Fencing the southern border

[majorminor]

Just in time for the elections, Bush signs a bill authorizing a 700 mile fence along our southern borders.

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15424055/

In my opinion this equates to the current administration basically ignoring a core issue with the members of it's party until it couldn't any more with elections looming then offering up a remedy that looks flashy but is just another ineffective boondoggle in the works. The cost is currently unknown but the intitial approved release of funds to begin and put infastructure in place is reported at 1.2 billion. Swell.

I'm of the opinion that you could put a force field right out of Star Wars on the southern border and as long as it's poverty over there and something better than poverty over here they are gonna come or die trying. Seems like the only real solution is to figure out a way to effectively invest in Mexico to create opportunity there, or draft and enforce some nasty laws aimed at employers of illegal aliens here.

This latest act by the Repubs, if it comes to be, is an embarrasment and insult if you ask me and more money pissed right down the drain and I'm a (some what apathetic) Repub myself.

[billhammond]

I had almost an identical reaction to that, Steve.

Kinda like Reagan's "Star Wars" proposal in its staggering potential expense and ineffectiveness ...

[Deleted]

Didn't work in China, why should it work here?

[sidheguitarmichael]

At least we will get the joy of a waste of money viewable from space...
-MM

[timfarney]

majorminor said:

Just in time for the elections, Bush signs a bill authorizing a 700 mile fence along our southern borders.

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15424055/

In my opinion this equates to the current administration basically ignoring a core issue with the members of it's party until it couldn't any more with elections looming then offering up a remedy that looks flashy but is just another ineffective boondoggle in the works. The cost is currently unknown but the intitial approved release of funds to begin and put infastructure in place is reported at 1.2 billion. Swell.

I'm of the opinion that you could put a force field right out of Star Wars on the southern border and as long as it's poverty over there and something better than poverty over here they are gonna come or die trying. Seems like the only real solution is to figure out a way to effectively invest in Mexico to create opportunity there, or draft and enforce some nasty laws aimed at employers of illegal aliens here.

This latest act by the Repubs, if it comes to be, is an embarrasment and insult if you ask me and more money pissed right down the drain and I'm a (some what apathetic) Repub myself.

Yep. Imagine that they were paying retail clerks $70 an hour in Canada, hiring illegal Americans without using the Canadian government's free background check service (Here that equals free Soc Sec # and immigration status check), while the government looked the other way and discussed amnesty programs (again).

This is classic passive/agressive behavior on a grand scale. Our government and our employers want them here, are essentially inviting them here, but they're willing to spend a couple of billion to slow them down a bit if it passifies voters. That voters may actually be passified by this blatant repeat of what didn't work in the 80s is what's really disturbing.

Ain't politics grand?

Tim

[Supertramp78]

The really good thing is the bill offers no funding for the actual fence. The cost is estimated to be between $3 and $6 billion. At best the fence will just make people cross somewhere else.

[knobtwister]

The only point of this bill is to give the candidates something to point to while campaigning. "Look at what I did about the immigrant problem"

Don

[sekhmet]

Yup - the fence is BS, the agenda is BS and the problem will only be solved when the agenda is actually to solve it.

Make Mexico a reasonable place to earn a living and/or stop hiring illegals for cheap. Problem solved.

[Supertramp78]

The Bush administration is run by big business. Ask Lou Dobbs. We have corporations actually writing the bills that go before Congress. Does anyone really think that big business wants to do away with all that cheap labor? No way.

[Deleted]

Just from a non-partisan angle, if it works, I'd have to really appreciate the politics involved.

The GOP has to pacify two opposing constituancies on this issue: The protectionist workers, and the industrialists who depend on cheap labor.

The fence will really do the trick. It will appeal to the chipped-tooth guys in the trailer park because, after all, what's NOT to love about a huge fence and armed guards. It also heps the industrialists, because it effectively fences in the cheap labor source, or makes it more difficult for them to make frequest trips back home, and certainly won't reduce the source of cheap labor.

Like it or not (I'm ambivilant), you have to really appreciate the mutual appeal to two very disparate groups with inherently conflicting interests.

[Supertramp78]

Anyone want to bet that Haliburton gets the construction contract? LOL.

[Cornflake]

This is a hot issue where I live. Everyone knows that the solution is to penalize employers who hire illegals. It's been proposed at the state level but the business interests who usually run things didn't like the idea. Popular sentiment is so strong that they may get overruled by the general populace. There is so much frustration and anger here that people will support any harebrained measure to restrict or penalize the illegals, if only so that they can let off steam.

[timfarney]

supertramp78 said:

The really good thing is the bill offers no funding for the actual fence. The cost is estimated to be between $3 and $6 billion. At best the fence will just make people cross somewhere else.

So what does it fund then?

Tim

[Shannon]

I recently had an interesting chat with a very nice lady who emigrated legally to the USA from South America. She is now involved in working with illegal immigrants in the Birmingham, AL area (which has one of the 5 fastest growing populations of illegals in the country). Her stance was interesting. She said the USA either needs to
1. give status to the immigrants, including both the rights and responsibilities which would pertain, and be done with it. Or...
2. get serious about making and ENFORCING strict laws, and send the illegals back to where they came from.

She didn't really care which course is taken, but she suggested that our current navel-gazing and grandstanding is solving nothing and helping nobody.

I personally think the fence is idiotic, and I hope someone with sense puts the kibosh on it before it becomes a boondoggle.

[millring]

From the party that was going to give us some pocket money to help defray the price increase of gasoline.

[knobtwister]

From what I understand after an illegal presents their forged documents to an employer it takes as much 18 months for the feds to get back to the employer and tell if the papers are good or not. If they are forged the illegal gets fired, and told to report to INS. Then the illegal doesn't report to INS. Instead it's off to another employer for another 18 month cycle.

Punishing the employer sounds nice on paper but in reality it won't work because the feds aren't too savvy when it comes to making or checking lists

Don

[epaul]

I agree with Steve 100%.

Which proves it is possible for pragmatic Martin people to work with pragmatic Bourgeois people.

Bourgeois being the key word there.

I mean, pragmatic. Pragmatic being the key word.



Paul

[AlanC]

I think a fence between Southern states is a bad idea and can only lead to increased in-breeding.

[sekhmet]

ST: "We have corporations actually writing the bills that go before Congress. "

Really?? Tell me more. I suspect that is the same here in some cases.

[TDR]

The cost is estimated to be between $3 and $6 billion

Which is it, $3 or 6B? Lets take a median $4.5B. That would be $6,428,571 per mile, or over $1,200 per foot.

Somebody please tell me how to get that contract.