Thread: The Cost of No Border Fence

The Cost of No Border Fence


By The Editors



If the work were begun today, a proper physical border security along the 1,951-mile long US-Mexico border will take a few years to build, even if we only built the 850 or so currently identified “critical miles.” In the meantime, the illegal flow keeps gushing in. Once the decision to build the fence is made and publicized, a “last chance” stampede will start. To stop the existing flow and mitigate the surge before the fence is finished we must immediately and dramatically increase the physical presence of the INS on the border.

Since the vastly increased manpower requirement will only be temporary until the fence is built, this should be accomplished through the use of National Guard and/or military units. The latter might take changes in existing law but may need to be done to combat the foreign invasion. This action must be taken now. Each day we delay results in another few thousand illegal aliens entering the country, including gang members, hard core criminals, sexual predators, and terrorists.

But you say, “I thought we started building a border fence!” Not so. Passing the Secure Fence Act to build much more fencing and funding the actual building of the complete fence are two different things. For more information on that, see Vincent Gioia’s October 2006 commentary, The Mexican Border Fence Hoax.

As this paper has detailed, there are currently hundreds of thousands of criminal illegal aliens roaming the streets committing mayhem on US citizens. Many were previously deported, often multiple times, and they simply walked back in. Without such a formidable barrier the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is woefully undermanned to enforce border security. As noted in the aforementioned CRS report, a fence is a “force multiplier.”

If you are still not convinced that we need some serious physical border security, go back to the CRIMINAL sections of our series and start clicking on the links or go to the ICE Public Information News Releases and start perusing the press releases. Remember, until finally caught, the illegal alien criminals are in your city and neighborhood, and the ones caught are only a small portion of the criminal illegal aliens still out there, with more pouring across each day. When you or your family become victims, it will be too late.

In 2005, illegal alien criminals committed at least 704,709 crimes. The actual number may be three times as high. You can expect as many crimes in 2007. While some of the perpetrators were in the USA as a result of VISA violations, at least 60% of those crimes are a direct result of no border security. When you or your family are victims it will be too late.

It is also worth noting that a humane side affect of having robust border security barrier is that it will eliminate all the deaths from illegal aliens dying in the desert as they try to sneak across some rather inhospitable areas of the SW border. See: 460 border crossers died in past year. Posters on fence tell of 3,600 found dead in 11 years.

The December 2006 report from the Congressional Research Service, Border Security: Barriers Along the US International Border, provides some costing for the fencing. The report notes that, excluding the costs of land acquisition, the Army Corp of Engineers estimates that the double layer Sandia type fence like the one installed in San Diego would cost about $1.3 million per mile. The CBO estimates the construction costs to be $3 million per mile.

The DHS constructed the 14 mile San Diego fence at a cost of $127 million but some serious mitigating circumstances (environmental assessments, legal appeals, lengthy delays, a big canyon, etc) over the last 4.5 miles heading to the Pacific soaked up $96 million of that, which means that the first 9.5 miles cost $3.3 million a mile.

Averaging out the four estimates of 1.3, 2.8, 3.0 and 3.3 million per mile we get $2.7 million per mile. Thus 850 critical miles would cost $2.3 billion and all 1,951 miles would cost $5.3 billion, although one should expect a much longer fence to cost less on a per mile basis thus lowering the total costs.

If one assumes an average of two border patrol agents per mile, three shifts per day, with a 50% overhead for weekends, vacations, supervision, et cetera, to patrol all 1951 miles you would need a staff of 17,559. At an average burdened cost of $75,000 each that would be $1.3 billion per year. Maintenance and up-keep at $500,000 per mile would cost $976 million per year for a total operating cost of $2.3 billion per year. Even doubling that is only $4.6 billion per year. Since all 1,951 miles do not need such serious fencing and patrolling, a lower number of miles would be proportionally less. 850 miles, as an example, would only cost about $1 billion a year to man and maintain.

However, as the information from the San Diego fence detailed, the illegal aliens will only go around any serious fencing meaning that all or most of the 1,951 miles will eventually need to be secured.

As detailed earlier in this series, in 1980 there were only 9,000 incarcerated illegal alien criminals in federal, state, and local facilities. In 2003 there were 267,000.

