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."

Comments

It must be just me...

[willoughby]

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.

Re:It must be just me...

[ChromeAeonium]

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).

Re:It must be just me...

[FudRucker]

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...

Re:It must be just me...

[owlnation]

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.

Re:It must be just me...

[earlymon]

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.

Re:It must be just me...

[bfields]

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.

Re:It must be just me...

[CodeBuster]

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.

Re:It must be just me...

[swillden]

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.

Is this equipment expensive?

[atlastiamborn]

How long until it's stolen? Seriously.

Work resumes on pissing money away

[amiga3D]

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.

I like them too. That's why I dislike illegals.

[SuperKendall]

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.