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US Scraps Virtual Fence Along Mexican Border
Pickens writes "The Arizona Republic reports that the federal government has officially cancelled its multibillion-dollar plan to build a virtual fence along the border with Mexico as Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano disclosed in a congressional briefing that the program known as SBInet was costing too much and achieving too little. 'SBInet cannot meet its original objective of providing a single, integrated border-security technology solution,' says Napolitano. Boeing was hired in 2006 to develop the system under a three-year federal contract with cost projections for full build-out as high as $8 billion but efforts were plagued by delays, glitches, budget increases and congressional criticism. Napolitano has ordered Customs and Border Protection to launch a more modest and geographically tailored effort using SBInet funds and existing technology such as mobile-surveillance systems, unmanned aircraft, thermal-imaging devices and remote-video surveillance with proven elements of SBInet including stationary radar and infrared-sensor towers. SBInet cost nearly $1 billion for development along 53 miles of Arizona border."
I'm curious as to why the project failed. They claim to have a much cheaper plan that they're going to try now; why didn't they try that in the first place? Is it going to be substantially less effective? So ineffective that it's not worth spending money on that, either?
The article mentions "glitches and delays". Is that because Boeing is just bad at its job? Or is it a fundamentally difficult thing?
I'm not asking about the political implications, which are substantial. I just want to know: America is supposed to be good at tech, but this is hardly the first time that a Big Government Project has failed. Is there a lesson we can learn here? Or is it endemic to the fact that the US government does things on a scale no other operation in the world does?
It seems pretty clear that nobody in Washington is interested in controlling illegal immigration, so why do we continue to waste money on it? If you're going to build a fence, build a real fence that actually keeps people out.
Can't we at least get a better class of pork-barrel projects to funnel money to defense contractors? I'd appreciate getting at least some value for the money.
You're right. The e-fence was no fence at all.
- What we need is some kind of wall to keep out non-citizens. I think the Chinese invented the idea 2500 years ago, when they wanted to stop immigrants from the north, so let's go negotiate with them to build it for us.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I think i have an obsession for technical solutions. I can't walk by any new gadget without thinking "That could solve this problem" and ending up buying most of them. But in the end even i learned, that for social problems, you need social solutions. If you try to solve social problems with technology, you will always fail. It's also true the other way round: you cannot solve technological problems with social measures. Unless one accepts that, failures like this fence will happen again and again.
CU, Martin
The idea is to give border patrol better information as to where to catch them. I of course think there are better things we can do to curb illegal immigration, like helping make Mexico a better place by legalizing many drugs, which would ultimately cut off a significant amount of funds to the mexican drug cartels, but a virtual fence isn't the worst idea ever. We should have secure borders, especially in times where there are people who want to do far more than just work and live here.
It's not just Boeing. You've got Lockheed-Martin getting these kinds of technology contracts too. They (and Northrop-Grumman) are giant, generalized technology behemoths now, with no real identity. NG owns shipyards too now. I liked them all so much better when they were airplane companies.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
If a portion of the money ($1 billion for 53 miles) was used to create jobs in Mexico, it would likely do far more to stop the tide.
But this isn't about logic, it's about feelings, and reactionaries who would rather spend money preventing and punishing illegal immigrants than giving anything to said aliens.
Err no, it's about giving lots and lots and lots of money to giant corporations so those said corporations will hire the people who secured them said money.
This, exactly.
The people making a stink about "onoz illegals!" IMO don't know what they're talking about. I live near the border (Tucson, AZ), and all these horrible problems created by the dirty Mexicans just ... aren't there.
Yes, there is some crime associated with drug smuggling; yes, there is a higher crime rate among the poor. But it's better among the Hispanic community here than in many other populations of non-immigrants.
An inaccurate comparison as closing a door is easy and hermetically sealing thousand of miles of border is impossible.
Look at the problems the Israelis have securing their Gaza border against tunneling.
Consider that they are a highly motivated and technically sophisticated people with a much,much shorter border to guard.
Border sealing is distraction and noise, either fines and enforcement make employing illegals an economically bad decision or the status quo continues no matter how much money is wasted at the border or how many hispanics are harassed in the streets.