For the sake of argument, let us assume that there were no increases of illegal alien prisoners from 1980 through 1986, when Reagan’s “one time” amnesty bill was enacted, since it was supposed to stop the flow of illegal aliens into the US. Let us also assume that since 2003 there have been no more additional illegal alien prisoners and that there was a linear growth of the number of illegal aliens incarcerated from 1986 to through 2006. .

With all these “low ball” assumptions, that means we still have had 2,709,000 more man years of illegal alien incarceration, over and above the assumed 9,000 in 1986 when we weren’t supposed to have any more. At $25,000 per year incarceration costs that means we have already spent $67.7 BILLION more on incarceration than we otherwise would have, if we had simply kept all the additional illegal alien criminals out - something Reagan’s amnesty deal, with border security and enforcement provisions, was supposed to have done. Unfortunately, our Government neglected the “security and enforcement” part of the “deal.”

Again, assuming no additional illegal alien prisoners, something that is highly unlikely, the total incarceration costs are going up by about $6.7 billion per year. That number is greater than the cost of building, operating and maintaining a fence today.

So, as it turns out, not enforcing border security and building the fence in the first place was penny wise and pound foolish.

As this report has detailed, however, the yearly collateral costs of illegal immigration do not stop at the incarceration costs and in fact FAR EXCEEDS the cost of FINALLY building the fence and incorporating proper border security.

As a reminder, besides the $6.7B yearly incarceration costs the total yearly economic impact of illegal alien crime costs somewhere between $14.4 and $50 billion or more and may be as high as $150 billion; accidents caused by illegal aliens cost at least $11.5 billion and maybe 2-3 times as much; and the education costs for illegal alien children is about $34.5 billion. Per year. Add in the costs for welfare, social programs, medical costs, et cetera and you have another $100 billion or so. PER YEAR.

Still think the fence “costs too much?”

While a fence would not do anything for the 267,000 or so incarcerated illegal aliens that we currently have due to Presidential and Congressional malfeasance, it would allow that number to decline as they complete their sentences and are deported. It would also dramatically reduce the number of crimes being committed by illegal criminals as about 60% of the crimes committed by illegal aliens are committed by illegal aliens that were previously deported.

It would also dramatically stop the illegal alien invasion.

The President and Congress are spending enormous amounts on the collateral damage of tolerating illegal aliens but they won’t spend the money to protect you from it happening in the first place.

We have spent hundreds of billions fighting terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq, with a loss of about 3,000 American soldiers with many more being injured. Part of the reason for this is that we would rather be fighting terrorist THERE than HERE. Yet, at the same time, we are tolerating the invasion on the southern border which has resulted in far more Americans injured and killed by illegal aliens than the TOTAL casualties and injuries fighting the war on terror since 9/11, including the 2,752 Americans killed on 9/11.

Every year.

Which gets the most press?

We send a carrier task force to the Persian Gulf in a futile attempt to persuade potential terrorist states to behave. Yet for the cost of one carrier we could build a fence along the entire southern border. For the yearly costs of just operating that carrier and its air wing, let alone the accompanying task force, we could man and maintain that fence.

How many Americans has Iran molested, raped, killed, and murdered versus how many Americans have illegal aliens molested, raped, killed, and murdered?

Which should take priority?

So rather than demand Congress spend a paltry few billion dollars out of a three trillion dollar budget, and since the fence is nothing more than a cost-benefit tradeoff:

What price do YOU put on each child molested?

What price do YOU put on each woman who is raped?

What price do YOU put on each American who is killed?

What price do YOU put on each American who is murdered?

What price do YOU put on a US city being vaporized?

C’mon America…this is YOUR problem and only YOU can clean it up. Your elected officials will not do this unless you tell them to. Go here to register your complaint. Your thoughts matter.



OR:



Go to www.securedbordersusa.com and sign the petition which must be notarized. And then to send it to all your family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers who are fed up with illegal immigration and ask them to sign it, too.

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After 9/11, the first order of business should have been completely shutting it down. Armed guards, the works. But the complete opposite is what happenned. Darker forces are behind it, and we need to figure out how to take out the Death Star before it becomes operational.