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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."
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
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.
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
How long until it's stolen? Seriously.
I never apologize. I'm sorry, but that's just the way I am.
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!
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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"
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!
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?
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.
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.
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
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.
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!
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.