US Features
US border fence has many loopholes, some them deadly
Nov 28, 2008, 14:21 GMT
Nogales, Mexico - The United States has stepped up efforts over the last two years to contain the inflow of illegal immigrants across its southern border from Mexico and Central America.
Washington is fortifying its 3,000-kilometre border with Mexico, with a view to preventing people from reaching the United States, where an estimated 11 million so-called 'indocumentados,' or undocumented workers, already live.
An estimated 500,000 people every year cross the border without authorization to search for a better life in the United States, while another 1 million or so are caught and sent back.
Mexicans refer to the obstacle as 'El Muro' - the wall - a reference to the Berlin Wall. What the United States is really building, though, is mostly a double fence that is by no means a hardened fortification.
The new fence stretches along some 1,000 kilometres of the border, particularly near the Mexican cities of Tijuana, Tecate, Mexicali, Nogales and Ciudad Juarez, as well as around all border crossings.
'In this stretch of border, Mexicans used to be able to cross to San Diego, Tucson and El Paso on foot, by car and even by bus, and no one stopped them,' said Rodolfo Corona of Colegio de la Frontera Norte, a border research institution in Tijuana.
The old fence is riddled with holes where migrants have slipped through. Nowadays, however, this is increasingly difficult. In the hills west of Tijuana, whole valleys have been leveled to make the terrain easier to monitor for US border agents.
Parallel to the old fence, a new metal fence is taking shape on US territory. It is 4 metres high, and see-through: the US border officers patrolling between the two fences can see what is happening on either side beyond the fence.
White balloons hover high over the border, carrying surveillance equipment to spot movement, particularly the drug-smuggling aircraft zooming up from the south.
'We do not think that the wall contains migration,' the Mexican Protection Consul Gustavo Morales Cirion, who is in charge of the welfare of Mexican immigrants, said in Douglas, Arizona, some 100 kilometres east of Nogales.
However, crossing the border has become a riskier and sometimes lethal endeavour. With other routes closed off by the fence, migrants have switched to more dangerous routes, for example, over the Rumorosa Mountainss east of Tijuana or through harsh deserts along the frontier in Arizona, California and Texas.
They walk for days before reaching the United States. After climbing the fence, some break legs jumping down onto the northern side. Those who make it over in one piece face further jeopardy as mundane as exposure and dehydration and as exotic as bites from venomous snakes.
'At night it is cold. During the daytime it is hot,' Morales Cirion explained.
The border fence has many faces. Sometimes it is simple barbed wire, like that used to fence in cattle, sometimes metre-high railing with iron bars or chains, sometimes overlapping metal plates and metal pipes filled with cement.
Where there are no roads or paths, there is no fence, with terrain and climate presenting formidable barriers. Yet the risk of death fails to deter many potential immigrants from trekking north.
From Sonora, California, the fence stretches kilometres into the desert, running along Mexico's State Road 2, the only link from Baja California in Mexico to the border into California. Along this stretch, the fence is formed by metal plates, set in a concrete base sunk 200 centimetres into the ground.
Nature has already taken its toll. Windblown sand has carved openings into the wall, often spots where the US border patrol stands guard to apprehend anyone trying to sneak through.
All along the fence, large signs warn of the dangers ahead. Since 1994, an estimated 5,000 people have died trying to cross through the border region.
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Older Talkback
page: 1
Quoting the article:''An estimated 500,000 people every year cross the border without authorization to search for a better life in the United States, while another 1 million or so are caught and sent back. ''
I'm confused. 1,500,000 cross and only 500,000 make it? Or do a million attempt to cross out of which only 500,000 manage to give authorities the slip?
Here's another question, is there anyone in the News Media numerate enough to catch this kind of goofy crap? The evidence we have says no, not really. INS may catch and turn around a million illegals a year, but I doubt it and you can safely bet that more than a million illegals enter the US in a year. We do NOT have a good count.
Lance has it right about the under-the-table wage scale and it is depressing wages for everyone, not just those who work in the agricultural business.
Ms.Grundy has tumbled on the ultimate freak-out capability of the human mind outside of a good dose of crack.
Of course a 1.5 million exodus from Mexico into the US with a miss-rate of 1/2 million is total crap. It is mental insanity gone haywire. The authorities and the media have no idea how many illegals make the trip and are simply talking like imbeciles with a hangover.
