Where border infrastructure is not conceivable due to topographic constraints, technology and personnel be utilized. Virtual fencing instead of physical fencing is a really bad move, tried and failed, they need to build a real wall.
From the article, "Trump must avoid getting hoodwinked by interests and personnel that would like to resurrect the construction of a virtual fence instead of building what is conversationally called a wall but is more realistically an extension of the San Diego border fence." "It’s a promise that Trump must uphold."
Landmines, snipers. ‘Nuff said.
I don’t care how he does it, just stop illegal entry to the USA!
Step back from a promise to America at your own risk. We wait.
The only “virtual fence” I’d be amenable to would be a minefield.
A physical barrier, then a wide landmine field, a 2nd physical barrier, then a road, then a 3rd physical barrier. Small bases for military personnel to perform regular, but random patrols. Anyone not US military inside any of the physical barriers is shoot to kill, don’t bother asking questions either before or after. Sensors for tunnels, coverage for air incursions. Use the Korean border as an example or even the East/West German border.
Quit clutching your pearls ladies. I don’t see any evidence that Trump is stepping back from anything. Remember everyone’s hysteria about Romney? In the end Mitt was reduced to groveling not once but twice, and got nothing but humiliation, while Trump looked magnanimous. Let the man be sworn in before you start issuing dire warnings.
And if DJT needs any tips on how to do it, he can contact the folks building the very large brick wall around the Obamas’ new house at this very moment to keep out the riff-raff, thieves, and other undesirables.
Trump has said it will be a wall, not a fence. Twenty to thirty feet high, concrete, and I assume that there will be an access road along it as well. I would hope that Congressman Duncan will be happy with that.
Look at the wall Israel uses. Look at the wall used by Spain to keep Africans out at Melilla and at Ceuta. Build what works, then patrol it, defend it, and lock up anyone damaging it, climbing it, or tunneling under it.
Start with triple-strand concertina wire, two of those barriers, with a road in between. Then “encourage” Mexico to build something more permanent on the Mexican side of that barrier, and we build something more permanent before criminals even reach our barbed-wire barriers, and patrol them all. Deport illegals, stop more illegals from coming, and when we catch them, hold them until whatever hearings their liberal advocates demand - do not set any illegals free in our territory.
Some walls are made of brick and mortar, some are made of words and deeds.
Virtual fences are virtually useless.
Real fences can’t be turned off.
Brick & Mortar!
Electronics can be turned off and defunded.
The wall itself need not be "beautiful".
To be effective it would most likely need to be harsh, foreboding, and possibly not a little ugly.
What must be beautiful, and I do believe will be more difficult to get right, is the beautiful door that must be set within the firmly concrete, lawfully needful wall.
We need what they have at Yuma. It’s been very effective. We also need to have military bases located by the best known routes into the US
Just an article to keep Duncan relevant and I have no problem with it.
To start with, a “virtual fence” is as useless as marrying an inflatable doll and calling it a wife.
However, a *realistic* analysis of the real border fence needs to be examined based on its projected results. This is because of “the law of diminishing returns”.
1) Priority to building the wall should be to the limited number of “high volume transit routes.” This is because much of the border is very difficult to cross due to terrain. So blocking the high volume routes will be most cost and time effective. That is, they will reduce illegal immigration from Mexico by about 60%. A lot of “bang for the buck”. The typical crosser would be dissuaded from making the effort.
2) When the wall is built in its entirety, the emphasis begins to seriously shift from human crossing to drug smuggling, and non-Mexican crossers from Mexico. Because drug smugglers are looking for big profits, they are very determined and creative in figuring out how to evade the fence. They are also heavily armed, often with military grade weapons, far outgunning the CBP. The rest of the wall will be far more expensive, but will likely only reduce the number of crossers by another 10-15%, leaving 25% of the illegals still able to get in.
3) Most of these 25% of illegals do not cross from Mexico, but come in through abusing the Visa program. They arrive mostly from Canada or by air as either foreign workers, students, or tourists, and “overstay” their visit. Likewise, many bogus “refugees” now claim “political persecution” in their homeland, which is effectively a “get out of jail free” card to stay in the US.
Here is the State Department Directory of Visa Categories, which needs serious reform. H1-B is just the most frequently mentioned. Often these are used in support of human trafficking.
https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/general/all-visa-categories.html
4) Finally, *at the same time* as these “big bang for the buck” programs, the US needs to substantially streamline its deportation program. We need to incorporate the lifetime ban on reentry to deportations. A big sticking point is that many of these peoples’ home countries don’t want them back. For this reason, we have to be cagey.
If you have seen the Tom Hanks movie, The Terminal, it is about a foreigner stuck in the customs part of an airport, unable to return to his home country because of a revolution, yet unable to legally enter the US. Not wanting to break the law, he refuses to just leave the airport customs area, though assured he can leave scot free any time he likes, that his illegal entry will be ignored.
The important take from this should be that when someone is in a customs area, they are under CPB authority. Typical American rights and civil liberties, including Habeus Corpus, do not apply. And this gives the US an “out” for foreigners we wish to deport, but their home countries do not want.
That is, we need to build what are in effect prisons, but not called prisons, on the north side of the border with Mexico. These will be called customs holding centers, and will be under customs authority. So US federal judges cannot interfere with them.
The vast majority of people we put in there will be Mexican criminals who have served their sentences in the US, but Mexico says it is unwilling to take back except very slowly.
It is indeed a very bad idea to just “kick them across the border”, because they will either immediately join one of the drug cartels, or be murdered by them as an enemy. And this can come back to bite us later.
So once Mexico agrees to take them back, we need to do what Arizona used to do, and fly them on big bodied chartered planes to Mexico city, the better part of a thousand miles from the US border. Very cost effective, and few deported this way ever return.
So, all told, this is a complete package to solve illegal immigration. Unlike what the internationalists want, it does not focus on legal citizens, forcing them to become numbered and labeled and be inconvenienced to live their lives, but instead focuses on illegal aliens, and booting them out.
Cut off all freebies to illegals, especially EITC payments, dispense all anchor baby’s welfare thru a parent or guardian who is a citizen.
Get the opinions of the Border Patrol on what will work best - not the political appointees and policy wonks, but the actual boots on the ground who are stuck enforcing our border. They have may some truly enlightening ideas.
Get the opinions of the Border Patrol on what will work best - not the political appointees and policy wonks, but the actual boots on the ground who are stuck enforcing our border. They have may some truly enlightening ideas.