Pissing (your money away) into the Rio Grande

I don’t think there is such a thing as an “objective” news story in the real world… we all have our biases, and that includes reporters and news organizations. Most of us buy corporate capitalism (and news organizations are no different than any other business — which means they are going to make their decisions pretty much the same way McDonalds, or McDonald-Douglass for that matter, makes theirs). Even writing for hick town papers, I couldn’t pretend to cover “all” points of view on any given issue. Covering contracts to upgrade sewers, for example, maybe I could talk to a a couple of different factions in a city administration, the loudest complaintants and the engineering firm. Everbody has an opinion, and my job — which reflected my biases and those of my employers — was basically to sort out which opinions were “valid” and which not worth the ink.

And so it goes. The biases of those of us on the border, when it comes to “border security” are different from the rest of the country, even the sane portion of the electorate.

Although the “beauty contest” known as the Iowa Caucus hasn’t even been held yet, (I lived in Iowa for a couple of years, and did vote in a caucus… belive me, they’re a joke). the dozen-plus wannabe candidates have made us down on the border pay for their political ambitions.

The lead editorial in today’s New York Times reads:

Even by the low standards of presidential campaigns, the issue of immigration has been badly served in the 2008 race. Candidates — and by this we mean the Republicans, mostly — have been striking poses and offering prescriptions that sound tough but will solve nothing.

True enough, though I don’t see the other corporatist party (the Democrats) as any better. At least the Times recognizes that all the yakking point from all the candidates have the same flaw. Nobody has talked about the financial costs.

I don’t know if anyone’s done a “cost-benefit analysis” of the heavy-handed approach we already take down here, but Robert Fantina’s “The Sham of Homeland Security” (Counterpunch, Dec 29/30, 2007) suggests that we’re paying quite a bit of money to allow these politicians to posture:

For example there is one Eleuterio Mosquera, a 56-year-old mechanic who had lived in the U.S. for seventeen years, during which time he had committed no crime other than remaining in the country after being told to leave. At 5:30 on a recent morning, Mr. Mosquera was leaving his Newark home for work at the recycling plant that had employed him for seven years, unaware that the two SUVs parked across the street contained a total of seven, heavily-armed federal agents.

…Now it is certainly admitted that Mr. Mosquera, who came to the U.S. from Ecuador in 1991 and had been ordered back to that country that same year, did not do so. But it must also be admitted that he had lived quietly, working, paying taxes and minding his own business for nearly 17 years. He purchased and renovated a house in Newark, an area in desperate need of such attention. Yet despite his innocuous, productive and totally non-threatening life, seven federal agents were required to arrest him. One has difficulty understanding this. If the government was not going to leave him alone, why not quietly arrest him? How much does it cost to send seven federal agents after such a man? And, as the the old cliché asks: ‘Can’t they find some real criminals to arrest?’

And, down in my neck of the woods — THE Border (the one crossed by recycling plant employees like Eleuterio Mosquera, not the one crossed by guys like Ahmed Ressam and Al Qaida gang-bangers.

Instead, the government — for the benefit of voters in places like Iowa (ot at least those who’ve bought the bullshit about “protecting the borders” from recycling plant workers) — is hiring those seven agents in New Jersey and a shitload of agents here… to make us LESS safe, not more.

“Illegal aliens” don’t commit that many crimes down here, though their corpses — when they’re unlucky enough to end up out here “thanks” to Federal policy — are expensive to deal with. But, with seven agents needed to take down a New Jersey junkman, you can imagine how many agents we’d need here to “stop the illegals” that … shop and buy and do business and server our meals and fix our plumbing… my way. Shitloads of BP agents… at a heftier pricetag than anyone wants to admit.

José Borjón of the Brownsville (Texas) Herald presented the bill:

Brownsville Police Chief Carlos Garcia is used to spotting trends as part of his job, but there’s an increasingly common practice within his department that’s starting to worry him: officers resigning to work for U.S. Customs and Border Protection

“There is nothing much that we can really do to try to (keep) officers from leaving the department after they have been here a couple of years,” he said.

A rookie patrol officer with no experience and straight out of the police academy will earn $28,131 annually. After two years of patrol experience they are bumped up to $35,328.

Rookie Border Patrol agents, on the other hand, start off quite a bit higher than their counterparts on the police force. Those straight out of college, or with no prior law enforcement or military experience, start off at $35,595 annually, said Oscar Saldaña, spokesman for the CBP’s Rio Grande Valley Sector. “With our incentives they can make up to $44,494.”

Those with military or law enforcement experience start off at $40,519 per year. “With the incentives, agents can very well make up to $50,649. It’s worth it,” he said.

After three years on the job U.S. Border Patrol agents can make up to $70,000, not including overtime.

South Texas and New Mexico border counties include some of the poorest people in the United States. Seven dollars and hour, without benefits, is considered a decent income where I live. Even retirees with pensions often live in trailers. So… we’re — or you (none of us make enough to pay the taxes y’all do) are shipping in very highly paid civil servants who live better than the rest of us to protect us from… our customers?

Our local police — the people who do the real crime prevention work out here — chasing cattle rustlers, breaking up bar fights, arresting drunk drivers and tracking down drug smugglers (ok, the BP and Customs Service does their part on that… but they’re looking for exporters, not the importers), nabbing poachers — can earn a heck of a lot more driving around at night stirring up dust on access roads (no joke — BP agents drive Chevy Tahoes dragging old tires behind them on the access roads along the border to make it easier to find footprints. Gas in Alpine is “only” 3.00 a gallon), or resonding in force to pick up some farmer from Coahuila who is sending money back to his mom.

Oh, and did I mention Alpine’s spanking new 17 million dollar Federal Courthouse? Or the Judge’s salary, or…

I’ll bet if we totalled up the costs of “border protection” it might be a hefty percentage of what the “illegal immigrants” pay in taxes. Or more.