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Really? Your hospitals are having no problems whatsoever in getting paid from illegal immigrants?
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
One of the problems with the Mexican drug lords and gangs (they're not really cartels), is that they're heavily armed. Armed by US citizens who (legally) buy guns and (illegally) sell them to Mexicans for a profit.
I read some statistics showing that almost all illegal guns in Mexico could be traced back to legally bought guns in the US, and we're not talking hunting rifles here.
My suggestion: Make it a felony to not be able to present any and all legally bought guns within 24 hours of the police requesting it, or to not report a lost gun in a timely manner, or to file a false report. Get the fuckers who arm the drug lords.
Not specifically because they're illegal, no.
Actually, I'd wager that the burden on the health care system from indigent ER abuse from inner-city black populations in Atlanta or Los Angeles is worse than the burden on our ER's from Mexicans.
And, if you'd offer these folks a path to citizenship, they'd be more able to participate in the economy and pay for health care like everyone else.
There's an excellent hospital near where I live (the place that they're treating Gabrielle Giffords, actually), and the last time I was there (in the ER at night) it was mostly drunk fraternity/sorority members, not Mexicans.
Although I'd expand that a bit more. It's not just about hiring the politicians who got you the money (get $1 billion for our company and we'll hire you at $1 million a year for every year of that contract or subsequent contracts).
It's also about hiring the FAMILIES of those politicians. Look around and you'll see an amazing number of wives and children of those politicians SOMEHOW working for the very corporations that benefit from the government contracts that those politicians push through based on fear of the (illegals | terrorists | pedophiles).
Chinese invented the idea 2500 years ago
And, coincidentally, the patent is due to expire later this year!
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
We don't need any more people.
Maybe that were the exact thoughts of the Indians about your grand-parents.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Most Illegals come to the US for jobs and/or social services. Deny them that, and they will stop coming. This would be *far* less expensive, and more effective. That would take care of about 70% of the problem. We would still need to patrol for the real bad guys. No system is perfect, but this would make a lot of sense.
1. Make e-verify mandatory.
2. Have IDs that are very difficult, if not impossible, to forge. Our money is very difficult to counterfeit, why not do the same with IDs?
3. No ETINs for illegals.
4. No sweeping amnesty, ever. No rewards for breaking our law.
5. As I understand it, in Mexico, you spend, at least, two years in prison for entering the country illegally. That is for the first offense. The US should adopt, and enforce, similar laws.
6. No more anchor-baby loophole.
7. Prison time for anybody who knowing hires an illegal.
See how easy that is? Fixing the illegal immigration problem is not that hard. The problem is corrupt US politicians who do not want to fix the problem, but the corporate owners don't want the problem fixed.
So if I'm on vacation two states over and a policeman demands to see my AK-47, what do I do if I left it at home?
Supporter of the +1 Over Dramatic mod option. In memory of apk.
I heard they were granted an extension for another 5 years, again.
But... the future refused to change.
I worked at the border. Borders do not stop people, but jobs and co-development do.
A lot of people try to cross border illegally to get a new status. If there was not visa requirement and people could move freely, many immigrants would actually part from the USA. The market would start to work.
Such thing happened in China when they canceled permits for living in a city. Many people sat tight in cities, only because they had invested in permits.
Ironically it was the USA who called the former USSR to "tear down this wall" and for a world without walls. Also ironically much more people were shot near on this wall, than at the Berlin wall.
Boeing is, as their own executives describe themselves, an 'honest broker' of engineering and management services. Aside from a very few core competencies (airframes, etc.) they subcontract or acquire the skills needed to complete a contract. So, they aren't as big as they seem. I mean, where was Boeing's e-fence division prior to this contract?
A couple of observations:
<chicago_mob_accent>
"If you want to do work in my territory, you've got to give me a piece of the action"
</chicago_mob_accent>.
Have gnu, will travel.
Reading comprehension problems? If you fined people who hired illegals that would be targetting those "rich businessman" that you feel the need to argue for. This idea is a left wing idea, but libertarians and conservatives would never think of doing something to penalize the sacred businessman.
