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Work Resumes On Virtual Fence With Mexico

Hugh Pickens writes "Work resumed this week on the five-year project to link a chain of tower-mounted sensors and other surveillance equipment over most of the 2,000-mile border with Mexico. The network of cameras, radar, and communications gear is intended to speed deployment of US Border Patrol officers to intercept illegal immigrants, drug smugglers and other violators, yielding greater 'operational control' over the vast and rugged area. A $20M pilot project for the Secure Border Initiative, or 'SBInet,' carried out in the Bush administration, was generally considered a colossal IT failure. Since that time the DHS has given the prime contractor, Boeing, another $600M. The government says it has learned many lessons and made many changes in the program since the previous pilot rushed off-the-shelf equipment into operation without testing. The Obama administration has lowered the cost estimate for the 5-year project by $1.1B, to $6.7B, mainly by deferring work on the most difficult 200 miles of the border, in southwest Texas."

259 comments

  1. shyeah right by David+Gerard · · Score: 3, Funny

    Hey, how about that economic collapse?

    "A majority of US soldiers in Afghanistan stated the place was 'just fine, really' and they were learning to speak Pashto rather than returning. Canada looked south and snickered, though not very much as they still had Stephen Harper to cope with. The Kingdom of Mexico stated its 'regret' today that it has had to close its borders to American refugees."

    (I'm in Eng-er-lund. We're way more fucked. And we have Gordon Brown.)

    --
    http://rocknerd.co.uk
    1. Re:shyeah right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      and if anyone's wondering how fucked we are in England we're this fucked:

      http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45737000/jpg/_45737580_brown226getty.jpg

      Yes, that's a real picture and yes, the last European leader who pushed ID cards for every citizen starting with select minorities and immigrants had those banners behind him too.

    2. Re:shyeah right by luigi517 · · Score: 1

      that could have been photoshop faked in about 30 seconds heck coulda done it in paint in about 45 seconds

    3. Re:shyeah right by David+Gerard · · Score: 1

      It's on bbc.co.uk. But it would be interesting to see the context. (A search shows no pages it's included on, just linked from.)

      --
      http://rocknerd.co.uk
    4. Re:shyeah right by Chris+Daniel · · Score: 2, Informative
      --
      Don't blame me -- I voted for Roslin.
    5. Re:shyeah right by David+Gerard · · Score: 1

      I mean on bbc.co.uk.

      --
      http://rocknerd.co.uk
    6. Re:shyeah right by Xest · · Score: 3, Informative

      http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8033388.stm

      It's from a school visit.

      Really though, the level of incomeptence required by Labour's PR people to allow that shot to be taken has to make you wonder if it was intentional. I'm amazed they can be that utterly incompetent, particularly at a time when Labour is being criticised for spending the last decade implementing totalitarian laws and pursuing a totalitarian path.

      I don't think Brown is a Nazi, but I mean come on, the fact they're not even sensitive to having that in the background on official media releases? It suggests they at very least don't understand why the Nazi regime was bad such that it's main symbol makes a bad background for a government already accused of creating policy identical to that of the likes of Hitler and Stalin. I'd go as far as saying that perhaps they even sympathise with many of the ideas for controlling the population that these leaders had even if they disagree with the murderous bits.

      Labour seems to want to foster severe incompetence to the very end. Luckily that end is getting closer, 12 more months and counting.

    7. Re:shyeah right by Xest · · Score: 1

      Yes, it could have, but it seems it wasn't so I guess the AC was right, I found this:

      http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8033388.stm

      and someone else in this thread listed this:

      http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6229529.ece

      It seems pretty authentic.

    8. Re:shyeah right by David+Gerard · · Score: 1

      Oh dear, yes. That is high comedy.

      --
      http://rocknerd.co.uk
  2. In other news by mysidia · · Score: 1

    The Mexican border has moved North between 1000 miles (at the northernmost point of the border) and 1500 miles (at the border's southernmost point).

  3. Good Grief! by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 1

    $600 million for towers with cameras and motion detectors. Another slam-dunk pork contract for one of the biggest porkers of them all, Boeing. Can they do better on this than on the famous Dreamliner? Not likly, we might as well just pile up the cash and use it to BBQ hot dogs or something.

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    1. Re:Good Grief! by j-stroy · · Score: 2, Informative

      Latin American culture has shown itself to be incredibly ingenious with minimal resources. This fence is a boondoggle. I spoke with someone who ran the border several times. One technique is to soak their clothes in a bucket of ice water to get past infrared sensors. The Mythbusters did a great sensor test, where a simple pane of glass was enough to walk in front of infrared sensors, and a bedsheet over the head hosed ultrasonic sensors at close range. Walking very slowly worked too.

    2. Re:Good Grief! by flyingsquid · · Score: 5, Funny
      $600,000,000? That's insane. I could easily secure the border for *half* of that. Consider: if there are 24 hours in the day, and 365 days a year, and labor costs 5$ an hour, then it would cost 43,800 dollars to have a section of border guarded 24/7/365, presumably employing three different guys in eight-hour shifts. With $300,000,000, you could employ 6,849 guys at those rates. The U.S.-Mexico border is only 4,000 miles long, so that's more than one guy for every mile of the border (and this is on top of the existing border patrol).

      So now you've got round-the-clock, year-long border security, just by paying a bunch of guys five dollars an hour. Now, I admit that it might sound difficult to find people who would be willing to patrol the border, facing off against smugglers and drug runners, enduring cold nights and scorching hot days, all for just $5.00 an hour. But here's the really ingenious part of the plan: we employ illegal aliens from Mexico to do the work for us!

    3. Re:Good Grief! by eddy_crim · · Score: 1

      Yeah, and they could make those guys lives easier by building a fence... like, out of wood, or bricks or wire.... give em something to walk along!

      In fairness even half a mile is still quite a long distance to patrol if there are determined people trying to get through... in fact if I was patroling it as a geek i might erect some cameras and motion sensors to help me along and get my colleagues to do the same.... hmmm

      --
      hmmm.
    4. Re:Good Grief! by MattXBlack · · Score: 1

      Thank you for introducing me to the word boondoggle. It sounds vaguely racist, but according to Wikipedia it's actually to do with Boy Scouts.

    5. Re:Good Grief! by mistakenanonymity · · Score: 1

      I could easily secure the border for *half* of that. Where is this "4,000 miles long" border of which you speak? Look!: I just halved the cost again, just by RTFSummary:"the 2,000-mile border with Mexico."To be fair, though, I agree with your point: technofences are a colossal waste of money. Now, let's get down to serious business: catskins for nothing!! http://www.snopes.com/critters/disposal/catrat.asp

    6. Re:Good Grief! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hurray for the default understanding of a new unknown word to be racist! Give me a break...

    7. Re:Good Grief! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Give me a .50 and all the ammo I could ever use and I will patrol it for $5/hour. Heck, let me take the gun home for playtime and I will do it for free. Just don't come crying to me when the stench of illegals is coming into your town. That's Mexico's problem, not mine.

    8. Re:Good Grief! by j-stroy · · Score: 1

      Our culture could do many amazing things if we tried to be half as creative as folks who don't have our near unlimited capital, credit, power and resources. I have to say that we are least suited to survive anywhere but here. People from most places in the world are tougher and more resourceful by necessity. I have complete respect.

    9. Re:Good Grief! by INT_QRK · · Score: 1

      $5 an hour? I'll bet you can hire illegal aliens to guard the border for a lot less!

    10. Re:Good Grief! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      $5.00/hr? illegal immigrants can do the job for half that much...

  4. It must be just me... by willoughby · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A Latina family live near me. Mom, Dad, & a couple of pre-high school boys. They peridocally come through the neighborhood selling fresh, homemade tamales. I always buy (they're delicious) and have even given them a few things, like an unabridged english dictionary for the kids in school.

    These folks are just trying to make a living & put their kids through school so they can have a better life. I guess I'm the only person in the USA who doesn't recognize that to be the horrible crime it is.

    It's not the first time I've been wrong but sometimes I like being wrong. Just ask my ex-wives about that.

    1. Re:It must be just me... by ChromeAeonium · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It has nothing to do with any of that. It is about using the proper channels to do it. That's not to say that some people aren't just bigots (some are), or that the immigration system doesn't need some work (it does), but it really isn't about not wanting immigrant to get a a better life. It is about people doing things the legal way (and stopping any other unlawful activities that cross the border).

    2. Re:It must be just me... by FudRucker · · Score: 5, Insightful

      i agree, i work in the construction trade and done so for most my adult life, all the mexicans i see are among the best workers there are, they show up everyday on time and do great work and are pleasant people to be around, i can understand wanting to stop the violence on the border but stopping people that want to make an honest living is a crime in it self, i think the playing field in the US should be made level so the US citizens that need/want to work can do so without being undercut by corrupt US businesses that exploit the mexican laborers just to improve their profits = more US citizens out of work...

      --
      Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
    3. Re:It must be just me... by Toonol · · Score: 1

      Being against immigration is not a sensible position. Immigrants are often great contributors to American life. Being against illegal immigration is very sensible, and an entirely different issue.

      I feel that many people deliberately conflate the two, in order to make border defense seem like a racist or xenophobic idea. It's not. Curbing illegal immigration would probably result in substantially increasing the legal immigration quotas.

    4. Re:It must be just me... by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Clearly you've not had to go through the hassles of legal immigration and can't see why those of us that have get fucked off when a load of people decide the rules don't apply to them.

      Those people who have to work low paying jobs get pissed off too because some employers rather pay less and deal with people's poor english rather than playing by the rules.

      Quite frankly if we're happy to just let the poor flood in from Mexico then we might as well remove H1-B visa limits too and let companies bring in as much cheap labour as they want to fill higher-end jobs.

    5. Re:It must be just me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I'm so absolutely SICK and TIRED of this arguement and for the life of me I can't understand why you and others keep lumping two completely separate subjects together.

      Immigration =/= Illegal Immigration. I FULLY support immigration through the proper channel. Being a supporter of one does not mean you support the other.

    6. Re:It must be just me... by djupedal · · Score: 2, Insightful

      >These folks are just trying to make a living & put their kids through school so they can have a better life.

      When you've had your SSN used by one of them and your wages have been garnered by the IRS, ask them if you can live with them...

    7. Re:It must be just me... by Bearhouse · · Score: 4, Informative

      Problem is , many of these poor people are exploited by organised crime (human traffic is big business). If they're 'lucky', they get across OK; if not, they end up dying in the desert, foced into protitution or working all their life to pay offthe 'debt' they owe.

      The trafficers are the bastards we need to stop.

    8. Re:It must be just me... by owlnation · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It is about people doing things the legal way (and stopping any other unlawful activities that cross the border).

      No, it isn't. It's just theater. Here's a question... Prisons. Don't get much more secure than that do you? Are there drugs in prisons? Oh yes, there's plenty. So yeah... good luck stopping illegal traffic. Good luck with that indeed.

    9. Re:It must be just me... by earlymon · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I agree. And how about those latest budget cuts?

      http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/43568/title/Federal_budget's_new_'black_book'

      Each year, the administration releases its federal-spending blueprint -- usually in a series of phone book-sized tomes that must surely weigh eight to 10 pounds. And of course, the first thing most of us look for is what programs are slated for big gains -- or excisions. Well, team Obama made looking for the big cuts a little easier this year. This morning it issued a 120-page volume: "Terminations, Reductions, and Savings: Budget of the U.S. Government, Fiscal Year 2010."

      A lot respondents are making hay over legal vs. illegal immigrants. Fine. But look at our real history of our immigration laws. You'd think it would be driven by many good things - such as what our infrastructure can support and so forth. And the pundits would have you believe that. It's not so.

      First, we have people complaining about illegals using Social Security. Kindly note that the fossil records clearly show those illegals have paying into Social Security - something the pundits don't want to mention.

      They're over-running our infrastructure! Yeah. It's not the white suburban kids pushing meth, it's not the middle-aged housewives enjoying a joint in the middle of the day, it's the not smokers, it's not the cops over-reacting to anyone near a .08 a block from their home, it's not that the insurance companies and HMOs have taken over what a doctor can do in his/her own judgement, it's not that we let the S&Ls and Enrons screw us out of real jobs, it's not that our trade and tariff policies are so fucking complicated that a gaggle of Ph.D.s still can't explain it to anyone reasonably intelligent, and it's not that all of our taxes are regressive, and it's not that the biggest corporations pulling in the most money pay the absolute minimum (if not zero) in actual money turned over as taxes - and it's not as if the whole fucking engine isn't powered by crooked politicians.

      The real problem is those pesky, illegal Mexicans - with their strong sense of family and religion and culture and a desire to live outside of poverty, with a deep fear of the law because of where our Immigration Dept. will send them back to live if caught.

      Oh yeah - illegal != legal immigration ... sure, that's the real issue. And I'm a monkey's uncle.

      --
      Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
    10. Re:It must be just me... by earlymon · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But hey, you gotta love the Virtual Fence. Higher tech means it will take high tech - beginning with bribes - to overcome it.

      So, if what you say is true, then the Virtual Fence is lead-pipe cinch guarantee to make the problem worse.

      --
      Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
    11. Re:It must be just me... by bfields · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The "proper channels" set immigration limits drastically to less than what economic forces would set them to.

      If you agree that massive disregard for the law creates problems, then, in tandem with increased enforcement, you should also support a huge increase in the amount of immigration allowed.

      My impression is that most economists believe the eventual result of increased immigration would be an increase in employment and standard of living on *both* sides of the border.