How on Earth can a small force of border guards stem a yearly flow of 1.5 million people ? You would need a guard every 2 feet, on duty 24 hours per day, AND even THAT would not stop it. Such nonsense propaganda is utterly preposterous and a disgrace to even think it possible or worse still to actually print such crap.
One thing is FACT - without these illegals, the American cost of living would rocket sky high. The US Joe Citizen should thank Mexico for being able to enjoy a cheap high life-style, be it at the suffering and poverty of countless thousands of these people.
Or on the other hand, thank the US border patrol organisation for being so damned useless at their job, that the flow of desperate humanity simply walks calmly past these dumb-bells right into the American Dream.
Sorry, I am sure the figure of 1.5 million is a TOTAL figure for all time.
So ignore my 'yearly' remarks, but the gist of my comments still hold good.
What they are saying is that there are an estimated one million illegals in the US and 1/2 million have been turned back.
I hope they mean this !
Anyway - let`s have a smile or two ;-
News flash -
THE GOOD NEWS
A boat load of Mexican illegals has sunk in the Gulf, trying to get to the Texas coast. There were no survivors.
THE BAD NEWS
The boat was only half full !
That last comment was beyond disgusting. Granted there are a lot of illegal aliens in this country, but a little fence at a huge expense is not the answer - it rests with the companies, etc., who hire these people without doing a better check or the people who issue fake ID's, etc.
We should feel fortunate that we don't live in a country where we are desperately trying to leave for a better way of life.
There are a lot more than 1 million illegals here. I personally know some boots on the ground border patrol agents. They are good people who care about this problem. They would like more help but poltics comes into play. This has been going on for decades. They tell me that for every one turned back 4 get through. I believe them before I believe the commie media. The farmers claim if we get rid of illegals all our food will skyrocket. No what will hapen is their profit margin will go back to what it was before al this mess started in the first lace. We had programs to legally bring farm workers here they were also being paid cheap wages, now that the illegals are here the wages have gone down even furthur, have you seen your food prices follow? Even Caesar Chaves was against illegals coming here taking the jobs of those workers that were here legally, why? Because he knew it would depress wages even furthur. The same goes for every sector of the workforce you find illegals. Same thing applies to the construction industry. Builder scream if they cannot use cheap labor homes would become unaffordable. No, take past decades where most construction workers were citizens. They were making a decent living. Then comes the illegal aliens and the builders saw an opportunity to use cheap labor (many times under the table) and widen their profit margins substantially. Builders are always years ahead of the curve as they buy their land many years before a project is even started on applied for. So they bought the land at cheaper prices and now use illegal labor at very cheap wages and hence they make more per unit today but the citizen is out of work because he cannot compete with slave labor wages.
Mica,
We need a multi-prong attack on this problem not just one. Yes we need to hammer those who do the hiring big time, with heavy fines and jail mandatory! But we also need the fence too to slow them down. Do you happen to know how Mexico handles illegals coming in their southern border? You will NOT hear it in our leftist media. They have their military down there, no border patrol. They arrest people and in many cases shoot first. I think we have been far more than fair to these lawbreakers. I don't care what their own country's situation is, what makes them think they can waltz right in ahead of everyone else waiting in line, get a job, education, healthcare, housing subsidies and have their children here at our expense, then make them instant citizens eligible for all kinds of taxpayer funded benefits? Please answer me that.
...not to come here. These will be the benefits
1) force the mexican gov't to contend with it's accute poverty
2) force the mexican gov't to employ it's citizens
Why should the mexican gov't try to stop it? they get in monies sent back by workers who enter. They get rid of millions of workers they cannot employ. It's a win-win for them. They get the USA to deal with their problems.
Fix it???? Yeah, put up a 1 mile electronic frontier, and a 1st rate barrier.
Honestly!
Why fix it? It ain't broke.
The U.S. public loves cheap food and stuff and the illegal Mexican workers are the ticket to the consumer dream.
The typical U.S. citizen loves a good deal and a half-made fence is a good way to filter out the weak, and the ones that survive will not want to talk so the typical U.S. citizen can feel comfortable while they gorge on their Thanksgiving bounty with eyes popping out at more food then they can possibly eat, but they will try nonetheless to consume it all. And they shall do so simply because they have the money to consume. And when they have no money the government shall give them money so they can consume. And so on and so on.
