Qui bono?

I wish I’d caught this before I started the post below. Linda Valdez, writing in the May 27, 2007 Arizona Republic, nails the whole “border fence – enforcement first” nonsense for what it is… another corporate boondoggle.

Illegal immigration is big money, and the rallying cry “Enforcement first!” will keep it that way.

Logic and reason say that, if you take away the jobs, the job seekers will stop crossing the border. But the jobs remain.

Equally logical would be an effort to create opportunity in Mexico. It is pure cultural chauvinism to assume that all Mexicans want to live in the United States. Most would prefer the social support, family connections and familiarity of the land where they were born.

So, billions spent in Mexico -through microloans, for example, to avoid feeding Mexico’s institutional corruption – would do more to stem illegal immigration than the biggest wall ever built.

Instead, we have the Secure Border Initiative, Homeland Security’s multiyear, multibillion-dollar program. Last year, Richard Skinner, inspector general for Homeland Security, put the price tag for electronic monitoring of the border at $30 billion. Physical barriers would cost an additional $7 billion, he said.

If you’ve ever had an estimate for a home-improvement project, you know those price tags are going to go up, up and up.

Our fearless leader, George Bush, invited military contractors such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and Boeing to bid on the creation of a “virtual fence” that would include unmanned aerial vehicles, ground surveillance motion-detection equipment and all sorts of other whiz-bang stuff.

Boeing Co. got a contract last September to begin a virtual fence in Arizona. Earlier this month, residents of the Arizona border town of Arivaca (population 1,500) packed public meetings to oppose the 98-foot towers on which Boeing will mount cameras and radar.

It will be “like living in a prison yard,” one resident told a reporter. Big Brother was also mentioned.

Earlier this month, Homeland Security called for bids on a $250 million contract to build a stretch of border fence near Laredo, Texas.
…

According to congressional testimony last summer by Carlton Mann, chief inspector of the Office of Inspector General for Homeland Security, the Border Patrol is not what one would call zealous in ensuring what he called “contract accountability.”

Nor do things always work as planned. Mann said that more than 90 percent of the time ground sensors sent agents out on false alarms caused by things like local traffic, trains or wild animals – not illegal border crossers.

On the southern border, only 2 percent of sensor alerts resulted in apprehensions, he said. On the northern border (you get points if you remembered we have a northern border), sensors led to apprehensions less than 1 percent of the time.

So, this border stuff costs a lot, is unpopular with border residents and may not work. OK then. It is good enough for government work.

…

There is money to be made pursuing the least logical approach to illegal immigration.

Which explains why this free-market-loving country continues to follow an approach that has failed for decades to stem illegal immigration.

Those who really want to see this problem fixed should stop fixating on militarizing the border and start thinking of ways to use that money to empower the poor in Latin America.

Like letting poor people send their money home, where they’ll buy American goods and services. But… NOOOOO… that’s too much like what Free Trade is supposed to be.