This is completely off-topic, but Oceander asks:
[[ I'm curious, just exactly how does one "close the border?" I keep hearing that phrase over and over again, but I've never heard anyone actually explain in real terms how that would be accomplished and, more to the point, what the cost would be. ]]
Here's a post I put up in the old AOL "Issues" forum, way back on September 27, 1994:
===================
Sealing the Southern Border...
The following postings were recently observed in this topic (and another on immigration):
>> It is impossible to stop people from coming across our borders.
(I include the Canadian, although I know not every one does). It is a boondoggle along the lines of our wars on drug importation. It can't be done. Waste of money.
- and -
>> The Border Patrol can't stop immigrants. We can't stop drugs after spending hundreds of billions. How much will we waste trying to stop immigrants before we admit it doesn't work???
Poster: "Chyln"
Wrong, Mr. Chyln. ABSOLUTELY wrong.
I suggest you, and anyone else who thinks it can't be done, to pick up a copy of The New York Times dated September 14, 1994, and read the front page article, "A Rare Success at the Border Brought Scant Official Praise".
The article details the story of Silvestre Reyes, chief of the Border Patrol office in El Paso, and how he completely sealed off the Mexico-US border against illegal immigration in the El Paso area.
Once the second-busiest border crossing, with around 6,000+ crossings per day, in September 1993 Reyes surmised that it was useless and wasteful to try to catch illegal immigrants *after they already had crossed the border*. Instead, he positioned his officers right ON the border, to prevent them from crossing in the first place.
The name of the operation was "Operation Blockade", and it worked more sucessfully than anyone had hoped for. It is still working, one year later (the name of the operation has been changed to "Hold the Line", largely to placate complaints from Mexico re the notion of a "blockade" against its citizens, which of course it is). Yet Mr. Reyes' success was viewed with suspicion and downright hostility by senior officials of the INS in Washington. Here was a border patrol supervisor who actually believed in doing the job. One might surmise that the opposition Mr. Reyes' tactics were met with indicates that senior officials of the INS are not all that interested in "doing their job" - that is, assuring that only "legal" immigrants enter the United States from the southern border.
Before Mr. Reyes arrived in El Paso, the Times reports that the immigration situation there was "out of control":
"Thousands of illegal aliens were streaming across the Rio Grande without constraint. Border Patrol officers were chasing them through the streets, backyards and parking lots. Often the officers grabbed El Paso residents by mistake and demaded proof that they were citizens."
"There had been brawls and shootings, accusations of abuse, and loud public protests. The city had risen up in outrage, and a Federal judge had ordered the patrol to stop questioning people based solely on their appearance."
Prior to September 19, 1993, 10,000 or more Mexicans waded the Rio Grande each Sunday to be ready to appear for work the next morning. But on that Sunday, they found border patrol agents standing 100 yards apart for the entire length of the border. None could get through.
Reports the Times:
"... within a few days the residents of El Paso began to see other effects. The police reported that the number of auto thefts and petty crimes had fallen. Merchants reported that shoplifting had dropped off. And everyone noted that city streets were largely free of beggars and windshield washers."
"'By the end of the week,' said Al Giugni, district director for the I.N.S. in El Paso, 'it had grown bigger than life itself. Radio and television and newspaper people were talking about nothing else. And they did polls.' Though unscientific, the results were consistent; all of the polls showed public approval of 80 percent to 95 percent."
But Mr. Reyes' superiors in Washington were less than pleased with his innovative solution. He was told that his operation was exacerbating tensions with Mexico precisely at the time the Clinton administration was trying to get NAFTA through Congress. At one point, Reyes threatenened to call a news conference to name the official in Washington who might order him to cease Operation Blockade.
Washington backed down, and the blockade continues to this day.
In and around El Paso, no one gets across illegally, thanks to Mr. Reyes.
Indeed, we should apply Mr. Reyes' tactics to the ENTIRE Southern front. But more importantly, rather than a human barrier, we should consider constructing a physical barrier that cannot be breached. An immense construction project indeed, but one that is within the bounds of our technology and enterprise. Of course, there would be numerous checkpoints through which people could pass through legally in either direction.
I'm reminded of an old gospel song. It goes:
My heaven is so high, you can't get over it
So low, you can't get under it
So wide, you can't get around it
You gotta come in at the door
Since an enormous proportion of ALL those south of our border seem to regard America as "heaven" to which they hope to escape, we must regulate the onslaught trying to break into our nation. This doesn't mean they'll never be able to get in - but if they do, they'll literally have "to come in at the door" - LEGALLY.
===================
That was what I wrote, almost twenty years ago.
Twenty years ago, it might have worked.
But too much water over the dam now -- and too many illegals over the border.
It's nobody's fault but our own...
