AZ Alert: Lawmaker: Aid to Mexican States is Cheaper Than Border Security

Santa Fe New Mexican ^ | 01/10/2003 | Associated Press

[discostu]

The discussion was on SEALING the border. I never said we shouldn't increase border security, actually QUITE the opposite. See things work a lot better if you actually READ what the other person said and reply to that rather than replying to imaginary arguements that not one single person on the thread has said.

[Ajnin]

Sorry insulting me won't convince me the patently impossible is feasable.

I know, unfortunately my ability to articulate this issue lags far behind the passion I have for it. Sorry, I wasn't trying to insult you, I just don't see how you can say with certainty that the INS/Border Patrol can't shut down the border when you have not worked for the INS. As you already know you are in good company even among Border Patrol Agents that believe the problem is insurmountable.

I work with Agents that believe we can't shut down border as well. I think such an attitude is defeatist and at times self serving for the Agents. The Border Patrol Agents that I work with know very well that the INS has not tried to shut down the border. In 1999 the national union for the Border Patrol went before Congress to advise them that line Agents were being told not to chase illegal aliens. Supervisors were ordering agents to cover up alien traffic. Supervisors were manipulating numbers to show lower apprehension statistics. Even today we have numerous restrictions and policies that prevent us from enforcing immigration laws. People like you look at the Border Patrol and think that we are trying real hard to stop illegal immigration. This perception is absolutely false. While individual Agents work hard, the Service as a whole is not doing a damn thing!

[discostu]

Apology accepted, we're cool.

I say it can't be sealed because that's just a fact of life, it's not a hit on the BP it's just too damn big a border. Perimeter security is always a nasty problem and the bigger the perimter the bigger the problem.

I don't see it as defeatist, and it's only self serving for the lazy. I work in software QA and one of the doctrines of our subsection of the industry is that you can never catch more than 1/3 of the bugs. A good QA engineer uses this to help focus his efforts on the worst bugs that have the highest potential to damage the customer's data and experience, and you always gun for as many bugs as you can and stay in touch with tech support to see what the customers are running into. No reason the knowledge that the border can't be sealed can't work the same way for the BP, focus efforts on the areas and methods most commonly used and to keep the worst type of people (coyotes, drug smugglers, terrorists) on the other side of the border.

One of the things that I think really screws up the BP (and you kind of touched on it b ut I want to delve deeper) is the assumed percentage that goes uncaught. Every article you'll ever read on the illegal alien situation says every illegal caught represents 9 that got through. So when the number caught goes up everybody assumes the number coming went up by the same percentage, when the number caught drops they assume it's because illegal immigration itself is dropping. No where does anybody allow the possibility that the number caught might fluctuate because of the activities of the BP agent. I think this is why you have supervisors trying to nudge they're stats down, if the number caught is down in a certain region I'm betting there's a built in assumption that the illegals are avoiding that area so the stations in that area must be doing a "good job".

Like so many parts of the American government the BP is drowning in it's own beauracracy. It's sad and it makes me worry about guys like you out on the wire who are the most at risk because of innaction by superiors. The first BP Agent I knew was a girlfriends father, he repaired what little sensor equipment (mostly cameras) the BP used back in the 80s. He had one sensor that kept getting sabatoges almost nightly, one day when he was out repairing it he got shot at, he reported it to his superior and his boss listed the sensor as "no longer needed" so he wouldn't have to go fix it anymore. He quit that day. So unfortunately I've got some pretty good knowledge as to the difference between what we say we do on the border and what we really do. And niether is enough, we should do more, we just need to understand the limitations, that 100% security can never be achieved on a 2000 mile border. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try, just that we need to grock the nature of reality.