    12. Re:It must be just me... by bfields · · Score: 1

      Yup. And the way to do that is to provide more *legal* routes to immigration and to starve the traffickers of their customers.

    13. Re:It must be just me... by darkwing_bmf · · Score: 1, Insightful

      "I support legal immigration, but not illegal" is it's just a cover for saying "I don't support *more* legal immigration."

      Frankly this is all really about freedom. It should be as hard to live and work in the US if you're from Mexico or Canada as it is to live and work in New York if your from Alabama (valid ID, no court orders against you). The EU lets their people have freedom of movement and labor among the Union countries and it works well for them. The NAFTA countries should have that same freedom. It would solve a lot of problems, including strengthening worker rights and limiting the "fear of deportation" factor in employee employer relations.

    14. Re:It must be just me... by fluffykitty1234 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Just like when our ancestors came to America, they all filed the proper paperwork and... oh wait a second...

    15. Re:It must be just me... by DarkIye · · Score: 1

      Good idea. Let's abolish the police force entirely, too, since crimes happen all the time, and obviously the best way to deal with that is to get rid of anything getting in its way.

    16. Re:It must be just me... by Darby · · Score: 3, Informative

      The trafficers are the bastards we need to stop.

      No, you just acted like you were taking one step in the right direction and then failed to actually do it.

      The only reason the trafficers have the ability to be bastards is America's idiotic immigration system. Fix that and you fix the problem.

      We already are going with your approach, and that's why it's such a complete disaster.

      Same exact problem with drug laws. There's nothing to be gained by our current policies on either of these issues, except for the scum who profit off of enforcement and have no morals or ethics whatsoever as they've chosen to profit off of causing nothing but massive damage to our nation.

      So, no, creating a problem (trafficers of people or drugs) and then suggesting increasing enforcement of the problem you created can't ever be a good idea. Please think your thoughts all the way through in future. That sort reactionary ignorance is the problem, not the solution.

       

    17. Re:It must be just me... by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      A Latina family lives next door to me. They blast their Mariachi music until 2:00-3:00 am every morning from their car stereo while smoking dope and drinking.

      The problem with letting low-IQ (Hispanic IQ approximately 90-95) people in, is that your average as a country goes down. A lot if their average fertility is positive while yours is negative.

      Hispanics in America commit a lot of crime, consume a lot of social services, and return relatively little as a fraction of the GDP. Republicans want more Hispanics because big business likes cheap labor. Democrats want more Hispanics because they're going to vote Democrat forever. The average American -- well, he's screwed.

      Please read Steve Sailer'sIQ FAQ before replying with something dumb about IQ. I'm not going to respond to non-studied opinions about IQ any more than I'd respond to someone making stupid claims about Thermodynamics without even knowing the definition of Etropy.

    18. Re:It must be just me... by uncqual · · Score: 1

      You don't say if this family is in the U.S. legally or not so I would assume they (like many Latina families) are in the U.S. legally.

      So, I'm assuming that their actions that someone might consider a "horrible crime" is that they don't have proper business licenses, registrations, or inspections to sell food? Or, perhaps, that they don't collect sales tax (if your area has such a thing)?

      If this is the case, they should not be allowed to sell food -- any more than Burger King should be allowed to sell prepared food without proper licenses, registrations, and inspections. Or, any more than Burger King should be able to escape their responsibility to collect sales tax.

      --
      Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading /.
    19. Re:It must be just me... by budgenator · · Score: 1

      A while back Cringley blogged about a visit from the FBI, seems they wanted to know how he was so certain that there were 18 million people using SSN's used by multiple people. He explained to them he had a source that worked in a credit agency and the data was the result of simple and routine data-mining. It certainly strain our credulity that Equifax can do this routinely, but the SSN admin, FBI and NSA can't. Seems obvious to me that if the same SSN is reporting income and tax withholding from both New York and California on a regular basis that something hookey is going on.

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    20. Re:It must be just me... by ChromeAeonium · · Score: 2

      The "proper channels" set immigration limits drastically to less than what economic forces would set them to.

      I've always found that to be the kicker to the illegal immigration thing. Sure, what they're doing is illegal, but that doesn't mean it isn't understandable. The proper channels (the immigration system) do need some work, and the illegal immigrants are usually just doing what will be best for them, so I can't say I blame for hopping the border illegally. Nonetheless, there are plenty of otherwise necessary rules that give some people hard times, and we can't just have people doing as they please legal or not because of it.

    21. Re:It must be just me... by earlymon · · Score: 2, Insightful

      My friend, I have a teaching degree in vocational education. Look it up - those are not so easy to get, requiring not only a concentration in a particular field, but documented years of working in that field with *strong* references from employers for your concentration in that field, then documentation of work training in industry in that field, then years of teaching as an intern at a post-secondary school. And you study things in depth the way that many teachers to not have to, such as educational psychology and - the IQ test.

      The IQ test was invented for one reason and one reason only to assist teachers. It is the quotient of your intellectual age / chronological age. It was - and is - meant to apply to developing minds. At the time of its conception, it was so that teachers could recognize those kids who needed help catching up with their peers, and which didn't need that so much. It could even be used in pairing up study partners.

      And for that reason, under the theory that it was a valid idea at the time, IQ results were to be kept confidential, so as to not be abused and not stigmatized anyone.

      It is was never meant to become some constant that follows a person around in life. If you think about it, if you have an IQ of 130 when you're ten, and nothing changes, then you'll have an IQ of 100 when you're thirteen years old.

      Enlightened educators have all but given up on IQ tests. They are not easy to keep up to date. When the IQ theories were first postulated, the developers could not and did not foresee the technological and social changes that were to come - and most importantly, the rate of acceleration of those changes.

      Imagine thinking you're doing a good job on designing IQ tests when suddenly, immigrant Muslim children as a group are scoring lower and you find one example question stands out in your quality study: they misidentify pig as the source animal for bacon because they are either unexposed to "bacon" or can prove from the packaging that "bacon" comes from turkeys. I did not make this example up, it was documented in the 90s.

      Now - your source link says that the military uses IQ tests very effectively. That's true. I've worked with them on training programs. But their tests are at least geared toward their demographic of less-privileged, post-secondary school ages, and not generalized for all possible knowledge, but specific enough for judging things like spacial-oriented thinking. They do it to save soldiers' lives, so they're pretty good at it.

      Your reference also says that IQs are validly applied to groups because it washes out statistical noise. That's true. As in, groups of post training at this Air Force base vs. same at that Army base. Or for northern-state 9th graders vs. southern-state ones.

      But, and I choose my bacon example carefully - not for comparing against races or nationalities with different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. If you follow this link from your link - http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118996255/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0 - [Ethnic group differences in cognitive ability in employment and educational settings: a meta-analysis, Personnel Psychology 54, 297-330.] then you will be surprised to find this statement in the study's abstract: We conduct similar analyses for Hispanics, when possible, and note that Hispanic-White differences are somewhat less than Black-White differences. That said, I warn the no-RTFA types (like me, usually) that this was focused to one adult-job metric, not to a whole race or anything sweeping.

      And that said, I hereby declare the following:
      1. You have abused the use of IQ
      2. You have done so against the tenets of your own IQ reference
      3. I will not believe without a lot of supporting evidence that you have anything but asinine references to peg Hispanics at 90-95, of any subgroup beyond those in prison (where they would most probabl

      --
      Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
    22. Re:It must be just me... by earlymon · · Score: 1

      Yes, identity theft is a problem. It has existed long before computers and long before our so-called border problems. I knew a Mafioso in Detroit with 15 Social Security numbers, 40 years ago.

      As my signal-processing mentor once taught me - never look for a signal in noise - you will always find exactly what you're looking for.

      If today's illegals have a high rate of abusing Social Security numbers, it's because they're buying from an established industry. I'd say it's that established industry that's the problem.

      Or - we can all just go on believing the surface only of blog info.

      --
      Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
    23. Re:It must be just me... by hemp · · Score: 1

      And the cool thing is that when they get hurt on the job site, you can just drive them to the county hospital and drop them off. No need to worry about that expensive wokerman's compensation insurance.

      --
      Skip ------ See the latest from http://www.anArchyFortWorth.com
    24. Re:It must be just me... by MichaelSmith · · Score: 2, Interesting

      How much of the problem is people walking over the border, compared to people overstaying their visas?

    25. Re:It must be just me... by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 1, Informative
      1. There is plenty of evidence that IQ is strongly correlated to education and income in both the high-IQ and low-IQ brackets. Your statements about what the IQ test was designed for is beside the point. (And inaccurate -- look up the history of the IQ test on Wikipedia, please.)
      2. Hispanic-White differences are usually about 2/3rds-1/3rd of a standard standard deviation. Black-White differences are about a full standard deviation on just about any test involving intellectual ability from WISC to WAIS to the SATs. Everybody knows this. Your study was supposed to surprise me how? Did you have a point other than to confirm my own? (1 standard deviation is 15 IQ points. But you're an education major and know all about IQ. I didn't have to tell you that.)
      3. I like your bacon example. Bizarre that the same differences show up even more on culture fair tests (like Raven's Progressive matrices). And on math tests. Math is just sooo racist. (Oh yeah, forgot I was talking to someone with an education degree. You probably think it is.)
      4. Hispanics commit a lot of crime in America. But I don't say that simply because I know their average IQ. I say it because the FBI releases statistics every year on crime by race (as reported by victims and also arrest frequency).

      You are the ignorant individual. But that's not really a surprise. Ever seen the statistics for IQ by undergrad degree? Highest IQs are Physics and Math, followed by the hard sciences. Next come the social sciences. Last come the humanities. Very, very last comes education majors. Oh, and unlike every other field, where high IQ is linked to more advanced degrees, in education IQ goes down with more advanced degree holders.

      But you've seen the education colleges. I don't need to tell you about the morons there.

    26. Re:It must be just me... by MichaelSmith · · Score: 1

      The trafficers are the bastards we need to stop.

      Yes, that is a big problem here in Australia too. The trafficers operate in Indonesia. They ship people south on unsafe boats with the intention of getting caught by our navy, so that they can apply for refugee status. A lot of people have died, its really tragic.

      Many of the people trying to come over seem to be from places like Iraq and Afghanistan. They sit in Indonesia for years waiting for an opportunity. The silly thing is that Indonesia is not such a bad place to live. If they got together as a community they could educate themselves and possibly become eligible for legal migration to Australia.

    27. Re:It must be just me... by RightSaidFred99 · · Score: 1

      That's a good idea, if you're stupid. Let's open the borders more than they already are to a flood of poor people. It's not like importing tens of millions of poor people into a wealthier country will impact the standard of living in the wealthier country, right?

    28. Re:It must be just me... by MichaelSmith · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah but the EU gets to choose the countries which join. If Morocco and Algeria join the EU I would agree that Mexicans should be able to freely move to the US.

    29. Re:It must be just me... by earlymon · · Score: 1

      I got my education degree on top of hard science and math, in order to better train people on nuclear and space systems - after working on both for a great number of years.

      So, I'm triply arrogant. If you say so.

      --
      Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
    30. Re:It must be just me... by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      I respect the math degree. Had you led with it, I wouldn't have made fun of you for the education degree. Your argument remains deeply ignorant, I'm afraid. I don't normally recommend that people read "The Bell Curve" (because I think they'll get confused). But you should be able to figure out what a Gaussian distribution is, so read it. It's well-researched. Then read Gould's "Mismeasure of Man" critiquing it. If you don't agree with Paul Krugman's opinion of "consistently misleading" Gould by the end, then I'll take back the nice thing I said about your math degree. Or read Nisbett for the critique of "The Bell Curve." He is somewhat balder about the lies though.

    31. Re:It must be just me... by earlymon · · Score: 1

      Odd - my words were the same, despite what I degree I hold.

      I have read all of the works you suggest, and more. My argument regarding IQ is not ignorant because I am not ignorant at all on that subject.

      Your comment about me being able to figure out Gaussian distributions - given that I am well-published in refereed journals using just that - is offensive at face value and matches the condescension in your tone of voice in referencing it.

      I believe I've had quite enough of this waste of my time.

      --
      Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
    32. Re:It must be just me... by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 0, Troll

      Oh no. You misunderstand. Your words were still stupid. I said I wouldn't have made fun of your degree.

      Now. If you are "well-published in refereed journals" but don't know what average Hispanic IQ tests at, it's not worth my arguing with you.

      Also re-read your first post, and note who started the "condescension." You can dish it, but you sure can't take it.

    33. Re:It must be just me... by earlymon · · Score: 1

      I can dish out condescension to racists all day, every day of the week. I can take being called an idiot by one.

      --
      Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
    34. Re:It must be just me... by misexistentialist · · Score: 3, Funny

      You mean like at Ellis Island? Or did your ancestors cross the land-bridge before the invention of paper?

    35. Re:It must be just me... by budgenator · · Score: 1

      No the point is there are 18 million people paying Social Security taxes with no prospect of ever collecting benefits; the government has little incentive of correcting this situation. We're going to the hard part and spend $6.7 billion on a virtual fence to stop illegal immigrants, but we're going to skip the easy and inexpensive part of data-mining existing data.

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    36. Re:It must be just me... by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 1, Informative

      When you say the word "diversity," does it give you a stiffy or something? I pointed out a few facts. If they're racist, then reality is racist. Hispanics do commit more crime. Hispanics don't do well in school. If you'd like to disagree with either of those two points, go ahead, but you're going to get called an idiot again.