Don't leave it at home?
Or ensure that whoever you left it in the care of (family member, gun club...) can present it for you?
If you are unwilling to assume responsibility for a device intended solely to kill human beings, you shouldn't have one.
And, you know, actually give out jail time, instead of just the occasional fine they'll deduct from their profits. So those jobs for illegals dry up, and they stop trying to come in.
I know, I know. That's crazy talk. Why would either party go after rich and powerful people, when they can just spend the sheeple's hard-earned cash? Otherwise they might have to spend it on health care, education, roads, or something else that might actually be useful.
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
Let's do the math.
The US Mexico border is 1,969 miles. Stationing on average 4 guards per mile gives us 7,876 guards. 4 shifts to give us 24x7x365 coverage gives us 31,504 guards.
31,504 guards would give us 4 guards per mile of US Mexico border, 24x7x365.
Assume generously that each guard costs us $150,000 / yr for pay, benefits, equipment, logistics, training, and administration.
BOTTOM LINE: For a price of 4.75 billion USD per year we can have 1 well paid, well equipped guard stationed on average every 1/4 mile along the entire 1,969 miles of the US Mexico border.
No, that doesn't include facilities and infrastructure to support the operation, but building guard towers, barracks, and administrative buildings is one of the few things that the government excels at.
Like government make-work programs? This is among the best I can think of in terms of jobs created per $$$ because it puts real people on the ground doing what real people do best. Rather than giving billions to some contractor who will employ 1,000 people, we are CREATING 31,504 NEW JOBS, and they are good hard working outdoor jobs, in the service of our nation, that most Americans would be proud to do and to pay for.
Personally I would like to see open borders and see us eliminate the uneconomical policies that drive us to fight the free flow of people and ideas, but that's not going to happen, so let's secure the damn thing.
If we want to cut off the flow of heavy weaponry to drug lords, we should probably focus on it more as a governance problem than as an opportunity to burnish our own police state.
As long as the boundary between the local governments(whose security forces we are almost uniformly dumping guns and training on, some 'in-kind' some as 'foreign aid', with the exception of the ones too left wing for our taste) and the cartels remains extremely porous due to corruption, defection, and the like, we are going to continue to see fair numbers of heavily equipped and fairly well trained drug gang militias.
Los Zetas are probably the most notable, getting their start when 30-odd members of the Mexican special forces(more than a few of them trained on your dime at Fort Bragg in a variety of handy techniques) were hired away as a security force for the Gulf Cartel. They continue to rely heavily on hires from a variety of police and army units from Mexico and elsewhere, and most of their best equipment is skimmed from the same.
Obviously, this doesn't mean that there aren't arms purchased by American civilians in use, I'm sure that there are. However, the steady flow of police and military hardware(and personnel and expertise...), much of it kindly provided by Uncle Sam, from the dubiously effective states in the region is arguably more of a problem.
Who is going to pay and organize that massive administrative burden?
You can't resolve social issues with your brain dead pseudo solutions.
The issue at hand is economical disparity: USians can pay cheap labour with their pocket change, and neither party really wants to abandon such fruitful economic interchange. It is only right wing posturing from people that actually don't appreciate the realities of economical interchange in the border that get infuriated about illegal immigration.
As long as this economic disparity is the prevailing situation, Mexicans and others will continue to risk their lives to try to improve themselves.
People are already dying in the crossing to the US, people already know that attempting to acquire the devalued US dream can be fatal, if you think your "solutions" will deter people with such determination I think your grasp of reality has been distorted by your cushioned existence.
Or you are wilfully ignorant.
Your pick.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Maybe if you pitched it as a method to keep rednecks and fundamentalist crackpots IN, then the international community would probably think this was an amazing idea and fund the entire thing.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
actually, that's a lie made by certain BATF agents and aped by Obama, and some congressmen. The accurate statement is 90% of traceable guns that were submitted to the AFT were U.S. origin, and they were submitted because they were likely to be of U.S. origin. Most drug cartel guns in Mexico come from overseas black markets.
