This is the number one topic in my neck of the woods (So. Az), and this is a pretty compelling article from the local rag.
Tucson Weekly : Currents : Let's Climb the Wall
In essence, the vaunted border fence is more about the appearance of doing something, while not anywhere near adequate to doing what it's supposed to.
Some highlights:
- "The government isn't controlling the border," Ladd says. "It's controlling what Americans think about the border."
- If you ask most Americans about it, they'll say its intent is to stop people from crossing the border. It isn't. Even Border Patrol admits it only slows them down.
- If you ask whether the government is building it, they'll say, of course, I saw it on TV. But the majority of what's going in isn't the double-layer pedestrian fence the Secure Fence Act required.
- There's a great disconnect between those living on the line and Americans in the heartland. The latter demand the fence because, rightly and overwhelmingly, they want something done to protect our sovereignty, our land and our citizens.
- A fence has an almost unassailable logic to it, an intuitive power. If you live in, say, rural Connecticut, and want to keep the deer out of your backyard, build a fence. It works. So why not a fence on the border? But the international line is a separate reality entirely, and those pro-fence voices, from Connecticut to Oregon, are mostly people who've never seen the border--never ridden horseback over the hills of Arivaca, never walked the smuggling trails in the grasslands of the San Rafael Valley. Here's a truism: The farther you live from the line, the more likely you are to believe the pedestrian fence will work.
- Thrasher is a veterinarian who spends a lot of time at properties on the border, and he says what's needed is pretty basic: an east-west road along the line for patrols and rapid access; rail-on-post vehicle barriers to prevent smugglers from driving into the country; and a livestock fence to keep Mexican and American cattle herds from mingling, which has potentially disastrous economic and national security consequences. It's simple, cheap and doable, and it doesn't destroy the historic dynamic between American border residents and their Mexican neighbors the way a big wall does.
- (the) Southwest border is now blocked by 183 miles of pedestrian fencing and 128 miles of vehicle barriers--on a 1,950-mile border. Most important: The DHS has only built 95 miles of new pedestrian fencing since passage of the Secure Fence Act in 2006, almost half of that in Yuma.
- Enforcement advocates point to the San Diego fence, saying it has been a rousing success in cutting crossings from Tijuana, and resulting crime in San Diego. But as The Washington Post reported, it took $39 million to build the first 9 miles. After invoking their authority to override environmental concerns, the DHS got an additional $35 million to finish the remaining 3.5 miles. Total cost? $74 million--more than $5 million a mile. And what did the San Diego fence do? It moved the illegals over to Arizona. Is that the definition of "working"?
It's a pretty thorough article, and I think a pretty convincing one. What are your thoughts? Is it true that people who don't live here really think that what we have is working?
This is why I am so dismissive of the "Terrorist Threat". That's absolutely
nothing, compared to what's going on down here.