    37. Re:It must be just me... by ChromeAeonium · · Score: 1

      Just like when our ancestors came to America

      They didn't come to America because there was no America. Kinda hard to legally enter a country that doesn't exist. The analogy you're trying to make doesn't make sense because, even if there was a country that they illegally immigrated into, that still wouldn't have made it right, nor should it have any modern relevance. The founding fathers and many American ancestors had slaves, but it was wrong and their owning slaves has no logical relevance to that. Appeals to whoever are considered fallacies for a reason.

    38. Re:It must be just me... by RoFLKOPTr · · Score: 3, Informative

      How much of the problem is people walking over the border, compared to people overstaying their visas?

      There aren't a whole lot of problems with people overstaying their visas... at least here in California. Those who are here on visa can be tracked down fairly easily... known locations, pictures, etc. And they do find those people most of the time when a visa expires and there's no application in the system to get an extension or anything. The majority of aliens (I don't care if that word is "politically incorrect"... they're aliens to the USA) in California have no papers whatsoever. There are raids in the Canal district in Marin County where they arrest often tens, sometimes hundreds of people that are here 100% illegally (I've watched an ICE raid happen... this is not bullshit).

      The fact of the matter is that, even though our system is very slow and horribly outdated, it is our system, paid for by our taxes, and if you want to come to the United States, you have to follow the proper guidelines and use the proper process. I am not a racist person. I make racist jokes all the time, but I don't hate Hispanics (or any other race, but face it, the illegal immigration problem is primarily Mexico) by any stretch of the imagination. I do hate people who are here illegally, though, and I have zero sympathy for them when they get deported and separated from their family.

    39. Re:It must be just me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ah I see, so your solution is for us to go back to when there was no national government and ownership is decided by who got there first or who wins the armed combat. Sounds fun.

    40. Re:It must be just me... by CodeBuster · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The problem is quite simple really: we cannot have uncontrolled imigration into a welfare state .

      The United States is not generally lumped into the same category as the European Union states with their extensive social safety nets, but we are still at least 40%+ socialist here in the United States with massive social security, medicare, and medicaid entitlement programs (among others). Even now the big government entitlement spending of the past ala the "Great Society", which put us firmly on the road towards the massive defecits that we have been piling up over the last several decades, is beginning to stage a comeback with Obama and the Democrats now firmly grasping the rudder and steering us left. Of course, economics tells us that something will have to give: either we control immigration strictly (as the Europeans do) or we abandon the welfare mentality and open wide the gates to anyone who wants to come, work hard, and make it by their own hard work and initiative BUT without any safety net for those who fail. Why can't we have it both ways you ask? There aren't enough resources on the planet for everyone to enjoy the lifestyle of the average American and live in North America so somebody is going to have to do with less or without and there are really only two ways to decide who gets what: fair competition in free markets OR violence (often perpetrated by the state in the name of "fairness" to redistribute to everyone an equal portion of misery). Personally, I prefer the former rather than the later, but I predict that we here in the United States are going to learn the hard way (again) that socialism doesn't work and neither does borrowing your way out of debt.

    41. Re:It must be just me... by laddiebuck · · Score: 3, Informative

      Let me chip in as a legal immigrant that it is about 20 times harder to get in or live in the US legally than illegally, if at all. I've seen plenty of illegal families, sending their kids to colleges at rates I never had access to, getting scholarships and loans I never was eligible for, skipping taxes I paid duly, getting emergency treatment that cost me a struggle to pay in deductibles and co-pays, getting jobs and graduate programs that rejected me because of my papers, and on top of it all regularly having naive and ill-informed people protesting for their benefit and never mine. And those that were not so lucky, working under minimum wage with no protection at all sorts of jobs. It's truly disgusting what the US is doing, to both of us. They should just have guest worker and exchange student programmes like all the rest of the civilised world.

      But here I am, dreaming away. I ought to get back to my jobs to pay off those debts I incurred, just living in this country legally. I like this country overall, but some things about it are more bizarre than anything Kafka thought up in a fevered dream.

    42. Re:It must be just me... by swillden · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Nonetheless, there are plenty of otherwise necessary rules that give some people hard times, and we can't just have people doing as they please legal or not because of it.

      There's an ancient military aphorism taught to all soon-to-be-commissioned officers: "Never give an order that you know will not be obeyed." Giving orders that won't be obeyed accomplishes nothing and undermines the officer's authority. Having ignored one command, it becomes easier for the soldiers to ignore others.

      That maxim has a clear corollary in lawmaking: "Never pass a law that huge numbers of people will break". Passing such laws does little or nothing to change human behavior, but does a great deal to undermine the rule of law.

      Given that there are large numbers of people who are willing to take tremendous risks to come to the US and work, and there is no shortage of Americans willing to employ them, setting immigration quotas too low is simply stupidity on the part of our immigration system. It makes no sense to blame the illegals, who are just trying to make a living. It makes some sense to blame their employers, but unless there are plenty of Americans clamoring for the jobs being filled by illegals (and, by and large, there *aren't*. Illegals mostly do work that no one else wants to) then even that is silly.

      No, in this situation the problem is the law.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    43. Re:It must be just me... by Draek · · Score: 1, Insightful

      That maxim has a clear corollary in lawmaking: "Never pass a law that huge numbers of people will break". Passing such laws does little or nothing to change human behavior, but does a great deal to undermine the rule of law.

      It also gives you a legal reason to throw practically whoever you want in jail. Never underestimate the power of that little benefit.

      --
      No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
    44. Re:It must be just me... by assertation · · Score: 1

      willoughby;

      I live in a near a Hispanic neighborhood and I feel the same way you do. Legal or not most of these people are extremely decent people. All they want to do is work their asses off and make a decent living. They don't seem to want much else and as a group seem to be extremely nice.

      I'm against the idea of English not being the national language of the US and I think Hispanics are being out of line by demanding that it not be.

      However, when I look at the problems Europe is having with its wave of Islamic immigrants I am thankful for our Hispanic immigrants, legal and not.

      Yes, I do agree we need to control the flow across our borders.

    45. Re:It must be just me... by MorePower · · Score: 1

      What channels are those? When I was seriously dating a foreigner, I looked into what it would take for her to legal immigrate to the US. Basically, I would have had to marry her. The only channels for legally immigrating to the US are 1)Have an immediate family member already here legally (parent, child, spouse, or soon-to-be-spouse) or 2)Be a full time employee of a large corporation (with a staff of lawyers) that wants you here (H1B, corporate transfers).

      There is no visa category that would allow for tamale-selling entrepreneurs, farm helpers who move from field to field as work becomes available, or guys who hang out in the hardware store and offer to to help you move heavy furniture or fix up your garden.

    46. Re:It must be just me... by MorePower · · Score: 2, Interesting
      You mean like at Ellis Island?

      For me, that's the whole issue. When my ancestors arrived, they just showed up at Ellis Island, filled out some paperwork, and were let in. I'd like to see some poor Mexican migrant worker show up at the border crossing and ask for the form to legally enter the USA. I wonder how long it would take for the border agents to stop laughing.

      For all those people who keep saying the illegals should just follow the proper procedure, you need to realized for your "average Jose" there is no process that would allow them to enter legally.

    47. Re:It must be just me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And when you and your family get cholera or food poisoning you'll expect our government to do something about it.

      Nobody thinks they are evil or even doing something wrong. The issue is that they don't have to live by the laws of the land while the rest of us do. They don't have to pay taxes while the rest of us do. They want to reap the benefits of living in the country while contributing very little if any to the building up of it.

      If they want to come here let them do it legally, if its too hard for honest people to come through then maybe the rules need to be examined. But the rules shouldn't be changed until the borders are secure.

      For all you know they are all hepatitis carriers.

    48. Re:It must be just me... by swillden · · Score: 1

      That maxim has a clear corollary in lawmaking: "Never pass a law that huge numbers of people will break". Passing such laws does little or nothing to change human behavior, but does a great deal to undermine the rule of law.

      It also gives you a legal reason to throw practically whoever you want in jail. Never underestimate the power of that little benefit.

      Yes, that's one major aspect of how such widely-broken laws undermine the rule of law. The single biggest purpose of the "rule of law" is to avoid a society where citizens/subjects scurry around in perpetual fear of government officials.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    49. Re:It must be just me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Excuse me, but let me explain the "proper channels" of getting a visa into the US.

      1. Tourist Visa
      You have to prove you have enough money to enter, stay, and leave the states.
      You have to show a detailed flight and hotel plan that accounts for every day spent here.
      You need to wait ~2-4 months while they do a background check on you.
      You need to then register on a website and wait while they do *another* background check on you.

      2. J-1 Internship Visa
      The easiest non-tourist visa you can get. You need to work through an official company sponsored by the US gov't (which frequently charges $3,000-5,000 for the "services", which are nothing more than letting you get approved).
      You need to find a company willing to work with you through all the considerable red tape just to get you to work with them.
      You need a bank account with at least ~$500,000 in it.
      Plus all the stuff they do for the tourist visa.

      And don't even get me started on the hell-hole that is a Work Visa. It includes your company needing to put a classified ad in a well-known newspaper for a week to prove that no American is interested in taking the job before they can consider giving it to a foreigner.

      The "official channels" are completely impossible to go through unless you either come from a first-world country or have inordinate sums of money.

      It's depressing, when you think about the fact that this country was supposed to be based off of people of the world coming together.

    50. Re:It must be just me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, the vast majority of immigrants are here for opportunity, and are good people.

      But open borders also enable crime like you wouldn't believe. Hundreds of thousands of people a year are brought across open borders worldwide for slavery, for example; the Mexican border is one such. The United States is a destination country for human trafficking, though occasionally people from the US are also taken the other way. Crime in Mexico has gotten insanely bad, though we don't here about it much up here, and it's simply not safe for many foreigners. We need the border as a regulatory tool. Right now, people are kidnapped by Mexican organized crime in the region for several purposes. We want to have relatively open borders in many ways, but we also want to control who comes across.

    51. Re:It must be just me... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      It has nothing to do with any of that. It is about using the proper channels to do it.

      You have completely failed to understand what's going on here. Mexicans are the new slaves. The situation is just as unfair to the workers, but much much better for the landowners. Under slavery you had to feed, clothe, and house your workers; you could mistreat them grossly, but managing them intelligently got more work done for less expenditure of time and effort. Under the system of "illegal labor" you have to pay your workers, but if they offend you, you can simply have them deported and then you don't even have to pay them any back pay. Also, it is SOP for the managers to force workers to give them pieces of their check to keep their job and so on.

      As such, if you want a head of lettuce for ninety-nine cents, we're going to need "illegal" mexicans in the country. Yes, we should have actual citizens doing these jobs. But that would drive food costs through the roof overnight. I feel it is a desirable goal to correct the situation, but not a realistic one at this time.

      It is about people doing things the legal way

      The one and only way to get rid of illegal immigrants is to stop supporting the industries that effectively import them. Buy your food locally. By the same token, if you love your environment you should purchase organically grown food, so that you stop supporting the industries fertilizing crops with oil.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    52. Re:It must be just me... by happyfeet2000 · · Score: 4, Informative

      No, he means like in 1800's Texas where illegals from the US eventually outnumbered Mexicans and with support from the US government declared independence and later joined the US.

    53. Re:It must be just me... by earWaxRemovalSystem · · Score: 1

      It makes no sense to blame the illegals, who are just trying to make a living. It makes some sense to blame their employers, but unless there are plenty of Americans clamoring for the jobs being filled by illegals (and, by and large, there *aren't*. Illegals mostly do work that no one else wants to) then even that is silly. No, in this situation the problem is the law. /quote> A simple solution that would work: strict sanctions against EMPLOYERS. Makes no sense to blame the illegals. Or the companies that draw them here with job offers. Both are simply acting rationally in their own interests.

    54. Re:It must be just me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If they're illegals and you know this then you're complicit. They should be sent home and you should be sent to prison.

      It's not the first time I've been wrong but sometimes I like being wrong. Just ask my ex-wives about that.

      Wives as in plural? You didn't learn the first couple of times? So you're an idiot then.

      Like it or not, the are taking jobs for US citizens, skirting workers comp, and saturating ERs when they are injured. The may or may not pay taxes for the schools and service which their children use.

      The so-called jobs that "no US citizen will do" are that way since the employers do not have to pay a competitive wage to LEGAL citizens and provide insurance and workman's comp.

      Do you want to know what recitfies this? Look at Arizona. They've been able to close schools and hospitals due to the outflow of illegals, thus saving a LOT of money.

    55. Re:It must be just me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i agree, i work in the construction trade and done so for most my adult life, all the mexicans i see are among the best workers there are, they show up everyday on time and do great work

      Shows how little you know about high quality construction. Any Mexican that picks up a hammer is a "framer" or "carpenter", and I've seen houses they've put up that are downright scary.

      The one thing they are useful for is brainless back-breaking labor, like picking produce. Anything that requires skill is best done by a citizen.

    56. Re:It must be just me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why don't you tell that to Mexico, which has more severe border protection against Guatemala than the US has against Mexico and than Mexico has against the US?

    57. Re:It must be just me... by earlymon · · Score: 1

      Sorry - misread - my bad.

      You make an excellent, cogent point - the more so sadder.

      --
      Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
    58. Re:It must be just me... by cayenne8 · · Score: 1
      "The "proper channels" set immigration limits drastically to less than what economic forces would set them to."

      Who's economic forces? Theirs or ours?

      We can't afford to let everyone in all at once...we can see already the strain doing so, so far has cost us here in the US. There IS a need to regulate how may people get to come here...