Also Fox News made a false statement, that 17% of the cartel guns were U.S. and the rest foreign. Figure might be twice that or more.
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/counting-mexicos-guns/
The Mexican cartels are well armed, alright. And make no mistake--they are cartels in more than one sense of the word. Sure, some have rifles and handguns that were smuggled out of the US.
But they're also armed with heavy machine guns, hand grenades, 40mm grenade launchers, RPGs, LAW anti-tank rockets, and fucking *helicopters outfitted with machine guns*. It's also suspected that they have some cold-war era Stinger SAM missiles. Yeah, didn't read that one in the 'statistics', did you? How do you account for these items? A few hundred semi-automatic AKMs and AR-15s really does not compare to the firepower they've obtained elsewhere.
Out of the items *submitted* to the ATF for tracing, most are found to originate in the US. Why would the Mexican government ask the ATF to trace machine guns, rocket launchers, and other significant battle-field weaponry, which obviously did not and could not come from the US? It would probably come out that the Mexican government's own armories are the source of many of these fun toys.
In fact, the cartels are so well armed that certain sections of the the US government are in fact more worried about *what is coming into the US*, rather than what is going out. Suppose some of our local al-Qaeda cells got a hold of these man-portable anti-air missiles?
So, you'd impinge on the rights of ALL US citizens, rather than tackle the source of the issue--the cartel's money? If they did not have the cash flow, they could not buy the heavy weaponry from South America. If they couldn't move their product, they wouldn't have the money.
If we put a Korean peninsula style DMZ across the southern border, they couldn't move their product, nor could they smuggle a few piddly AR-15s into Mexico. Nor would we have to suffer continued illegal immigration, and all of the economic externalities which come along with it.
Let's buy a few thousand of Samsung's machine gun turrets and place them every 1000 yards along the border. The price would be about a billion dollars to cover the entire border, even if we didn't get a bulk discount from Samsung, which could still charge the full $200k per unit, plus a bit more to network them. Add some more to pay soldiers to staff the cameras and controls--it would be a steal compared to the $1 billion / 100 mile virtual fence bullshit.
This would be like hitting ten birds with one stone. Trespassers first get a warning salvo, and if they don't turn around or wait to be arrested as directed by loudspeaker, they get lead poisoning. The vultures would love it.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
Northrup Grumman is getting away from that actually; they're spinning of their shipyard business because they suck at it. The joke in shipbuilding (i work in shipbuilding) is Northrup Grumman Shipbuilding (NGSB) always stood for No Good Shipbuilders. It's actually a smart move for them; they're very good at all the other things they do, and now they're refocusing on their core and what they do best; cutting edge technology both IT and Aerospace.
Cancellations is typical for Boeing. The Border Fence thing was a poor project from the get-go; they failed at it and that's that. But most of the cancellations you read about are due to their new aircraft, the 787, mostly because it's been delayed like 2 years now, and the airlines need new aircraft. So they ended up going to Airbus to buy A340's, which are already on the market. But this isn't new to the airline business; it happened to the 777, it happened to the A340 and the A330, it's happening now to Airbus with the A380; it's had several severe delays so customers canceled orders and bought the competitor plane, the Boeing 747-800. Once the A380's worked out it's technical issues (a few are flying now) and once the 787 overcomes it's manufacturing issues, they'll sell like hotcakes. Sadly this is normal business for Aircraft manufacturers.
Really? Americans sold them fully automatic AKs and hand grenades?
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_mmBw3uzPnJI/TDL6TdwOQuI/AAAAAAABaVU/B1QMkH2PuQw/s1600/weapons_of_mexican_drug_cartel_17.jpg
http://www.deseretnews.com/photos/midres/874557.jpg
Those RPG's came from the US?
