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.
“... build what are in effect prisons, ... on the north side of the border with Mexico. ... called customs holding centers, ... under customs authority. So US federal judges cannot interfere with them.”
This part Sounds very good!
“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.”
And why should we care what becomes of native mexican criminals? They need to be Mexico’s problem and locked up or killed within their own country. Mexico doesn’t want them? too bad.
All of these posts show extreme ignorance of reality. The wall cannot address high volume transit routes. 40% of illegals do not cross the border illegally. Of the 60% who do cross the border illegally, the vast majority do it at legal border crossings. My illegal friends ridicule the stupid who cross the desert in the false stereotype of illegals.
Go to Laredo/Nuevo Laredo or your crossing of choice. Set up a cameras to photograph all crossings on the bridge. The number coming North exceeds the number crossing south almost always. Ever wonder why?
Small family owned businesses on the border rent valid IDs to those without valid IDs. The small family business has IDs for young and old, male and female, fat and skinny all from cousins, uncles, etc who do have valid IDs. The cost to rent an ID is small, $5 or $10. At morning, noon and evening rush hours thousands of people walk across the border. There is no way ICE has the time to closely check the IDs.
That is where the high volume exists. And no wall is going to change it. If anything, a wall will just make the high volume even higher at the current high volume points.