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    59. Re:It must be just me... by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      I do hate people who are here illegally

      Thats a bit strong, wouldnt it be better directed at the circumstances that make it necessary for people to flee one country into another, and that make it illegal to do so?

      It's not exactly as if someone is going to say "gee, life sure does suck in poverty, and we could actually have a decent life if we fled to the US, but hey--that would violate their immigration laws, so i guess we'll just starve!"

    60. Re:It must be just me... by mark0978 · · Score: 1

      You aren't the only one. We just aren't standing up on a ladder beating our chests like the other apes are.

    61. Re:It must be just me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A Latina family live near me. Mom, Dad, & a couple of pre-high school boys. They peridocally come through the neighborhood selling fresh, homemade tamales......

      These folks are just trying to make a living & put their kids through school so they can have a better life......

      Another "Oh they're just here to work and better themselves statement" and I think I am going to go postal...

      True, there are good and bad people but that is not the issue. The issue is they are here illegally. By definition that mom and dad and their boys are criminals. Go ahead, get your english dictionary and look up the word illegal and criminal. Then go take a look at the law that says (paraphrasing) you just can't sneak into the country and call yourself an American.

      Next, if all these mexicans piling over our border are just here to work, why then do illegal aliens from Mexico make up over 30% of the prison populate in the USA. That makes somewhere between 500,000 and 750,000 of these people were NOT here to work and that's just the ones that have been caught. Go give your "they're just here to better themselves" sob story to some of the families and citizens in our border cities where armed mexican militias have started skirmishes between local cops and drug dealers. Or how about the many border sherriffs and police officers who have been kidnapped by mexican drug cartels "IN AMERICA" and our government does nothing.

      Our how about the problem of disease control. Unchecked aliens pouring through our border with swine flu, SARS, aids, hepatitis, tuberculosis, and many other ailments. Our how about our hospitals, overcrowded with people who don't belong here that are going out of business. What about the fact that illegal aliens cost the states billions of our tax dollars. Still think you like being wrong? How about the staggering numbers of mexican gang members of ruthless organizations like MS-13 flooding our streets. One of the bastards shot a 6 month old baby in the head in my city just last year and laughed about it as he was carted off to jail to spend the rest of his life living off my dime in a prison somewhere.

      A country that does not enforce borders, language and culture is not a country. The definition of a country is determined by its physical borders, the prevailing language of its citizens and the culture that differentiates it from its neighbors. America is losing all three, daily and consistently.

      There is a defined process for how people can become a part of this nation and for those that go through that vetting process, I have nothing but respect and admiration for them. Many of my co-workers are LEGAL immigrants and new citizens. I like them all, they are law-abiding, and are contributing to the success of the nation. Those who believe they don't have to go through the process or can't wait in line deserve nothing, no free school, no healthcare, no medicare, nothing.... By their rejection of our laws they have stated that they wish to be treated like the criminals that they are. You must treat your country the same way you treat your own home. Would you feed and clothe and treat the wounds and diseases and educate the children of someone who walked into your house unannouced? No. Then why then would you do that for your nation. Does not the nation have the same concerns (albeit on a greater scale) than you do? We must return our nation to a nation of law and the respect of law. Without it and the enforcement of borders, language and culture we are done as a superpower and a nation. period. And then, as America goes, so goes the world. I guess once we degrade into a third world country overrun by illegals and gangs, then we won't have to worry about this anymore.

    62. Re:It must be just me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but they are not here legally. Therefore they are criminals.

      Also, let's not forget that before America instituted it's numerous welfare programs, Americans (for the majority) did ALL of these jobs. Sure there have always been migrant workers from other countries, but Americans used to do their own "dirty work". Now we sit back and let those who don't belong here do what we are too lazy to do. I guess we are now beginning to reap what we have sown.

    63. Re:It must be just me... by RoFLKOPTr · · Score: 1

      I do hate people who are here illegally

      Thats a bit strong, wouldnt it be better directed at the circumstances that make it necessary for people to flee one country into another, and that make it illegal to do so? It's not exactly as if someone is going to say "gee, life sure does suck in poverty, and we could actually have a decent life if we fled to the US, but hey--that would violate their immigration laws, so i guess we'll just starve!"

      Yep. It's a bit strong, and I don't care. If they're not willing to go through the proper channels to live in the US, I want them gone. Taxes pay for roads that they drive on, buses they ride on, and sometimes even welfare checks that they somehow manage to receive, and if they're here illegally, they're not paying any of said taxes, and are therefore living here for free. Yes, I hate people who are here illegally and are making zero effort to become legal.

  5. Here's a solution to the budget problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    We could just hire Mexicans to build it. As long as they stay on their side while working, then no problem!

    1. Re:Here's a solution to the budget problem by Jackie_Chan_Fan · · Score: 1

      Tap Tap Tap... Is this thing on? Tap Tap Tap... Is this thing on?

      You Hack.

  6. Yeah, and they expected by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

    that this system would work to stop marijuana smuggling across the Canadian border too... with all the mountains and trees. Hahahaha.

    1. Re:Yeah, and they expected by inKubus · · Score: 1

      that this system would work to stop marijuana smuggling across the Canadian border too... with all the mountains and trees. Hahahaha.

      There's a pretty easy way to stop that, and that's to legalize growing it in the U.S. It practically is already because the Justice Department has made it their lowest priority.

      --
      Cool! Amazing Toys.
    2. Re:Yeah, and they expected by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      Pretty soon they aren't going to do much about it anyway, because of the new political flap coming up... states are fighting the Federal government's claim to be able to regulate just about anything under the "Interstate Commerce Clause", along with a Supreme Court decision back in the 30s that interpreted that clause extremely broadly.

      There are some active attacks against that old SCOTUS decision going on now, and there is a good chance that it will not stand. And if it doesn't: if something originates in a particular state, and never crosses state borders in trade, then the Feds will have no power to "regulate" it.

      Montana has just passed a law that specifically says as much in regard to firearms; Utah and Texas are preparing to do the same, and a number of other states have similar things in the works. Utah actually claims their law will be broader than Montana's.

    3. Re:Yeah, and they expected by dryeo · · Score: 0, Troll

      Sure be nice if you guys did go back to following the spirit of your constitution and lived up to your name, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA instead of the way you are now.
      Perhaps you would stop pressuring your neighbors to follow your industry specific laws.

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
    4. Re:Yeah, and they expected by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      Please don't use the term "you" in this context. Certain people are doing that, but it doesn't mean that most of us are!

      "Certain politicians and corporations" might be a more appropriate way to put it.

    5. Re:Yeah, and they expected by dryeo · · Score: 1

      But it is still an American problem, no one outside of the states can fix it. The people of the US have to change things so certain corporations and their politicians don't run over American's lives as well as their allies. Change will probably have to come from the bottom up, perhaps by state laws as you described then battling the courts until the supreme court makes a decision. Unluckily halve the time they don't seem to follow the US constitution and the other halve the time they interpret it in a very broad manner like the interstate commerce clause.
      Isn't it possible for the States to call a constitutional convention, bypass congress and amend the constitution? That seems like one way to override the Supreme court.

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
    6. Re:Yeah, and they expected by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      By that very same logic, then, we can blame YOU for Tony Blair's policies, YOUR tossing away of certain freedoms of speech, YOUR crime rate, YOUR restrictions on firearms ownership, YOUR sagging economy, and all those other problems that YOUR government and politicians caused.

      If I were you, I would get cracking. Come on, don't sit there, go! You caused it, go fix it.

    7. Re:Yeah, and they expected by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      Oh, and I forgot to mention: it would really be nice if you would fix some of your nasty corporatist copyright laws, which, when imported over here by treaty, have really wreaked havoc.

    8. Re:Yeah, and they expected by dryeo · · Score: 1

      WTF, my country is up there with China, Russia etc as one of the worst countries about copyright, at least according to the Americans.
      http://www.ustr.gov/Document_Library/Press_Releases/2009/April/USTR_Releases_2009_Special_301_Report.html

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
    9. Re:Yeah, and they expected by dryeo · · Score: 1

      Well I guess that is one problem that we both could fix as easily. At that there is a very good chance that you live closer to Tony Blair then I do.

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
  7. The only applicable Simpsons reference by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ÂAye! ÂNo es bueno!

    1. Re:The only applicable Simpsons reference by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know what else isn't bueno? Slashdot's UTF-8 support.

    2. Re:The only applicable Simpsons reference by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not quite. Try this one: "Monorail, monorail, MONORAIL!!!"

  8. Thank God, by Vertana · · Score: 2, Funny

    for this fence! Cause they took our jebs! ...relax and realize I'm kidding.

    --
    "The best way to accelerate a Macintosh is at 9.8m/sec^2" -Marcus Dolengo
    1. Re:Thank God, by Bloopie · · Score: 2, Funny

      Cause they took our jebs!

      They can have him. Does anyone really want a third Bush presidency?

    2. Re:Thank God, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You spelled "jorb" wrong, Coach.

    3. Re:Thank God, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      for this fence! Cause they took our jebs! ...relax and realize I'm kidding.

      TOOK DE JERBS!!

  9. We should apply this to software development by e9th · · Score: 1

    Hey, we saved you lots of money. All we had to do was leave out the hard parts.

  10. It's not racism by sethstorm · · Score: 1, Insightful

    To have a well-defended border is not racism, it is border control.

    Why don't we ask Israel how they're keeping their borders secure and take a few hints? Scale up the border and enforcement. Then actually treat the border as a no-go territory, where things and people get shot at or worse.

    --
    Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
    1. Re:It's not racism by nametaken · · Score: 1

      I'm all for protecting the border and trying to stem the flood of illegal immigration, drugs, etc.

      However, I don't think it's fair to compare our border with Mexico to the Israeli-Palestinian border. We're considerably less hostile with each other, and I don't buy the terrorist influx argument on any scale I've had pitched to me in the media.

    2. Re:It's not racism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To have a well-defended border is not racism, it is border control.

      Why don't we ask Israel...

      When a country engages in discrimination with respect to who gets citizenship and who doesn't then any differences in how citizens and non-citizens are treated is discrimination.

      Or maybe you think it would be OK for the USA to decide that, say, Jewish people are no longer citizens and that a sovereign country has a right to deport non-citizens?

    3. Re:It's not racism by sethstorm · · Score: 0

      It would be better to have an expert on the subject of border control. At least they know something about keeping them out. We only know about letting people in.

      It'd also be better to overbuild it for that case given the relative instability. Terrorism or not, it would most certainly send a message to Mexico to reform their country.

      --
      Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
    4. Re:It's not racism by clarkkent09 · · Score: 1

      people get shot at or worse.

      Worse? They get tickled to death?

      --
      Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
    5. Re:It's not racism by cptnapalm · · Score: 1

      I agree on the "terroist influx" bit as well. It is seriously sensationalistic.

      I do find it funny that the same people who are for unimpeded immigration are usually those who will not be in direct competition with said immigrants. But outsourcing (which does affect them economically)? It is teh 3v1L, and there is much baying for blood. Both are similar in that they are lower cost labor, but one does affect them directly and the other does not. One is acceptable to loathe, the taking away of American (white collar) jobs, while the other is called (blue collar) bigotry.

      Sort of similar to journalists sounding off their hate for bloggers and the like.

    6. Re:It's not racism by owlnation · · Score: 0

      To have a well-defended border is not racism, it is border control.

      Why don't we ask Israel how they're keeping their borders secure and take a few hints? Scale up the border and enforcement. Then actually treat the border as a no-go territory, where things and people get shot at or worse.

      What you suggest doesn't sound like racism, but it sure sounds a lot like fascism. Worked well for East Berlin, your suggestion did -- oh wait, it didn't, it got 200+ innocent people killed.

      Borders are senseless. It's just a pissing contest between greedy and greedier politicians, held over from the middle ages. It also removes local power from people, and devolves that power to unwieldy, bureaucratic, expensive, dysfunctional national governmental bodies. Living in Europe you cross a street in some places you are in a different country -- makes no logical fucking sense at all. Makes about as much sense as flags do.

      Truth is the US economy would collapse overnight without immigrant labor (legal and otherwise). I find it astonishingly ironic that the most rabid protectionists are also the ones who are apparently pro-free-market. Make the next logical step. Free-market means free-market, hire the best workers regardless of their color of skin or supposed national identity. It will sort itself out, and balance itself.

      Border just create wars, racism, fascism, and add to human unhappiness. Time to start working towards removing them all, and grow up.

    7. Re:It's not racism by sethstorm · · Score: 2, Informative

      Truth is the US economy would collapse overnight without immigrant labor (legal and otherwise). I find it astonishingly ironic that the most rabid protectionists are also the ones who are apparently pro-free-market.

      It would only adjust to having citizens do such work under the existing regulations. All of that would work within the free-market doctrine.

      Citizen only refers to status, not race.

      Make the next logical step. Free-market means free-market, hire the best workers regardless of their color of skin or supposed national identity. It will sort itself out, and balance itself.

      ...to the detriment of citizens, just as it has done to manufacturing and IT.

      --
      Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
    8. Re:It's not racism by maxume · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It would probably be simpler to spend money on enforcing work permit laws and so force, making illegal border crossings a less attractive activity.

      Or do you also favor beefing up the border with Canada? That would be consistent with worrying about the border with a reasonably friendly nation.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    9. Re:It's not racism by owlnation · · Score: 1

      ...to the detriment of citizens, just as it has done to manufacturing and IT.

