The Great Wall Of San Diego?
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Economy, Foreign Policy, The War On TerrorismFrom the Department of Homeland Security’s website:
Enhanced Infrastructure: DHS will expand infrastructure systems throughout the border where appropriate to strengthen our efforts to reduce illegal entry to the United States-exemplified by Secretary Chertoff’s announcement to waive certain legal requirements necessary to ensure expeditious completion of the 14-mile Border Infrastructure System near San Diego, California.As in San Diego, DHS will improve border infrastructure in certain areas by increasing physical layers of security, building access roads to enable Border Patrol to speed response efforts, installing stadium style lighting to deter border crossers, and providing surveillance cameras to monitor incursion along targeted areas of the border.
Interesting. Is this such a bad idea? Simply put a massive wall in between the illegals and our country? Sounds common sense enough, but people would just go around it, right?
Well, not if you had a 2,000 mile wall…
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Republican lawmakers have introduced a bill to build a 3,200 kilometer (2,000 mile) wall along the US border with Mexico to keep illegal immigrants out.The legislation aims to “create a border security fence from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico,” said House of Representatives members Duncan Hunter of California and Virgil Goode of Virginia in a statement.
“Prior to September 11, 2001, illegal immigration was considered a regional issue without national implications. We quickly learned on that day, however, that this is a national issue, affecting each and every American, not just those living in border communities like San Diego County,” Hunter said.
Let’s face it, the border problem is immense. It effects our economy, our security and our peace of mind. But is this proposal a good idea or scary isolantionism?
Republican lawmakers are even proposing of doing away with jus soli, or birthright citizenship. That certainly opens up a can of worms, but honestly, if a person is simply born here, but the parents are not here legally, why should that person become a citizen?
I’m willing to hear arguments for jus soli in the cases of children of illegals, so please tell me how the scenario I described is justifiable.
(HT: In The Agora)
This entry was posted on Sunday, November 6th, 2005 and is filed under Economy, Foreign Policy, The War On Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
November 7th, 2005 at 5:18 am
This country is crazy. The solution to this problem is to encourage more legal immigration. Why do you think people run all the risks associated with entering the US illegally? It is because they can get a job here that will pay them enough to live on with some left over to save and send to the folks back home. There is a demand for their labor and that demand should be filled legally. What better citizens could this country have than those who made a choice to come here?
November 7th, 2005 at 10:09 am
We do encourage legal immigration, but we can only let so many people in every year on work or travel visas. There is a limit. The million or so illegals who stream over our border every year would not be eligible because they don’t really have any business coming into our country for they have no job waiting for them and usually they have nobody legal to visit. They also usually don’t even have means for transportation. It’s obvious why they’re coming into our country and that’s to stay illegally and work. And again, we only want so many people coming into our country, otherwise the number who would try to legally come in would begin to multiply rapidly, especially from Mexico.
Although I see your point, I fear that an extreme measure like a wall isn’t such a bad idea for the time being At least to try and stem the flow for a bit. That’s what needs to be addressed first. Then we can worry about turning the illegals into legal immigrants.
November 7th, 2005 at 11:52 am
Although I see your point, I fear that an extreme measure like a wall isn’t such a bad idea for the time being At least to try and stem the flow for a bit. That’s what needs to be addressed first. Then we can worry about turning the illegals into legal immigrants.
A 2,000+ mile wall strikes me as an attempt at more than just a temporary solution to the problem. Not that it would be likely to do much good, of course. People could just tunnel beneath the wall (as drug runners have been doing for years) or try to come in through our seaports as stowaways on ships (the security at our seaports having long since been exposed as woefully inadequate).
Sadly, I’ve come to the conclusion that preventing illegal immigration, even to the extent that any of our politicians really have the will to do so (about which I have my doubts), is ultimately futile. People who are desperate and/or determined enough to make their way here – which accounts for virtually all illegal immigrants – will find a way to do it no matter what. Perhaps we would be better off accepting this reality and adapting our policies to it, than continuing to pour money and manpower into a lost cause.
November 7th, 2005 at 12:29 pm
We’ll never be able to stop the problem, but stem it? Yes, I think this would work.
My biggest fear is that the Islamic extremists will start to target the border and find a way to get nuclear materials through. That’s one of the biggest reasons I’d be in favor of a wall like this, but I still agree it’s an extreme measure.
April 16th, 2006 at 10:00 pm
A wall is definitely not the solution. Like already said, people will find other ways to cross the border, not just because there are ways like entering the U.S. through a seaport or digging tunnels, but also because these immigrants would sacrifice anything, even their lives, just to come over. A physical barrier is not going to solve a cause like that.
If we are able to build a wall over 2,000 miles long, why don’t we try to protect it first and check incoming vehicles, persons etc. thoroughly? We are obviously not doing a good job checking anything that crosses our border right now. If somebody wants to tell me we don’t have enough troups to do this job: Withdraw troops from Iraq (where they are not helping anything anyways)!
What about making “employing illegal immigrants” a felony? At least we wouldn’t create 11 million criminals at once and would leave business owners a chance to act right. Or what about issuing an national I.D. card that is checked by our police especially in places near the border? Or the greencard? Maybe I’m not wrong and I don’t see the error in these ideas, but why building a huge cement monster that would cost us so much money and supplies and would create a constant visible symbol of segregation and rejection?