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_mmBw3uzPnJI/TDL5zWaiA5I/AAAAAAABaT0/cpJghwohg9c/s1600/weapons_of_mexican_drug_cartel_29.jpg
http://ppjg.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/picture5.jpg
That M60 was probably made in the US, but sure as fuck didn't come to cartel hands thru Texas!
http://stylemens.typepad.com/details__details/images/2008/11/17/power10.jpg
M1919 wow!
http://img.breitbart.com/images/2009/4/14/ap-p/9d90422f-c905-457a-8e1a-3f3d9f401f9f.jpg
The argument that all those firearms comes from the US is a red herring from Mexico to place blame on the US, which anti-gunners, the media, and power-hungry politicians latched onto like rabid dogs.
On one hand you have South America which has been at the center of cold-war proxy wars for decades with all kinds of ordanance.... on the other hand, maybe cartels prefer semi-auto rifles and revolvers for twice the price?
Think critically some time.
Besides, where the hell do you get something like THIS in the US?
http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Mexican-Drug-Lord-Guns-Diamonds-5.jpg
THL phish sticks
They don't want to hire more guards, there are no corporate profits in provide more government border agents. Think about 53 miles with with three shifts of guards spaced 100 yards apart, getting paid say $25,000 per year, that billion dollars would pay for 14 years worth of wildly excessive security.
They would loath that solution, corporate executives wouldn't get their multi million dollar bonuses, lobbyists wouldn't get their multi million dollar fees, politicians wouldn't get the multi million dollar campaign contributions and right wing employers wouldn't get the cheap illegal immigrant labour.
Mind boggling, P.S. you don't spend a billion dollars securing 53 miles and then decide it's a bad idea, you should be able figure that out before spending that money. It would appear that Napolitano has managed to achieve the Peter Principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle and, has rise to her level of incompetence.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Orrrr you could legalize drugs, cut off their income/buying power, and thus put them out of business?
Spot on. And most of the rest of the world's gangs, in one chop.
Unfortunately, murder doesn't create as much moral outrage in the USA as vices do, so dope is going to stay illegal and gangs will keep getting more powerful.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Nah. They were happy to get the blankets we gave them.
That's one government handout you won't hear the right wingers complain about.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Because what you're describing is commonly called murder, and is illegal under pretty much every law in the world, national and international (just as it should be)?
If you're really serious about this, your sig seems quite apt.
Proud member of the Ferengi Socialist Party.
Mandatory 1 year federal prison sentence for each illegal alien employed by anyone for any reason.
That one sentence would solve the problem immediately and better than any fence or wall.
But when we keep discovering that the very politicians who complain the loudest about illegal aliens turn out to be the ones with an illegal gardener or nanny, it becomes obvious that this isn't really about keeping illegal aliens out of the country.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Exactly like that. And you see how well it worked out for them. Do you really want to find out what it's like from from their perspective?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Because the logistics and risk of posting armed humans along 7,000 miles of wilderness in large enough force to make a difference is even more expensive than this silly "virtual fence" idea.
We're better off doing satellite surveillance and ordinary policing.
We'd be better off if we just ripped down the fences and let people migrate like any other animal.. But then how would you be able to acquire and keep your slaves if they could just walk off the plantation?
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
The accurate statement is 90% of traceable guns that were submitted to the AFT were U.S. origin, and they were submitted because they were likely to be of U.S. origin.
Actually the part I emphasized in bold is incorrect also. From the FactCheck article you linked (emphasis mine):
If you are unwilling to assume responsibility for a device intended solely to kill human beings, you shouldn't have one.
Damn right. Guns' intended purpose, and therefore only purpose, is violence and murder. Just like torrent clients can only be used for piracy, jailbreaking can only be used for hacking, laser pointers can only be used for blinding people, and cough syrup can only be used for making crystal meth.
In fact, I shot three blind, meth-addled hipster pirates just on my morning commute yesterday.
DATABASE WOW WOW
I have to question the math on this one. $25,000/year isn't very much considering that these people are going to be dealing with rugged terrain, harsh desert conditions, and facing violent, heavily armed drug smugglers and human traffickers. It sounds like we're not even factoring in any sort of benefits like health care or retirement. In short, you're offering minimal pay and benefits for dangerous, difficult work. The obvious solution, of course, is that we fill these positions by hiring illegal immigrants.