      That's still protectionist. That scenario may be true in the short term. Long term, it will balance out. It also means more jobs stay at home rather than being farmed out to other countries -- which will happen regardless. Once equilibrium is reached, I think there will be a net benefit.

    10. Re:It's not racism by gringofrijolero · · Score: 1

      Citizen only refers to status, not race.

      That's right. You're either a citizen, or you're property. When somebody can restrict your movements, you're his property.

      --
      Todos mis movimientos están friamente calculados
    11. Re:It's not racism by gringofrijolero · · Score: 1

      Terrorism or not, it would most certainly send a message to Mexico to reform their country.

      You oughta get that beam out of your eye there, son. Any "reforms" that aren't USGA grade A approved will go nowhere. Some of us remember Chile's 9/11.

      --
      Todos mis movimientos están friamente calculados
    12. Re:It's not racism by L4m3rthanyou · · Score: 1

      I do find it funny that the same people who are for unimpeded immigration are usually those who will not be in direct competition with said immigrants.

      Really? I find that people who are for unimpeded immigration are usually Hispanic, and fail to comprehend that they will have to compete with the illegal immigrants that they support.

      --
      One of these days, I'm going to cut you into little pieces.
    13. Re:It's not racism by MichaelSmith · · Score: 1

      It'd also be better to overbuild it for that case given the relative instability. Terrorism or not, it would most certainly send a message to Mexico to reform their country.

      Immigration to the US is acting as a filter, letting the good people move north and leaving an excess of scum bags south of the border. Perhaps the US should consider sending the legal immigrants back, so they can help reform Mexico.

    14. Re:It's not racism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I should have qualified it. Funny thing about ethnic solidarity is that if a disproportionally large chunk of a certain class of fellow ethnics are more prone to lethal violence and most of that lethal violence is aimed at others of the same ethnic group, though perhaps not the same class, it simply does not seem to matter. Example: an illegal aliens from Mexico kill Hispanic Americans, there may be a rally against violence generally (cause obviously those damn Irish could have been the culprits), but there won't be any outcry against illegal immigrants. It gets especially bad when the ethnic solidarity moves into the jury box.

    15. Re:It's not racism by darkwing_bmf · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm Anglo and I'm for unimpeded immigration because I want freedom. I believe in free markets and free people. I want the ability to legally live and work anywhere and believe others should have that freedom as well. I also believe freedom is a good thing economically speaking. It allows people to go to where the jobs are. I see the lack of border enforcement between the states and I see that it works out pretty well. Even though we have poor states and rich states, there aren't many people who believe erecting fences between them would be a good idea. The only problem I could potentially see between us and Mexico is the language, but the EU has proven that even that isn't a big issue.

    16. Re:It's not racism by Eli+Gottlieb · · Score: 1

      Why don't we ask Israel how they're keeping their borders secure and take a few hints? Scale up the border and enforcement. Then actually treat the border as a no-go territory, where things and people get shot at or worse.

      While I support strong border control in any country, I've never heard of Mexicans of any sort mounting repeated invasions with the intent of destroying the United States.

    17. Re:It's not racism by Eli+Gottlieb · · Score: 1

      That's right. You're either a citizen, or you're property. When somebody can restrict your movements, you're his property.

      If you don't like regulations restricting your movement as a non-citizen within the United States, you're free to go somewhere else. Particularly, you're free to try to make a Spanish-speaking country (which, judging by your Spanish signature and username, I presume you come from) as stable and healthy as the United States.

      A country exists for its citizens, not for everyone else's denizens.

    18. Re:It's not racism by couchslug · · Score: 1

      In the Slashdot world, Western countries do not belong to their citizens if proles from elsewhere want in.

      Only government and business can be enemies. We must renounce all exclusivity and share everything we have with whoever else wants it on their terms.

      --
      "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
    19. Re:It's not racism by couchslug · · Score: 1

      "It would probably be simpler to spend money on enforcing work permit laws and so force, making illegal border crossings a less attractive activity."

      That still leaves large swathes of border uncontrolled. Doing both, and altering the idiotic War on (Some) Drugs would make a meaningful difference in reducing the incentive to illicit border crossing.

      --
      "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
  11. It would be cheaper just to annex Mexico by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    At least in the long run. Say a couple of generations, with full English immersion in schools and government to prevent a Spanish Quebec.

    Plus, it would save a lot of people a trip north and waiting until the next amnesty. They would get instant American citizenship, and people north of the current border get some say in what's going on in the deep, DEEP South.

    1. Re:It would be cheaper just to annex Mexico by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      hmmm...but how about all the americans that went to Mexico to get away from the law?

    2. Re:It would be cheaper just to annex Mexico by guabah · · Score: 1

      At least in the long run. Say a couple of generations, with full English immersion in schools and government to prevent a Spanish Quebec.

      s it's We already have a Spanish Quebec but it's not a state yet.

    3. Re:It would be cheaper just to annex Mexico by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Whoa, slow down... there's a new Mexico?

  12. Is this equipment expensive? by atlastiamborn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How long until it's stolen? Seriously.

    --
    I never apologize. I'm sorry, but that's just the way I am.
    1. Re:Is this equipment expensive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You think they did not think of that?

      Brain goes where?!

    2. Re:Is this equipment expensive? by Toonol · · Score: 1

      Of course they thought of it.

      The contractor is no doubt salivating at the $500,000,000 worth of equipment they'll be replacing every year, for ever.

    3. Re:Is this equipment expensive? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The equipment itself is pretty much COTS. The cost of the system is the software and design and gui design and system integration and training. Each tower is expensive, but not zomg they stole an fighter jet expensive. And eventually they will be making upwards of thousands of these towers for the southern and northern borders, so it's not like they won't have spares.

      Much of the expensive equipment is 40 - 100 feet in the air, so someone will have to do some climbing on a tower that is already in 24x7 comms with border patrol and that has cameras on it.

      Apart from that, your suggestion that no one has considered the cost of vandalism or theft is insightful, and you should pass it along to your congress critter.

  13. Cheaper way by Tablizer · · Score: 0, Troll

    A much cheaper way is to put up giant signs saying, "Welcome to Bush Country" with W and Cheney smiling like the devil himself.
       

    1. Re:Cheaper way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It hasn't made you leave.

    2. Re:Cheaper way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but because of W, nobody else wants us.

  14. Let's review the definitions of real and virtual by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you can see it, and it's there, it's real.

    If you can see it, but it's not there, it's virtual.

    If you can't see it, and it's not there, it's gone.

    Which applies to the state of this fence?

    --
    Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
  15. Work resumes on pissing money away by amiga3D · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Billions of dollars for contractors. The answer to illegal immigration is simple. Jail the employers of illegal immigrants. Presto! No jobs for illegals equals vastly reduced illegal immigration. The local chicken processing plant here actually warns their workers not to show up on days when the INS is coming. Their management should go to jail but nooooo.... can't have people with money forced to obey the law. That'll never do.

    1. Re:Work resumes on pissing money away by sethstorm · · Score: 1

      The local chicken processing plant here actually warns their workers not to show up on days when the INS is coming.

      Take a page from Arizona and enact a Business Death Penalty.

      Then make it possible to prosecute doubly for the violation and the attempt to to hide it.

      --
      Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
    2. Re:Work resumes on pissing money away by j.+andrew+rogers · · Score: 1

      Jailing the employers of illegal immigrants is a pretty ignorant and useless "remedy" for the problem of illegal immigration. Nobody is hiring "illegal immigrants", they are hiring legal immigrants insofar as the employer is obligated to determine such things. In all the environs I have been in where there were illegal immigrants working, they always had papers sufficient to satisfy the obligation of the employer in determination of their eligibility to work. The employer may strongly suspect they are illegal, but the employer has no legal proof of that fact.

      If the employer is presented government documents that show eligibility to work by an illegal immigrant, that is a failure of government process and law. Or are you suggesting that we give the employer an obligation to arbitrarily discriminate against employees on the basis that they do not believe the government documents presented are valid without any evidence to support that opinion?

      The employers may benefit, but they are not at fault. Their choice is to assume the government documents are valid in the absence of contrary evidence or to be sued for employment discrimination.

    3. Re:Work resumes on pissing money away by sethstorm · · Score: 1

      How's Pennsylvania for you at Grigsby & Cohen?

      Seriously, they're the ones who benefit from overlooking the law and the ones who push for lax enforcement.

      --
      Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
    4. Re:Work resumes on pissing money away by QuantumRiff · · Score: 1

      There has actually been numerous attempts to force employers with over X number of employees to match names and social security numbers with an electronic search of the SS system. Several groups are heavily resistant.. I would like, however, to ensure that if someone says they are me, that they prove they are me...

      --

      What are we going to do tonight Brain?
    5. Re:Work resumes on pissing money away by plopez · · Score: 1

      can't do that. too many of them give too much money to campaign funds, often skewed toward the GOP. Literally the "elephant in the room". Why? Cheap union busting labor.

      --
      putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
  16. Unfortunately... by dvh.tosomja · · Score: 1

    Current models protect US only from virtual mexicans

  17. I like them too. That's why I dislike illegals. by SuperKendall · · Score: 3, Insightful

    These folks are just trying to make a living & put their kids through school so they can have a better life.

    They sure are, that's why I support fully a greater degree of legal immigration from Mexico. But it's also why illegal immigrants should not be given amnesty, and the ones that are here now should be sent back without exception.

    Consider this, illegal immigrants make it much harder for people like you describe, to come here legally. Why should people have a shot at a better life by jumping the line ahead of people who are trying to do it right?

    That to me is why fundamentally I support locking down the border as tightly as possible, because the process to be a part of America should be as fair as we can make it and not just for those willing to pay a lot of money to a lot of shady people just to get here.

    Again, this is obviously in conjunction with a wider open immigration process that would allow a faster flow of legal immigrants - from all over, not just Mexico.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  18. Stupid strawman by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    When a country engages in discrimination with respect to who gets citizenship and who doesn't then any differences in how citizens and non-citizens are treated is discrimination.

    Since every other country without exception chooses who can be citizens, I'd say your point there is pretty stupid.

    Or maybe you think it would be OK for the USA to decide that, say, Jewish people are no longer citizens and that a sovereign country has a right to deport non-citizens?

    Undoing citizenship is not even close to the same thing as choosing who you can take in. Wake me when that ever happens (hint - not likely since we even grant automatic citizenship to babies born here).

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Stupid strawman by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When a country engages in discrimination with respect to who gets citizenship and who doesn't then any differences in how citizens and non-citizens are treated is discrimination.

      Since every other country without exception chooses who can be citizens, I'd say your point there is pretty stupid.

      The point is that if a country treats, say, black people differently from white people when granting citizenship then if it treats non-citizens worse than citizens (most countries do) then the country is engaging in racial discrimination. That is, using some notion of race in deciding whether to grant citizenship is racism.

      Undoing citizenship is not even close to the same thing as choosing who you can take in.

      That depends. If you somehow do away with the previous government (e.g. civil war) and then engage in some sort of racial discrimination with respect to who gets citizenship in the new country then that is essentially the same thing.

      Wake me when that ever happens...

      It happened in what used to be Palestine and we've been burdened with the repercussions ever since.

      The original post claimed that controlling a border was not racism and then went on to talk about Israel - which was a rather ironic juxtaposition.

    2. Re:Stupid strawman by gringofrijolero · · Score: 1

      If you somehow do away with the previous government (e.g. civil war) and then engage in some sort of racial discrimination with respect to who gets citizenship in the new country then that is essentially the same thing.

      *All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.*

      It's not racial discrimination. It's geographical discrimination. In modern times one's no better than the other.

      --
      Todos mis movimientos están friamente calculados
  19. Re:Let's review the definitions of real and virtua by amiga3D · · Score: 1

    Try..."they paid for and it's not there."

  20. Slashdot is US Centric. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    N/T

  21. Re:Landmines are cheaper by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And why, pray tell, is illegally entering another country a crime WORTHY OF DEATH?

  22. Re:Let's review the definitions of real and virtua by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Okay, so "Invisible Fence" was already taken by the doggie people. What can you do?

  23. Re:Landmines are cheaper by Toonol · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Yeah, it's a national border; I have no problems with a minefield and machine gun turrets. As long as it's not used to keep anybody IN the u.s., it's completely acceptable.

  24. 6.7 Billion is a lot of labor hours by fluffy99 · · Score: 1, Troll

    The border patrol has approx 25,000 officers to cover the 2,000 mile border. Assuming each officer covers a 40-hour week, thats roughly 3 officers per mile. These guys must have awefully poor eyesight! You can't even make the case that one man isn't enough since you have another 29 within a 5-minute response time. Why the hell are we spending a huge chunk of money for a _detection_ system that still does nothing to prevent the intrusions? 6.7 billion would double the existing border patrol levels for 4 years. I think we also need to aggressively defend out borders. Enough with this detain and deport strategy. You don't see other countries doing this.

    1. Re:6.7 Billion is a lot of labor hours by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      "6.7 Billion is a lot of labor hours" It is, but they could save big bucks by employing illegal foreign workers.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    2. Re:6.7 Billion is a lot of labor hours by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      6.7 billion would double the existing border patrol levels for 4 years.

      Actually, 6.8 billion will buy AN AWFUL LOT of land mines (deployment cost included.) Of course, somebody will have to go scoop up what's left of the would-be illegal immigrants every morning...

    3. Re:6.7 Billion is a lot of labor hours by sethstorm · · Score: 1

      Of course, somebody will have to go scoop up what's left of the would-be illegal immigrants every morning...

      Leave them there as a warning.

