| | |  Editorials | Opinions | November 2008 
By Tunnel or Ladder, Border Fences Always Get Crossed
 Tucson Citizen
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Drug traffickers have burrowed dozens of tunnels under our border with Mexico, determined to continue their lucrative trade despite whatever barricades we build.
Some of the tunnels are elaborate, with lighting and air circulation, while others cleverly use hinged lids hidden under parked cars or trapdoors beneath tables inside houses on the Mexican side of the line.
Whatever the tunnel type, most are found in subterranean Arizona - 32 since just 2006, when Congress passed the Secure Border Fence Act.
But like it or not, "secure border fence" is an oxymoron.
When the fence isn't being tunneled under, it's being clambered over, as occurred blatantly behind President Bush while television cameras filmed his May 2006 visit to Yuma.
The fence doesn't keep immigrants out. And it's extremely expensive.
At a cost averaging $7.5 million per mile, according to the U.S. General Accountability Office, the nearly 2,000-mile border had 187 miles of wire-mesh fence completed as of August.
The 670-mile stretch authorized is to consist of 370 miles of wire fence plus 300 miles of vehicular barriers.
Then there's Boeing Co.'s high-tech "virtual fence," fraught with technical problems from the start. Boeing already has been paid about $933 million for its work, which even Homeland Security concedes could cost $8 billion over the next five years.
A technological approach to border security is more expensive, but it also holds more promise than wire fencing.
Contractors doing such work must be held accountable, however, as Boeing has not.
Neither kind of fencing addresses the root cause of illegal immigration, though: the lure of jobs for low-skilled, impoverished, aspiring laborers.
We hope the new administration taking office in January will stop squandering billions on ineffective fencing as hundreds of migrants die in our desert every year.
It is way past time for the United States to institute a secure program for temporary guest workers and to whack through the thicket of bureaucracy that keeps people from migrating here legally.
Illegal immigration not only fractures families and leads to brutal deaths in the desert, but also spurs more crime as robbers prey on those crossing the border.
If you build it, they still will come. So let's set aside the stupidity and false bravado that prompted the plan for a fence.
Let's do the real work now: Reform our immigration policies, establish a guest worker program and help Mexico and Central American nations with economic reforms, which would slow migration at the source.
The U.S. can do better. Fences can't. |
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