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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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6229529.ece
Don't blame me -- I voted for Roslin.
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.
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.