      --
      Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
    4. Re:6.7 Billion is a lot of labor hours by Pretzalzz · · Score: 1

      Your error is in assuming that the border patrol is evenly distributed. I'd think places like Tijuana/San Diego could have 50-100 officers a mile, and need them. The actual road crossings tend to have significant delays getting through.

    5. Re:6.7 Billion is a lot of labor hours by fluffy99 · · Score: 1

      True. One of the biggest problems is not keeping an easily patrolled buffer zone. A buffer zone and some towers with snipers would be pretty effective. Think prison yards with an inner and out fence line, where anyone between the fence lines is fair game.

  25. Re:It's not racism. by sethstorm · · Score: 1

    That scenario may be true in the short term. Long term, it will balance out. It also means more jobs stay at home rather than being farmed out to other countries -- which will happen regardless. Once equilibrium is reached, I think there will be a net benefit.

    Waiting 50-100 years is not an option for most if anyone in that situation.

    You're not taking into account firms like Grigsby & Cohen that decide to turn on citizens with legal dirty pool.

    Better to take the lumps of protecting the nation if we're not going to help our citizens transition.

    --
    Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
  26. Re:In other news Which, The Onion or The Times... by PickleToast · · Score: 1

    The Mexican border has moved North between 1000 miles (at the northernmost point of the border) and 1500 miles (at the border's southernmost point).

    Do you have any proof of this? I've looked a bit and can't find any reference's on this topic?

  27. Soo.. by cortesoft · · Score: 1

    This will protect us from all virtual Mexicans...

  28. This happened in South Jersey in the 70's by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 1

    My father worked for RCA at a remote location in South Jersey (Gibsboro). One week, they put up a chain link fence around the place. Over the weekend, the fence disappeared. I guess "Soprano Fencing" was a bad choice of a contractor.

    "Hey, Tony, whadda I do wid dis fence?"

    --
    Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
  29. Blueservo by band-aid-brand · · Score: 1

    This site lets you watch the border and report suspicious activity. I'm not sure how effective it is, but its an example of what can be done with this "virtual fence" technology.

  30. Isn't there already a better, cheaper, solution? by walterbyrd · · Score: 1

    Most of those illegally crossing the boarder are looking for jobs, right? So why not require the use of eVerify, and have a meaningful system of identification, and mandatory jail sentences for anybody hiring an illegal immigrant. For most Mexicans, if they can not get jobs in the USA, there is no reason to come here.

    There is also the GWB solution: make the US such an awful place to live, that nobody would want to come here, illegally or otherwise.

  31. Re:Landmines are cheaper by oneirophrenos · · Score: 0, Troll

    Seriously. Spend $500m to buy mines, and $100m to lay them. Mines are about $3-5 actual manufacturing cost and that would give you a fairly high density of mines. I guarantee that midnight crossing would slow way down. Right now there's almost no risk to crossing the border illegally. Worst case they get detained and deported.

    Land mines? Are you fucking kidding me? You seriously suggest killing people who cross a god-damned border. And you're spared from this just because you happened to be born within said borders?

  32. But why illegally? by antdude · · Score: 0

    I am OK with legal immigrants, but not with illegally. If they want to come to U.S. to have a better life, then do it the legal ways.

    --
    Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  33. Re:In other news Which, The Onion or The Times... by mysidia · · Score: 1

    Note the breaking news of Febuary 28, 2009

  34. Re:Isn't there already a better, cheaper, solution by auric_dude · · Score: 1

    "One Riot, One Ranger" Should be more than enough to do the job http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Ranger_Division

  35. Borders & fences don't stop desperate people. by reporter · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    Borders and fences do not stop desperate people (who are often literally hungry due to lack of nourishment) from fleeing to the United States. An even bigger joke than fences is the immigration "reform" bill that appears periodically on Capitol Hill and that is supposed to permanently fix the "problem" of uncontrolled illegal immigration. This "problem" is often described as an American problem for us Americans to fix.

    That is just politically correct propaganda. The "problem" is not an American problem.

    What is the problem? Mexicans hate to live in a society created by their culture. It cannot generate sufficient wealth. Mexicans lack the ability to build a modern society. That is the problem. For political reasons, no one will state this obvious problem.

    Building a modern, properous society is not rocket science. Look at Eastern Europe. Within about 1 year of liberation (in about 1990) from Soviet oppression, the Eastern Europeans laid the foundation of a genuine democratic government and a free market. Today, the Eastern Europeans are comfortable, have enough to eat, and have a decent live. Many Eastern Europeans do emigrate to, say, England for better economic opportunities, but they are not doing so out of desperation.

    Now look at Mexico. It is blessed with plenty of natural resources: vast regions that are ideal for agriculture, oil, etc. Yet, despite having more than 50 years to build a prosperous society, the Mexicans did not do so. They turned a bounty of natural resources into stinking poverty, infested with drug gangs. No one -- not the Soviet Union of the old days nor any other external power -- imposed or is imposing this rotten society on the Mexicans. The Mexicans themselves created it. They are solely responsible for it.

    By stark contrast, Japan has almost no natural resources, but the Japanese people turned their barren rock into the 2nd wealthiest nation in the world. Furthermore, Japan is a liberal Western democracy.

    What do the Japanese and the Eastern Europeans have but Mexicans lack?

    Washington should explore the possibility of a colonial approach to dealing with Mexico. If the Mexicans lack the ability to build a prosperous society, then we Americans should take effective control of the Mexican government and run Mexico as a de-facto colony of the USA. We in the West know how to build a prosperous society, and we should impose the process of Westernization onto Mexico.

    We Americans should not allow desperate illegal aliens to suppress the wages of the American underclass. We have an obligation to help our own citizens first. Americans in the unskilled labor market are American citizens. We have an obligation to help them, not the Mexicans.

  36. borders vis a vis the free market by benjamindees · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I find it astonishingly ironic that the most rabid protectionists are also the ones who are apparently pro-free-market.

    That's because you don't understand the physical limits of economics and of the free market.

    The free market for labor only works in a closed system with reasonably slow population growth. Human labor is the only commodity that is self-replicating, legally protected and government subsidized. For those reasons it's also the only economic input whose supply has an inverse relationship to quality of living and, thus, utility. Without limits, labor supply would grow uncontrollably, outstripping demand and collapsing individual quality of life.

    Look at almost any third world country for an example of this in action. China and India don't need more people. They're trying to kill them off as quickly as possible by herding them into polluted cities and enforcing quotas on cigarettes and limits on children. Saturating our labor markets with an unending flow of immigrants would cause Americans' quality of life to plummet, and would not appreciably improve the quality of life in the emigrant countries from which they came, because they would quickly be replaced.

    Then, beyond any of that, which should be obvious by now, consider that labor demand is shrinking as technology improves. Jobs are increasingly being done by computers and robots. One worker can do the jobs of ten or a hundred workers of just a few decades ago. Energy is the limiting factor to future economic growth, not labor.

    And you're wrong about one other thing: Borders don't create wars. Resource shortages create wars. Overpopulation creates resource shortages. And competent governments with well-managed borders prevent overpopulation.

    I just hope that well-intentioned idiots like yourself begin to realize this before the next large-scale war is caused by China and India's overpopulation problems. Surely you wouldn't be so stupid and short-sighted as to blame that on racism and fascism when greed and scarcity are much more obvious culprits?

    --
    "I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
    1. Re:borders vis a vis the free market by megaditto · · Score: 1

      labor supply would grow uncontrollably, outstripping demand and collapsing individual quality of life.

      American population has trippled since 1900. By your logic, our standard of living should be 1/3 of what it was in 1900.

      Your assumtions are flawed. It's not a zero sum game. More people means BOTH more workers AND more customers.

      --
      Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
    2. Re:borders vis a vis the free market by benjamindees · · Score: 2, Insightful

      American population has trippled since 1900. By your logic, our standard of living should be 1/3 of what it was in 1900.

      No, by my logic our standard of living would be higher if American population had grown at slower rate. In no way did I imply a linear relationship. Furthermore, I also did not imply that the relationship between population and standard of living does not have an inflection point. In fact I specifically accounted for "reasonably slow population growth".

      Besides, if we ignored external inputs due to trade (not human trafficking), our standard of living would be much lower than it is currently. And if we further ignore the vast amounts of physical resources that have been depleted in the US since 1900 we could come quite close to explaining why the timeframe you chose as your sterling example of progress through uncontrolled population growth is little more than an aberration.

      Your assumtions are flawed. It's not a zero sum game. More people means BOTH more workers AND more customers.

      Unfortunately finite resources ARE a zero sum game. And one which economists routinely ignore. More people means fewer resources, full stop.

      Energy use per capita has peaked. Standards of living have been stagnant for two decades. Technological progress has slowed.

      Furthermore, as I pointed out in my post which you blithely ignored, HUMAN LABOR IS REACHING OBSOLESCENCE IN THE FACE OF AUTOMATION TECHNOLOGIES THAT CONSUME VAST AMOUNTS OF ENERGY. So there is zero need for more workers beyond the replacement rate.

      My assumptions are NOT flawed. I am not some type of neo-Malthusian. You are simply ignoring physical reality in favor of some mathematical bullshit of which you have convinced yourself, not unlike the idiots who spent the last ten years destroying the US economy by importing Mexicans to build craptacularly overpriced houses.

      --
      "I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
  37. It works out like this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Illegal immigrants are people that break into an apartment complex and start living there without the permission of the landlord. The landlord knows about this but can't throw him out because his tenants will call him racist or fascist. SO what he does is he puts him on the lowest part of the totem pole, giving him the least in maintenance any whatnot. Then, some of the tenants start saying that the landlord should take care of the new guy just like the rest of them because he's already there.

    Now, the legal immigrants are the people who spoke to the landlord and are about to come in to look at the apartment. They're getting credit checks run on them and everything and hey, they might even rent the apartment. But they can't because the illegal immigrant got there first.

    I don't care if the illegal immigrant is paying his landlord the rental fee. Most likely he isn't but it's possible. I don't care if he'd been living in craptown before this. The thing here is he's pushed ahead of the legal immigrants to get into the apartment without following the established way of doing things.

    So what can the landlord do? He tries to increase security on the empty apartments so the same thing can't happen. Except, hey, the tenants complain AGAIN that he's being overbearing against those people who might want to break in and live in the apartment without the permission of the landlord.

    I mean seriously, what the hell. If this situation weren't in a national scale the illegal immigrant would be thrown out and hauled to jail instantly.

    1. Re:It works out like this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Illegal immigrants are people that break into an apartment complex and start living there without the permission of the landlord.

      A better analogy would be a be a black person (illegally) drinking out of a "whites only" drinking fountain.

      If you get down to fundamental principles you'll find that while there is historical precedent for both racial segregation and restriction of immigration, neither has a solid ethical or moral justification.

  38. Re:Let's review the definitions of real and virtua by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    None of the above?

    You can't see it, and it's there.

  39. Re:Isn't there already a better, cheaper, solution by MichaelSmith · · Score: 1

    There is also the GWB solution: make the US such an awful place to live, that nobody would want to come here, illegally or otherwise.

    I wonder if the US could improve the situation in Mexico by creating a new type of visa. The idea is that you could live in the US as long as you want, but only 50% of the time. This would encourage migrants to divide their time between Mexico and the US. There would be more cultural exchange and the people who have (partly) migrated north would have a good reason to make Mexico a good place to live. Ultimately this might result in fewer people wanting to leave the country.

  40. isn't the real expense by jjeffries · · Score: 1

    Isn't the real expense going to be in putting the beep/shock collars on all those Mexicans?

  41. Re:Let's review the definitions of real and virtua by Dachannien · · Score: 1

    Also: "Any word that follows 'virtual' is a lie."

  42. "Tear down this wall" by Gruff1002 · · Score: 1

    First uttered by Reagan. One of many hypocritical manifestos of the American government.

    1. Re:"Tear down this wall" by gatkinso · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That wall was meant to keep people captive.

      This wall is simply meant to make people use legal means of immigration, which incidentally will continue to exist.

      --
      I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
    2. Re:"Tear down this wall" by gatkinso · · Score: 1

      Come now, surely you can come up with some smart as rejoinder to the below post for me to eviscerate?

      --
      I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
  43. Your Government At Work by westlake · · Score: 1

    The border patrol has approx 25,000 officers to cover the 2,000 mile border.

    Think again. Think harder.

    [ U.S. Customs and Border Protection, or CBP] is responsible for guarding nearly 7,000 miles of land border the United States shares with Canada and Mexico and 2,000 miles of coastal waters surrounding the Florida peninsula and off the coast of Southern California. The agency also protects 95,000 miles of maritime border in partnership with the United States Coast Guard.


    [There are] more than 17,000 CBP Border Patrol agents, 1,000 CBP Air and Marine agents, and almost 22,000 CBP officers and agriculture specialists, together with the nation's largest law enforcement canine program.


    On a typical day in fiscal year 2008, CBP processed approximately 1 million passengers and pedestrians; 70,000 containers; and 331,000 privately owned vehicles.

    257,000 international arrivals by air. 43,000 by ship.

    There were 73 arrests of criminals
    2,796 apprehensions...for illegal entry


    Seized -

    7,621 pounds of narcotics
    $296,000 in undeclared or illicit currency

    4,125 prohibited meat, plant materials or animal products, including 400 agricultural pests at ports of entry


    Rescued 3 illegal crossers in distress or dangerous conditions

    Deployed -


    1,275 canine enforcement teams

    18,276 vehicles, 275 aircraft, 180 watercraft, and 252 equestrian patrols This is CBP

    1. Re:Your Government At Work by fluffy99 · · Score: 1

      Sorry, I quoted numbers from the article which stated 2000-miles along the mexican border and 25000 agents. The majority of the agents are along the Mexican border. Not a whole lot along the Canada border, and almost none in Fl as the CBP website would imply.