If you offer them a path to citizenship, you just make a mockery of the legislative system-- it ends up saying "Dont do this, but if you really want to you can, and you wont be punished for it". Illegal immigration is illegal (duh), and rewarding it encourages more of it.
Youre better off reforming immigration laws than undermining the legal system.
The drug lords will never allow the government to legalize drugs.
How it worked out for the Native Americans: free land, free American citizenship, free education, affirmative action.
And all they were asked to do is give up their entire heritage and culture, then conform to the rules of a foreign society. At least that is what they were offered after being the victims of genocide. Yep, that's a hell of deal they got.
BTW, they already had 'free' land, American citizenship, they educated their own, and had no need for affirmative action. They were content with their lifestyle.
Another day, another update to a Google android app.
You can make a simpler presentation of this concept by simply calling it a 10-fold expansion of the 1991 Border Patrol ($300 million budget for 3,000 agents: http://archive.gao.gov/t2pbat6/147284.pdf) to 30,000 and $3 billion.
Part of the problem with this idea - which is generally feasible and affordable - is the ambivalence about locking down the border by people who actually live there. The "patrol" the entire border idea requires building a patrol road and infrastructure where there along the entire border much of which is currently wilderness. The border ended up where it is partly because of the nearly impassable terrain much of it runs through. Through many areas it will be impossible to patrol directly on the border and an interception line will have to be drawn in the interior where some-to-many U.S. citizens will need to traverse the line daily. The line will have to run through the property of numerous people, who generally will not like the idea.
The high-tech invisible border idea was an effort to do a technological end run around these problems.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
I see what you're trying to do and I frankly agree with every example you gave... except for the guns.
What, exactly, is the non-violent purpose to guns that I am missing? Best as I can tell, their purpose is violence and murder. Sometimes it's with good intentions; shooting that burglar in the face protects your belongings and your family, but I would be hard pressed not to identify it as violent. Same thing with wars; sometimes they need to be fought, but they are violent in the extreme. Policemen shooting criminals to protect themselves? That's violence too, in the same way that if somebody hits you and you hit them back you're both engaging in violence -- even if one of you is right and one of you is wrong. And those are, frankly, the legitimate purpose of guns. We haven't even touched on the true violence and murder.
The only use I can think of for a gun that might not be violence--and I'm still torn on this--is hunting, and even then, in this day and age, hunting is more about people wanting to go outside and play with their guns than it is out of any necessity of providing for one's family. Getting meat is far simpler, safer and quite cheap from means that quite frankly treat the animals quite a bit better than hoping some idiot with a rifle hits them in an immediately-fatal instead of eventually-fatal place. And the fact that somebody might pay you to stuff that animal or make a coat out of its fur doesn't change the inherent nature of the act, just the intentions with which it is committed.
Are you simply defining anything that has good intentions as non-violent, or am I missing a use case here?
Please have the courtesy of taking your time to read the article that both rubycodez and I linked. The same article that denies that 90% is the correct figure also says that the 17% figure presented by Fox News is also incorrect (not surprising, given the source).
They say that they do not have precise information on the total number of guns seized in Mexico in each year. But using the 29,000 figure used by Fox and others for 2007+2008, the actual percentage of guns proven to come from the US is between 34 and 36% (because it is between 9,950 and 10,347 guns, or twice the 5,114 guns reported by Fox News).
to the military-industrial complex. How many of the 60 million or so uninsured Americans could have been provided with coverage for that money? I'm going to guess pretty close to all of them several times over. And this is just one program. If you'd have just let the Bush tax cuts for the extraordinarily wealthy expire, then you'd be in even better shape.
Personally, I gave up on America long ago. The country is a writeoff at this point, there's nothing left worth saving.
At the end of the day it is all rather mute. The real point is doing an appropriate cost benefit analysis, the presumed benefit being the prevention of an illegal immigrant crossing the border undetected versus the cost of preventing this from happening. This can of course be further extrapolated out to thousands of illegal border crossings the the actual true impact upon the security of the United States.
Obviously once politics and corporate greed take over, it is readily apparent any realistic analysis is being tossed out in favour of exaggerations and straight out bullshit.
