Simonjester wrote:
jan van mourik wrote:
Simonjester wrote:...the border going unsecured,...
Isn't the Border Patrol at an all-time high with number of agents? Plus that fence?
Or do you mean the Canadian border?
it is largely border control theater/government boondoggle , a random and not terribly large percentage of immigrants and drug smugglers get stopped, the rest don't.
as long as the war on drugs creates a financial intensive to figure out ways to beat the border security (usually as simple as walking across ) and the cost and bureaucratic nightmare makes legal immigration more trouble than its worth, and the welfare, assistance and plentiful under the table/off the book jobs exist, and their baby's become anchors that let them chain immigrate entire extended families, there wont be any real progress at sorting out immigration, its a very interconnected multifaceted issue...
If you've ever driven along the Texas/Mexico border, you might have a more nuanced view.
It's not an unsecure border at all. There are tons of Border Patrol officers, cameras, sensors, and fences. Importantly, there also a series of checkpoints along the highways that are used to travel away from the border so that even if you get across the border, unless you want to walk hundreds of miles, you've got to figure out how to get past those checkpoints as well.
I guess it might be more secure with a Great Wall of China-style wall with gun turrets along the Mexican border, but what's going on now isn't bad.
Simonjester wrote:
1,954 mi total border length, a large percentage of those who get turned back on any given day will try again until they do make it, the drug traffic has even better incentives to get stuff across..
i actually don't buy the big fence argument. i think a combination of some fence, some technology and some manpower and letting the guys working on the border make decisions about what works best and where, based on first hand knowledge is the best approach, but even that wont work until you sort out all the other interconnected issues...
what we really have is border that cant be secured with manpower or fences or money alone, that doesn't mean the guys in border-patrol aren't trying, or that money isn't being spent, or mean all the effort you see expended in Texas is doing much good....