    2. Re:Your Government At Work by westlake · · Score: 1

      Not a whole lot along the Canada border

      I live across the lake from Toronto.

      The Border Patrol has a very visible presence here - and cameras cover every inch of the Niagara. U.S. gets tough on Canadian border

  44. One way to help stop illegals by jonwil · · Score: 1

    Start setting up manufacturing capacity in Mexico to make things like kitchenware, toys, computer keyboards and other things that are currently being made in China. I dont know what sort of wages you could pay a Mexican vs what you could pay someone in China to do the same job but I suspect that once you factor in the boat trip from China vs the truck ride from Mexico, the total cost to produce, say, a plastic container in Mexico would be cheaper than producing the same container in China. Assuming that is the case, companies like Wal-Mart could make more profit, lower their prices or both.
    So it has the advantage of giving Mexicans a job so they have less reason to come to the USA, the advantage of potentially lower mfg costs for these goods and it cuts China out of the equation.

    1. Re:One way to help stop illegals by fluffy99 · · Score: 1

      Hmmm. That sounds suspiciously like NAFTA.

    2. Re:One way to help stop illegals by gtall · · Score: 1

      Errr..where have you been through the 1980s and 1990s? That's precisely what U.S. companies did. Guess what, many decided that Asia was even cheaper and China even more so. The Chinese government wasn't as dumb as the Mexican gov., they insisted on joint ventures and no respect for trademarks, licenses, and any of the intellectual-crappola associated with a modern industrial state. The result is that Mexico cannot compete with China. And increasingly, neither can the U.S.

      There is no industry so safe that Business School Product cannot screw it up. These whiz kids would sell their grand-mother's soul to the Chinese if they thought it would get them one more step up the business ladder. It does tend to move them down the evolutionary scale though, so that now they are little more than trained apes...without the cuteness or wildlife organizations running fund drives for them.

  45. Cut school that day? by Mathinker · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's been a long time since I learned about US history in school but I get the distinct impression you're forgetting something. What what that, again? .... April showers?

  46. Surveillance equipment? Bah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why just detect illegals when you can stop them cold? Forget cameras and shit, buy UA571 robot sentry guns and set them up with overlapping fields of fire.

  47. Landmines by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Screw the fence.

    Just put a bunch of Intelligent Munition System (IMS) landmines in it's place.

    Cheaper, and a better deterrrent.

  48. Fence? Forget it. Tax them. by gatkinso · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Since illeal immigrant are getting health care, police protection, (add a number of government supplied services here) anyway.. just take the plunge, make them citizens... and then proceed to tax the bejesus out of them.

     

    --
    I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
  49. Re The same economists that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Would that be the same economists who suggest drilling for more oil when you need more? The same ones who think supply can magically match demand

    1. Re:Re The same economists that by bfields · · Score: 1

      Employment isn't like oil--it isn't a finite resource.

      If I babysit the kids while you make dinner, and if we pay each other for that, the money will just go in a circle--but that doesn't mean it was the results cancelled each other out. There were real, concrete benefits. (Dinner got made, kids got taken care of.)

      The economy is a much larger and more complicated version of that sort of mutual back-scratching machine. And whenever you add more people you're adding the potential for more of those relationships.

    2. Re:Re The same economists that by SJ2000 · · Score: 1
    3. Re:Re The same economists that by ultranova · · Score: 1

      The economy is a much larger and more complicated version of that sort of mutual back-scratching machine. And whenever you add more people you're adding the potential for more of those relationships.

      Unfortunately, there is a problem: since neither of you produced the raw materials for the dinner, you had to buy them from outside. Money left your economy. Add more people, and there might be more back-scratching opportunities, but you also have to buy more food, driving you to bankruptcy that much sooner.

      Now, if some of you worked the fields and the mill - but that's not the case in the US nowadays. Manufacturing has been outsourced to third world countries, and the country consumes more than it manufactures, so it's heading towards inevitable bankruptcy. Add more people to the economy, and it gets even worse, since the new people have to eat too.

      Basically, in a "service economy", the more people you add, the faster it falls apart.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

  50. The Solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Snipers and Mine Fields solve the illegal immigration problem.

    Dramatically increase the number of legal immigrants allowed, but register and track them. One wrong move and back to where ever you came from.

    Any one here illegally now will be given a chance to leave on their own and come back legally. But if they stay, they continue to be criminals and should be treated as such.

    Is it really that hard? Seems simple to me.

  51. Just make them legal by tb2007 · · Score: 1

    We don't need a fence, or guards even. (Maybe for the drug smugglers and bad things like that)

    We a need of system of making these illegal people legal. All they want is a life so why not help them.

    This will help all of us. Give all the illegal immigrants legal status as long as they pay taxes. I'm pretty sure that would help the deficient by all of a sudden having millions of new tax payers.

    Made throw a mandatory English class in there too.

  52. They violated the law, plain and simple. by sethstorm · · Score: 1

    To give them amnesty would be to give incentive to border jump even more.

    See a very similar attempt in 1986 for example.

    Make them reform their country, not ours.

    --
    Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
  53. Re:Let's review the definitions of real and virtua by DeadboltX · · Score: 1

    I think "Can't see it, and it is there" is the proper phrase

  54. Stop I say! by CBob · · Score: 1

    Or I shall be forced to take your picture again.

  55. That's nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Now please address the hundreds of thousands of illegal alien gangbangers who commit a huge amount of violent crime in the US. In detail, please tell us what should we do about it, and how you can tell by merely looking who is a good illegal alien and who isn't. And also make a case for raising local property taxes to pay for all of this, make the case why we should pay for people here illegally who in no way are paying enough in taxes to offset the increased needs of local communities with increased hospital costs (they basically overwhelm local emergency rooms with normal healthcare demand and usually having no insurance the tab has to be picked up by everyone else), increased police costs(see previous mention of gangbangers and do the research to verify there are in fact hundreds of thousands of them now, and even if incarcerated run around 50 grand a year to maintain them in prisons), increased local schooling costs, etc.

    Just ONE kid costs around 20 grand a year if they are suddenly in the community and need to be schooled, from year to year costs and new physical plants needed because of capacity issues. In my area, they are having to build one new public school per year, and have done so over the past around six years now because of the influx of illegals. There is no way in hell that an illegal family with one, two, three or more kids is paying 20,40 or 60 thousand a year in local property taxes to pay for that, That is coming out of other folk's pockets. Please make the case why you think that is fair or sustainable, or how that 40 grand for those two kids is balanced with your tamale diet. Are YOU willing to pay the extra schooling costs of those two kids out of your pocket? No? Why should your neighbors then, make the case please.

    Also please make a case why relieving pressure on Mexico to actually develop a workable social and economic system and pay a living wage down there is not more desirable.

    Mexico is an insanely corrupt medieval styled fiefdom run by around 200 billionaire families who are interconnected with the government and the drug cartels. Why do you support such a system that is the primary cause of the people fleeing their own nation? Do you think they really want to leave? Wouldn't it be better to use harsher methods with the alleged so called government there to be more fair with their own people? Why do you think giving those corrupt plutocrats a full skate is such a good idea, and why should we pay for that?

    Can't you see that by having a release valve here that just perpetuates that corrupt system there, rather than letting it get to the point that the people there clean up their own mess, using whatever means are necessary?

    And where does it end? The planet now has 7 billion people, how many millions or tens of millions or hundreds of millions more illegals are we supposed to absorb in the US? Really, give us an exact number, and also how you come up with that number. And if there is a cutoff point, aren't you back to saying we should have controlled immigration like is supposed to be the law now? Or is it your point that we should have no immigration rules, just let in and out whomever wishes, no questions asked ever?

    Are you starting to see the larger picture now, and why this isn't a simple issue, and why people who are concerned over unchecked illegal immigration have some points?

    This is simple if you can get past you little local anecdotals.

    People need to flee their own land, ask the question, why? Answer, it sucks royally where they are at. Now ask why that is so, and do the research to find out. Now you are closer to a real sustainable answer. The solution to the illegal Mexican alien immigration issue is to institute and force reforms so that Mexico doesn't suck in the first place

    The US has to stop kowtowing to those top 200 feudal families who run that place and start cracking down on them, using the same means we would use with any other

  56. Great we're spending 7 billion on a barn door. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    No ones going to read this but, the birth rate in Central and South America has fallen off a cliff in the last fifteen years. At the same time the migration of people from rural Mexico to the cities is at the end stage.

    What drives illegal immigration from Mexico is the weak job market and the emptying out of rural Mexico (because there are no jobs). Young people either head to the cities or north to the US mostly depending on whether they have relatives in either place.

    However the rural->urban migration mostly finished and the lower birth rate means a better job market and settled population in Mexico. That means much much lower immigration from Mexico in the coming years. So this is a 'problem' that will fix itself and spending more money on it it is silly.

  57. Re:Borders & fences don't stop desperate peopl by LBt1st · · Score: 1

    Why was this modded Flamebait? Don't mod down just because you disagree.

  58. Government contracts by samcan · · Score: 1

    I gotta get me one of them government jobs, so I can just get money thrown at me.

    "You need $4.5 million for a bunch of Cheez-It's and a Beowulf cluster for home? You've got it!"

  59. Free Trade? by McGiraf · · Score: 0

    NAFTA isn't that a free trade agreement?
    Free trade isn't that free movement of funds, goods and workers?
    Why this much control at the border then?

    Oh, you mean it;s free trade for corporations not people?

    hum ... think we got shafted again.

    1. Re:Free Trade? by darkwing_bmf · · Score: 1

      Word. I support NAFTA, but it doesn't go far enough. In theory, we should have had the free movement of people between the member nations by now. Unfortunately there's a lot of people in this country who, when given a choice between true freedom and keeping the brown people out, will take the later option.

    2. Re:Free Trade? by IHC+Navistar · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately, there is no trading of workers..... It's a one sided deal.

      --
      Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
    3. Re:Free Trade? by McGiraf · · Score: 1

      Hey mod, overrated != I do not agree.

      If you do not agree say so, if you have no arguments just fuck off.

      Using you mod points like this is just censorship.

       

  60. Puerto Rico by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He means Puerto Rico, which has been a US possession since 1898.

    Given the topic of this thread, it sure is relevant to mention that the USA imposed on Puerto Rico an English-language educational system, in an attempt to anglicize the population. It failed.

  61. Re:Borders & fences don't stop desperate peopl by CSMatt · · Score: 1

    Because if there's anything foreign policy experience has taught us, it's that other countries are just begging to be "Westernizied."

    The US has been interfering in the affairs of Latin America since the Spanish-American War, overthrowing "hostile" democratic governments and instituting US-friendly regimes. Whether these new governments were democracies or brutal dictatorships mattered not, as long as they remained friendly to the US. Needless to say, a number of those citizens of those nations were (and are) more than a little pissed.

  62. if they spent the money on infrastructure instead by vaporland · · Score: 4, Informative

    Your comment about proper channels is uninformed.

    My wife is from the UK and I have been through the green card process. We had to hire a lawyer because the rules are so arcane and complex, one little slip-up and you're toast.

    Case in point - our lawyer told us to delay her "final interview", because it would come before our two year wedding anniversary. Why is that important? If you get your green card before your two year wedding anniversary, your green card is only good for three years, and then you have to go through an expensive renewal process.

    If your final interview is after your two year wedding anniversary, your green card is good for ten years.

    Our lawyer changed the interview date, but INS lost the letter. Apparently, this is very common. However, we received a letter in the mail saying that because we did not show up for the interview, my wife had 30 days to leave the country.

    Our lawyer processes hundreds of applications every month, so he personally knows the director of the Immigration services in Norfolk and intervened on our behalf.

    We paid $4000 for the lawyer and $2800 more in application fees and supporting documentational effort.

    If they took all the billions of dollars they are spending on stupid techno-junk to watch the border and instead used it to bolster the infrastructure of the application and review process, and to hire more office workers and inspectors, an immigration application would take four weeks instead of 28 months.

    When it takes 28 months instead of four weeks, it is because someone is profiting from such an arrangement. In this case it is Boeing, and the companies who exploit illegal labor.

    --
    Ask Me About... The 80's!
  63. Mexicans are stealing our jobs. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Since I was laid off from my last job as a systems analyst I've been trying to get a job, any job, but it seems like every minimum wage job is controlled by Mexican mafia, at one point I was practically chased off from one meat packing plant by a gang of Mexicans (complete with death threats and all). I say our country has the right to protect it's borders by any means necessary, which in my opinion means landmines and machine gun nests, shoot anyone trying to sneak in on sight, the Mexicans only understand violence.

    1. Re:Mexicans are stealing our jobs. by disago · · Score: 1
      Aren't you, anonymous coward, confusing the dark-side of the human condition with some nationality? Did you give any thinking to your comment?

      shoot anyone trying to sneak in on sight, the Mexicans only understand violence.

      I'm glad that "Mexicans only understand violence" and you are such a peaceful person! Anyway if a guy coming from a foreign country, without knowing your language and culture, far away from his family and home can so easily steal your job, you should reconsider being a little more competitive...

  64. Re:Landmines are cheaper by darkwing_bmf · · Score: 1

    We should be more like Iran and Russia? What political philosophy is this? Certainly not what our founding fathers envisioned.

