blood, sweat and tears.... essay excerpt

blah, blah, blah.... why building a wall isn't going to do JACK.

First, fences only slow people down. A fence will do little if no one is watching the fence. Once immigrants reach the melting point, the point where a person crossing the border ‘melts’ into society becoming untraceable, they are gone. There is very little a fence will do to prevent people from disappearing into the US. Once they have hit the melting point, it becomes considerably more difficult to prosecute and deport them. As we have seen by the construction in the San Diego section of the southwest border, many of the illegal crossings are now concentrated in parts of the border which are uninhabited. The more difficult the crossing the greater need for a coyote and the greater the humanitarian problem. A fence necessitates a road which facilitates movement away from the actual fence and into the country. By building a fence we are making it easier for coyotes to move immigrants into the country more quickly.

Second, fences actually keep people in the United States. There are an estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States today. Ironically, the number of illegal immigrants in the United States has mirrored the increase in the amount of money spent on border security. Both have grown in the last decade and since the Immigration Reform Control Act of 1986 (the last major blanket amnesty in the United States). While many immigrants really do want to come to America to make a better life, there are a great many who only want to come to the US to generate wealth. There are numerous immigrants searching only for seasonal labor. Because they must come to the US illegally, paying a coyote thousands of dollars to get in to this country, it is not economically feasible to make the trip to the US and back to their home country every season. Once they get to the US, they tend to stay and work sending money back to their families. In the first six months of 2007, more than $11.4 billion was sent in remittances back to Mexico. The better the fence the harder it is for those immigrants who want to return home to do so. Fences make the illegal immigrant population in the US grow – exacerbating discontent among the electorate.

Third, a fence along the southwest border does nothing to examine the root problem. As long as facilitating goods, people or products from one side of the border to the other is a profitable business, it will never be stopped. This theory was demonstrated in January of this year on the border between Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and the Palestinian territory of Gaza. Israel imposed a blockage upon Gaza cutting off food, oil and other vital supplies. The recourse of the people behind the wall in Gaza was to create a series of smuggling tunnels into Egypt. When Egypt discovered the tunnels, they were destroyed leaving the Gazans again cut off. On January 23rd the Gazans destroyed a portion of the security wall and streamed into Egypt searching for supplies. As long as there is demand, there will be supply. This is true with food in Egypt, and it is true with labor and narcotics along the southwest border. Why are immigrants coming to America in the first place - because the economy in Mexico and other central and South American countries are weak. A wall will not solve this economic problem.