Immigration ... Step 1

WE NEED A FENCE!

Securing our borders is the first step in any serious immigration reform plan. Before we deal with those illegal immigrants who are already here, we need to keep other illegals from entering.

The first priority of the federal government is national security. National security is inherently incomplete if it does not include border security. Technology and the rise of internationally organized terrorism have made it possible for individuals to carry small weapons that can produce devastation on a scale that previously required armies, missiles or squadrons of aircraft.

We are a nation of immigrants, and it would be contrary to our history and cherished American values if we were to close our borders to legal immigration. However, illegal immigration is another matter, constituting a threat to both our national security and our economy. Our economy needs immigrant workers, but we need legal immigrant workers, not illegal ones.

The border with Mexico must be secured first. That's where the biggest problem is. The Canadian border is about 1,000 miles longer than the Mexican border, yet the vast majority of illegal immigration occurs across the Mexican border. It is not unreasonable to think about the need for a northern security fence once a southern security fence is in place and working. The Israeli West Bank security fence is a good example of the state-of-the-art in border security. Many people have seen photographs and television images showing it to be a concrete wall. Those pictures are deceptive. The concrete wall portion of the barrier is roughly four percent of its overall length. Most of it is a fifty yard wide multi-layered composite obstacle comprised of several elements:

1) A ditch
2) Coils of barbed wire
3) Two tall, sturdy wire fences, with sensors to warn of any incursion
4) A patrol path for vehicles between the fences
5) A smoothed strip of sand that runs parallel to the fence, to detect footprints
6) Closed circuit TV cameras and motion detectors

A barrier is an essential component of any effort to secure our borders; additional manpower alone cannot do the job. Simply adding more border agents won't work unless there is one every hundred yards or so along the entire border. That would require between 150,000 and 200,000 agents and support personnel, rather than the 11,000 at present, and an annual budget of five to ten billion dollars. The cost of a modern border security fence is in line with its national security priority: roughly the cost of 4 B-2 bombers. A 2,000 mile state-of-the-art border fence has been estimated to cost between four and eight billion dollars. Such a fence could be designed with up to two hundred legal crossing points to accommodate commerce, tourism and legitimate commuting. Although expensive in terms of initial outlay, in the long term it is both less expensive and more effective than any other solution currently being proposed. If we build it, they can come legally.