..they come here, filtering out the weak..?...then we exploit them..then we support them....??....food is cheap because of mexican labor...?...
....when mexican labor only accounts for about 1% of the total labor in the production of American foodstuffs?
Limbaugh WAS right: never argue with a lunatic...or at least try to understand them...
Is this anything like the Bank of England / Bush rant you still owe us the explanation on?
Yes, SP4. That is the way the typical U.S. citizen wants it.
If they wanted different then there would be different.
The fact is: The typical U.S. citizen is very happy with their status quo. They simply deny it in fits of hypocrisy so that they can bare to live with themselves.
im not heartless but if you want to come to this country there is a legal way to do so
'im not heartless but if you want to come to this country there is a legal way to do so'
But, such people are then tainted in the eyes of the perspective employer. Such people (legal immigrants) have legal rights and obligations including payroll taxes, unemployment insurance, workmen's comp., etc. etc. (the list is endless) ... the right to unionize, etc. etc. (the list is endless), rights of redress, etc. etc. (the list is endless).
And hence they become less attractive to employers and there is hence less attraction to migrate to the U.S. for the purpose of undercutting the U.S. legal workers. The lack of competition (the special status of their illegal competitive advantage) is a main attraction for the illegal immigrant.
The mystique of it is in the illegal activity and ability to undercut other people economically.
The same argument is applied to many illegal activities, such a prohibition of alcohol and other drugs.
Is this lance someone who was excommunicated from a foreign country somewhere? He's constantly talking against Americans, so he's apparently not one of them. And where the hell is the 'cheap' food he talks about?
Geez. Where do you start? First of all, they are NOT, 'so-called' undocumento immigratios. They are ILLEGALS. No matter all the Orwellian 'Newspeak'. Secondly, the Idiot in Arizona, that says, 'Oh, the fence doesn't work'. Then he shouldn't have a problem with it, should he? And if the Fence IS dangerous, all the better. We have LAWS here, Mr. Mexican Consulate. Idiot. And from what I understand, YOU have laws down there in your Hellhole of a country, too. But you're not so nice, like the Gringo, to YOUR ILLEGALS. Are you? And while we're at it. How about fixing that dumphole, you call home, so your people don't HAVE to come here to feed their families. Stop stuffing your OWN POCKETS, and take care of your people. Until then, how about shuttin up?
To that one gringo that keeps writing under different names especially that gay one 'SP4' I want to tell you that California, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada are all Mexican land which we will claim back once America is broken up.
It's only a matter of time gringos. TIK TAK TIK TAK TIK TAK....
...and after you get them back, you'll turn them into the sh-tholes you came from. Poverty, disease, corruption, ignorance....it'll be just like home!
Then, you'll want to emigrate to Chicago.
Inspiring, eh?
should go get a room.
their little dog and pony show is good for entertainment now that Rosie isn't going to have her show!
'Poverty, disease, corruption, ignorance....it'll be just like home'
Ooh that reminds me so much of the United States amigo!
Especially that corruption part. Or that poverty part in those trailer parks you know? With those hicks with no teeth. Oh, ignorance, from a gringo hehehehehe
please stay in Mexico and stop destroying our nation's schools, hospitals, neighborhoods, and socail services.
You people are leeches.
and it would only take 12,000 days to get rid of the ones that are here today ----------- how depressing.
Deport 1,000,000/day and it would only take 12 days to get rid of them ---------- that's more like it.
Of course it would take 200,000 cattle cars per day to pull option ''B'' off.
page: 1
lanceNov 28th, 2008 - 16:18:49
'They walk for days before reaching the United States. After climbing the fence, some break legs jumping down onto the northern side. Those who make it over in one piece face further jeopardy as mundane as exposure and dehydration and as exotic as bites from venomous snakes.'
That is just pre-employment screening. The ones that pass can work out in the fields longer for cheeper under the table wages while U.S. citizens buy even cheaper food at their grocery stores, bitch about high prices and eat more food shit. It also stands to reason that people that pass the test really really want a job, so the fat-cat employers have a better negotiating stance. Otherwise, it is back to Mexico where the people that pass the test once need to pass it again to repeat the process.
There has to be a better way, but until U.S. citizens take the blinders off their eyes there will be no solution.
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