A more contentious solution might be for the US to consider applying a fiscal penalty to Mexico for each illegal immigrant returned, thus both countries might more readily work together to secure their mutual border. Perhaps even a reward system for the 'detection' not capture (that should be done by properly trained officers for obvious reasons) of persons illegally crossing the border.
The real focus should be on how much in total is being spent on securing that border, what can be done to minimise current expenditures and what is the realistic harm caused by illegal border crossings in order to put a cap upon expenditure.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Let's do the math.
The US Mexico border is 1,969 miles. Stationing on average 4 guards per mile gives us 7,876 guards. 4 shifts to give us 24x7x365 coverage gives us 31,504 guards.
31,504 guards would give us 4 guards per mile of US Mexico border, 24x7x365.
Assume generously that each guard costs us $150,000 / yr for pay, benefits, equipment, logistics, training, and administration.
BOTTOM LINE: For a price of 4.75 billion USD per year we can have 1 well paid, well equipped guard stationed on average every 1/4 mile along the entire 1,969 miles of the US Mexico border.
You're on the right track, but your numbers are a little low. One guard per 1/4 mile is too far apart for any kind of mutual support, and in many places too far apart to prevent people from easily slipping through the gaps.
To make it work, you need to add fences with sensors. Your 31,000 guards would be sufficient to walk the fences and check for gaps, check alarms, etc., and then you'd need another force of guards, probably another 16,000, set up as alert response teams (ARTs), mounted in trucks.
If I were given the job of designing this, based on what I learned about physical security while manning similar perimeters in the military, I'd put up guard towers every 1/2 mile, with sensor-monitoring stations and spotlights. The guard in the tower would generally use his eyeballs. He'd have a roving buddy, probably mounted on an ATV, to check sensor alerts and get a ground view of "their" half-mile of fence.
The ARTs would be eight-man teams, posted one team per four-mile stretch. They should move from time to time so the intruders can't predict their location. In the event of detection of a crossing in force, too large for a single ART to handle, ARTs from nearby sectors could be called in and there should also be a helicopter-based quick response force, possibly with heavy weapons if the coyotes take all this as a challenge.
All of the above is kind of an average. In areas where the terrain is flat, wildlife is sparse (wildlife causes a lot of false alarms on the fence sensors) and crossing intensity is low, the resources can be spaced a little more widely. In other areas more resources will have to be applied.
Also, you'd need a few teams with ground-penetrating radar equipment who periodically cover the whole length checking for tunnels.
My guess is that all of this would cost around $4B to build, plus an ongoing cost of about $6B per year for people, maintenance and equipment.
Oh, and it still wouldn't be anywhere close to 100% effective.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Drug smugglers are a very small part of Mexicans. Yes, the Mexican drug war is seriously bad shit, and violent smugglers and gang-bangers have no business in our country. The Mexicans are as fed up with those folks as we are.
The point is, there are already laws against that. There's no reason to conflate the majority of Mexican immigrants, legal and illegal, who are peaceful folks who just want the same things that citizens want, with a violent criminal enterprise.
They've got nothing in common except their country of origin.
They will also be facing women, children, teens, people who just want better for themselves and their children.. All these solutions everyone is presenting (snipers, auto sentries, land mines) ignore the fact that these are people like us. You say hello to them as neighbors and when you are out shopping. Have we decided as a society that those who do not fit our ideal should just be "gotten rid" of? Our grandfathers fought a war against those who believed that.
The real issue is that they come here because they have no choices and we present them with a choice that is worth the risk of life and limb. If we want to change that then we have to make them want to stay in their country. Eliminating the choices here (no more illegal hiring) or providing them with more choices there (allocating our resources to change their government through annexing Mexico or through other means.. I can't see any other way, do you?
Have you fscked your local propeller head today?
Boeing. Lockheed, and the other major players know how to deal with the DHS and other government customers because they (the suppliers) have pushed for legislation to make the gov't procurement process a nightmare to deal with for anyone without office buildings full of lawyers.
Have gnu, will travel.