly for defense. A structure that serves to hold back pressure (as of water or sliding earth). An extreme or desperate position or a state of defeat, failure, or ruin.�

As to the necessity for barriers along a 2000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, have we really given a lot of thought to what we are walling in, or out?

It should be clear to many of us that this wall will not stop narco-terrorism, drug smuggling, trafficking in human, arms dealing, or related violence from the south. Will it stop a U.S. drug habit of US$26 billion a year? Do we “wall in� violent Latin American drug cartels, paramilitary trained assassins, and Latin gangs that have been here for years. Is this wall to simply keep illegal migrants out?

Lets examine what we know to be fact.

We won’t be building walls at airports and seaports, nor will we building domes to keep people from “dropping in.� We probably will not be spending a lot of money looking for subterranean trespassers.

Or do we let the borders swing open? No we cannot ignore illegal immigration, even while migration has played an integral role in American history. Yet there are a reported 8 million illegal aliens living in the United States, and the U.S. government has forecast a shortage of 20 million workers by 2026.

One concern has been the potential of terrorists utilizing tunnels on the Mexican border, previously built by drug smugglers, to breech the border underground. In the past decade nearly 20 tunnels have been discovered. Several years ago, on a ranch 20 miles east of the Mexican border town of Tecate, Baja California a tunnel entrance into the United States was discovered that allowed smugglers entry after a 270-meter journey. The tunnel contained rails to allow carts to transport cocaine and other drugs, a tunnel that led to the back of a staircase in a house in California.

A tunnel discovered in Nogales, Arizona led to a parking place near the U.S. Customs office.

Another elaborate tunnel, 90 meters long, was discovered in the early 1990s near Douglas, Arizona, with the Mexico side of the border entrance being in a storehouse in Agua Prieta, Sonora. In a raid related to this tunnel, 2,200 pounds of cocaine were found that had been smuggled, plus 16 tons of drugs on the Mexican side stored in a warehouse. Less creative tunnels and passageways have been through drainage channels. Six tunnels have been discovered since our September 11 tragedy, five having been put into operation after the terrorist attacks.

Arizona has a network of airports, and an estimated 600 abandoned airstrips. Traffickers use these airports and runways to smuggle their goods, or pilots evade radar and land at remote locations, including long stretches of highway. Authorities who track aircraft approaching U.S. border locations report that aircraft often “fade� from radar near the border and appear to land at remote locations, which is indicative of traffickers moving contraband to the border and offloading the shipments for overland smuggling.

As well, let us not forget that our Mexican neighbors are the world’s fifth largest oil producer. Too, we must not ignore the fact that drug seizures are up all along our border.

Mexico and the United States are making progress in arresting drug kingpins and seizing more and more contraband. This attributed to better intelligence sharing, increased manpower, and improved technology. And our war on terror has increased this strategic vigilance.

Inflation has dropped from 16.6 percent in Mexico since 1999, and the standard of living of the poorest of Mexico’s 106 million inhabitants is reported to have improved, albeit ever so slightly. Progress we can’t ignore, along with hope for our neighbors and growing cooperation.

So is a wall the answer to our problems or theirs?

The answer is no, especially at a time when spreading numbers of leftist leaders are making significant inroads and getting elected in many Latin American countries, a point in time when we should be embracing those who believe in us.

â€â€

Well, this guy is all wet. The object of this wall is to keep any more from getting in while we get the ones who are already here out.

If there was a point to this article, I must have missed it.

Maybe it made more sense in the original Spanish.

It's not even a wall. It's a partial fence and he knows it. If it's so insignificant why does it bother him so much?

Perhaps, one day it will become a WALL.

True. But a wall would be better. Then even the trash couldn't blow across the border.

Originally Posted by CountFloyd

If there was a point to this article, I must have missed it.

Maybe it made more sense in the original Spanish.

hah !
the border or wall is but one part of the plan- not the whole enchilado-
as a symbol it must have some power , otherwise mexico wouldn't be getting so upset- ito

I only had to read this half way to know I was wasting my time.

Very original article.

He must have spent five whole minutes writing it.

It's one of my favorite arguments of the open border crowd:

"You can't stop illegal immigration completely so why bother trying."

Why should we fix a pot hole in the road if there will always be more? Why don't we just let everything around us go to hell?