  65. Re:Borders & fences don't stop desperate peopl by Dan541 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    This is /. it seems only the dickheads have mod points.

    --
    An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
  66. Re:Borders & fences don't stop desperate peopl by Dan541 · · Score: 1

    Because if there's anything foreign policy experience has taught us, it's that other countries are just begging to be "Westernizied."

    They are, otherwise their people wouldn't be flooding in here by boat.

    --
    An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
  67. Re:Fence? Forget it. Tax them. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Better yet annex them and make them citizens.
    No problems with wiping out their drug lords.
    Lot smaller boarder to protect then.

  68. Two *tired* old points: China and Mexico by assertation · · Score: 1

    The Great Wall Of China was ( and is ) quite a fancy technical feat in its day. It didn't keep people out. I think a better approach is to work with those governments to improve their economies so people don't feel compelled to emigrate just to make a basic living.

  69. Yes, it is just you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "I guess I'm the only person in the USA who doesn't recognize that to be the horrible crime it is."

    Probably.

    You'll be the first person bitching when these tamales have salmonella. You'll be asking for more government regulation.

    And when you get put out of work because some illegal will do your job for 1/4 the price, you'll be wondering what your government is actually for.

    And then when your taxes get doubled because these wonderful illegals send 10 kids to school without paying any taxes, you'll wonder what's really going on.

    Finally, when you go to your council meeting and wonder why everybody is speaking spanish, and how illegals managed to vote in very pro-illegal spanish speaking council you'll wonder how your life changed completely all because of people just trying to make a living for themselves.

    You're the picture of how a country is destroyed from within, gringo.

  70. I worked on SBINet by John+Jorsett · · Score: 1

    IBM made some incredibly idiotic decisions, and I hope SBINet part deaux will be better handled. Even if it is, SBINet will help, but it isn't going to do enough. The crossers have many tactics for defeating a surveillance network, including making feints to draw agents out of place then swarming another area where it will take the Border Patrol too long to get there. As one Border Patrol agent said to me, "All the sensors and cameras do is let us count the number who get away." A double or triple physical fence backed up by agents, sensors, and cameras is the only thing that's going to make a dent. Bringing down the hammer of law enforcement on those hiring illegals would do the most. I wouldn't put any money on a significant uptick in either one for the foreseeable future.

  71. $3.35m / mile??!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That seems a little excessive.

    Wouldn't a big concrete wall & a few CCTV cameras be cheaper and just as effective? Possibly even more reliable 'cos it doesn't require inventing new tech...

    1. Re:$3.35m / mile??!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It does seem excessive, but just for curiosity's sake I looked up some rates quoted by customers on answers.yahoo and wiki.answers. I'll take the high end figures.

      Concrete wall: $27 to $51 / sq. ft.
      CCTV professional installed system with high end cameras a quality DVR with network connection ability and high recording capacity a system can cost you installed a minimum of $4000 to $5000 dollars.

      1 mile concrete wall 8 ft. high 5280 * 8 * $51 = approx $2.2m
      One CCTV every 100 ft: 52.8 * $5000 = approx $0.3m

      Total: $2.5 m / mile.

  72. SBInet == USIDent ? by lennier · · Score: 1

    So now I know what 'USIDent' in Southland Tales is referring to. I thought it was a kind of clumsy half-capitalisation that wouldn't appear in real life... but no.

    --
    You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
  73. Re:Borders & fences don't stop desperate peopl by JorgeFierro · · Score: 1

    While there is some thruth to the 'It is their society which is unable to fix their problems' statement, for obvious reasons, you are just plain wrong in the following line:

    "Mexicans hate to live in a society created by their culture"

    It is the cowards and unskilled that immigrate to the USA ILLEGALLY.

  74. here's an alternative idea by plopez · · Score: 1
    --
    putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
  75. Odd mental image by pablodiazgutierrez · · Score: 1

    Before I read the summary, I was picturing a bunch of Mexicans posting their work resumes on some kind of semi-transparent fence along the border with the US. Who knows? Perhaps that could be the new way to find jobs across the border?

  76. Virtual vs. Real by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The problem with a virtual fence is that it won't stop real illegals from coming across.

    Do NOT confuse these people with those that immigrate to this country LEGALLY!!! If you don't like our current immigration laws, the solution is simple - get your legislature to pass new ones! Period!

  77. Make your mind up. by jotaeleemeese · · Score: 1

    Tony Blair was rightly hounded for his corrupt handling of the media.

    Now we have a PM that is not obsessed by this.

    If you want politicians that micromanage every aspect of their public life, and thus, detach themselves from reality, go on, criticize this non event.

    --
    IANAL but write like a drunk one.
  78. The real border never moved. by jotaeleemeese · · Score: 1

    Mexicans are just coming back to areas that used to belong to our country.

    --
    IANAL but write like a drunk one.
  79. The wonders of revisionism. by jotaeleemeese · · Score: 1

    Mexico had an elected President in 1910 after ousting Porfirio Diaz, a modernizer but dictatorial , criminal and authoritarian figure.

    A traitor, supported by the US, deposed the legitimate Mexican government.

    After that we had 70 years of certainly self inflicted pain, but do not forget that when we tried to give ourselves a democracy the US wasn't there to lend us a hand.

    --
    IANAL but write like a drunk one.
  80. The proper channels are broken. by jotaeleemeese · · Score: 1

    NAFTA should have an agreement for the free and unrestricted movement of people.

    Why are USians so afraid of competition? The softy Europeans weren't ....

    --
    IANAL but write like a drunk one.
  81. Mexicans are more likely to learn English.... by jotaeleemeese · · Score: 1

    ... than the other way around.

    US immigrants are notorious for creating pockets of English only areas in the countries where they settle.

    --
    IANAL but write like a drunk one.
  82. Open borders: traffickers would be gone. by jotaeleemeese · · Score: 1

    Do you see any traffickers between France and the UK?

    Or poorer countries like Poland and Germany or the UK?

    No, Why? Because people can come and go as they please.

    If the US was remotely serious about stopping trafficking of people they would just stop extensive border controls scaling back to reasonable controls, based mostly on proper intelligence and policing work.

    --
    IANAL but write like a drunk one.
    1. Re:Open borders: traffickers would be gone. by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      You see huge amounts of trafficking between France and the UK - and in addition thousands of people camp outside Calais and other ports (and the Eurotunnel terminals) in order to hop the English Channel illegally. Its been a huge problem for decades.

  83. H1-B visas are not to bring cheap labour to the US by jotaeleemeese · · Score: 1

    No matter how much you would want this to be the case, it isn't.

    --
    IANAL but write like a drunk one.
  84. Make everybody legal... by jotaeleemeese · · Score: 1

    ... and stop worrying about controling the natural economic flows.

    The US may have an initial flood of Mexican immigrants if borders were fully open, but a situation in which immigrants fully contribute to the economy and compete in a fair basis for jobs with the locals is far more desirable than the mess of human and economic wastage that exists now.

    And one more little secret: most Mexicans moving to the US for the first time don't like it there and would prefer to go back home to their extended families.

    If people could go to the US freely, they would eventually settle back in Mexico, making their towns more prosperous in the process.

    Why the US insists on these irrational border controls, against the US's best interests, is proof about how completely irrational racism is (because it is racism, there is no other reason for the US reticence to deal with this matter appropriately).

    --
    IANAL but write like a drunk one.
  85. That didn't happen in Europe. by jotaeleemeese · · Score: 1

    People in Europe were saying exactly the same thing when countries like Spain, Portugal and Greece (oh, those latin peoples, I am noting a trend here?) joined the EU. And more recently when Eastern European countries from the former Soviet block did.

    Although there was an initial influx of workers from these countries (to fill positions that locals didn't want to fill), eventually the immigration leveled out, and there have been years in which the net immigration has reversed from "rich" countries to poor ones.

    Now Spain is one of the strongest economies in the world (after the quasi feudal mismanagement of the fascist Franco), Portugal and Greece are more prosperous, and rich countries are not overcome by Portuguese and Spanish low income workers (in the contrary, now the influx is of highly educated people).

    Even East Europeans are benefiting now from this dynamics, and the numbers of them moving to the UK for example have leveled out.

    So if Europe can cope, is the US in such bad shape that can't come with a creative humane solution to the control of immigration?

    Is the best the leading light of democracy and freedom can offer a replication of the Berlin Wall?

    --
    IANAL but write like a drunk one.
  86. Spain and Portugal.... by jotaeleemeese · · Score: 1

    ... had similar levels of poverty to Mexico at the time they joined the EU.

    --
    IANAL but write like a drunk one.
    1. Re:Spain and Portugal.... by MichaelSmith · · Score: 1

      And East Germany I suppose. Not sure about the current situation with Turkey.

  87. Hispanics are not a race. by jotaeleemeese · · Score: 1

    Allowing for the term race to creep on this discussion (there is not such a thing as human races from a proper scientific point of view), Hispanics share one thing and one thing only: we speak Spanish.

    There are people of African, European, Amerindian and Asian (Salma Hayek is of Lebanese descent fro example) descent who are Hispanic.

    So I would say that those "statistics" are just providing the racist propaganda some people in US society want to know, in order to provide an ideological base to avoid addressing the real issues (poverty, lack of oportunity).

    --
    IANAL but write like a drunk one.
    1. Re:Hispanics are not a race. by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 1

      (there is not such a thing as human races from a proper scientific point of view)

      Sorry, but that's moronic. Police can even figure out the race of the suspect from DNA nowadays. (They caught some serial rapist/killer in Alabama like that a couple years back.)

      Hispanics share one thing and one thing only: we speak Spanish.

      Well you said one moronic thing already, so why not make it two? People of Hispanic descent contain a wider variety than many other groups, true. But the variety is neither infinite nor random. And it is on interesting display within Latin-American countries. The people on the top in countries like Mexico also tend to be much more Spanish. The people on the bottom tend to be much more mixed African/Spanish/Native (I've seen numbers for admixture ratios in the neighborhood of 50%). Actually, Spaniards in my neck of the world get very upset at being called Hispanic. And Hispanics in my neck of the world mostly speak English, which sort of blows your silly theory out of the water.

  88. Europeans are not strict with immigration. by jotaeleemeese · · Score: 1

    A walk in the park in London, Paris or Berlin should be enough proof for that.

    Just for starters there are no border controls between most EU states. Whatever you are, whenever you were born, your passport will never be checked when you cross a national border in most of Europe.

    Talking as a Mexican, the place most difficult to enter is the US. I get a tourist visa on arrival to all signatory countries of the Schengen agreement, the UK and many other countries. Even Canada grants Mexicans tourist visas on arrival.

    The paperwork for a visa to Vietnam was less complicated than one for the US.

    Unsurprisingly I have not visited the land of the free for several years now, frankly I can't be bothered. Shame that my paisanos are not so lucky.

    --
    IANAL but write like a drunk one.
  89. How stupid. by jotaeleemeese · · Score: 1

    Ask a clue from a country that is acting in a demonstrably racist way....

    --
    IANAL but write like a drunk one.
  90. Protect the Citizen! by jotaeleemeese · · Score: 1

    No matter if he is less efficient, lazier or less educated.

    Consumers are citizens also btw, so by artificially paying higher salaries you are actually harming local consumers.

    So which is it Keemosabe? You either harm workers or consumers (this is actually not true of course, by allowing immigration freely you increase your contributory tax base, immigrants will of course demand goods and services which create new jobs in the economy that were not there before. But if you want to keep goods and services artificially expensive in your country keep suggesting irrational solutions ....)

    --
    IANAL but write like a drunk one.
  91. Good luck with that. by jotaeleemeese · · Score: 1

    There is not a single Mexican that would welcome such a thing.

    --
    IANAL but write like a drunk one.
  92. Most migrants don't want to be US citizens. by jotaeleemeese · · Score: 1

    But would gladly pay taxes.

    It is the stubbornness of US politicians and certain sectors of US society which makes this impossible.

    --
    IANAL but write like a drunk one.
    1. Re:Most migrants don't want to be US citizens. by gatkinso · · Score: 1

      I doubt it. Certain hispanic immigrant advocacy groups fight sales tax increases tooth and nail... incidentally one tax that their "constituency" cannot avoid.

      --
      I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
  93. Trivial by alexo · · Score: 1

    Yes, that's one major aspect of how such widely-broken laws undermine the rule of law. The single biggest purpose of the "rule of law" is to avoid a society where citizens/subjects scurry around in perpetual fear of government officials.

    Therefore government officials seek to undermine it.

  94. Re:if they spent the money on infrastructure inste by couchslug · · Score: 1

    One way to deal with the "lost letter" problem is to send ALL relevant correspondence registered mail with internet tracking and keep copies.

    I got the idea from other veterans dealing with the Veterans Administration (which was caught SHREDDING disability paperwork).

    http://www.vawatchdog.org/VAshredderscandal.htm

    If the government will do it to veterans, anyone is vulnerable.

    --
    "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
  95. Re:if they spent the money on infrastructure inste by vaporland · · Score: 1

    I can assure you that the lawyer sent EVERYTHING registered mail. they lost it after they got it.

    it really doesn't matter with immigration. even when you're right, you're wrong...

    --
    Ask Me About... The 80's!
  96. Birth rate in Central american and Mexico by gatkinso · · Score: 1

    seems quite high according to a quick Google search that I just did.

    Interesting point however, since S America does seem to be in a decline.

    --
    I am very small, utmostly microscopic.