AUSTIN, Texas — Build a 20-foot high fence on the border and you will make the manufacturer of 21-foot high ladders rich — or so goes the maxim commonly repeated in Texas.
Dormant as a national issue until late 2005, securing the southern border suddenly became an intensely debated subject and a political hot potato. Later that year, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced the Secure Border Initiative — a multi-billion dollar program that would aim to stop the flow of illegal immigrants, criminals and narcotics through the expanses of land between legal ports of entry.
The effort includes hundreds of miles of physical — or tactical — fences to stop those on foot or in vehicles. Sensors, cameras, improved communications systems and unmanned aerial vehicles will constitute the so-called virtual fences, which will be employed in areas where traditional fences are not practical. Plans also call for doubling the number of Border Patrol agents.
What type of fence goes where, and what will be the correct mix of technology, policy and manpower will be debated for the next several years as the Department of Homeland Security receives influxes of funding from Congress, as well as mandates that dictate how it is to be spent. Chertoff has called this mix “border calculus.”
Where to put sensors and cameras instead of tactical fencing largely depends on the topography, he has said. Remote areas that require illegal crossers to traverse vast expanses before reaching a road or city can use sensors to identify and track interlopers for hours or days before the Border Patrol apprehends them. Areas near cities need high fences or double fences to slow border crossers down.
Chad Foster, mayor of Eagle Pass, Texas, and the president of the Texas Border Coalition, is an opponent of physical fences.
“We feel boots on the ground and technology [are the] solution to the security of the Texas border,” he said at a border security conference.
Texas State Rep. Juan Manuel Escobar, D-43rd district, said of the efforts to reinforce the border with technology: “It’s a waste of time and money.”
Escobar, a former Border Patrol agent, is among those who believe that immigration reform is the answer to securing the border. “I mean effectively reform it. Not a patch up job. But big corporate America doesn’t want to do that,” he said in an interview.
For many Americans — especially those who don’t live near the border — illegal immigration is what prompts their calls for a beefed up border.
For the Department of Homeland Security, charged with protecting the nation, keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the United States is the priority. Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar has said that stopping a nuclear weapon from entering the United States, not economic migrants, should be his officers’ first concern.
But for many who live north and south of the four states that border Mexico, the real threat is narcotics. Violent turf wars south of the border have cost some 3,000 lives in Mexico during the past year.
And a little told story is the contraband that flows to Mexico from the United States.
About $10 billion in drug money moves south every year and ends up in the coffers of organized crime. Firearms manufactured in, or passing through, the United States are smuggled south as well. U.S. and Mexican authorities recently busted an Arizona gun dealer for attempting to export 1,000 AK-47s to Mexico — enough to outfit a small army of criminals, said Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, Mexico’s deputy attorney general for judicial and foreign affairs.
“What’s happening for all practical purposes is that the U.S. money is financing organized crime in Mexico,” he told National Defense.
This ill-gained money is overwhelming Mexican police and the army, which are charged with protecting its northern border. The organized drug syndicates equip their foot soldiers with weaponry far superior to those carried by the police. The money also corrupts police and army officers who accept bribes.
Police who try to stay on the straight and narrow and fight against the gangs find themselves under constant danger.
In early May, Edgar Eusebio Millán Gómez, Mexico’s national police chief and the public face of the nation’s war against illegal narcotics, was gunned down.
While there is ongoing debate on whether tactical or virtual fences are the best solution in Texas, most agree that a new policy is needed to stem the tide of illegal immigrants.
Foster said immigration reform that allows for guest workers is needed so economic migrants don’t try to cross illegally. Once they are eliminated from the scene, then law enforcement can focus on the “the real bad guys.” The bad guys in his mind are the drug smugglers who are the cause of bloodshed in Mexico.
President Bush’s attempts since 2004 to push Congress to create a guest worker program that would allow economic migrants to work in the United States legally have gone nowhere. Reform has faced stiff opposition in the House.
The Bush administration, meanwhile, has attempted to thwart would-be illegal immigrants through policies that do not require congressional approval. It has ended the “catch-and-release” policies that allowed immigrants from countries other than Mexico to be free on their own recognizance until they could see a judge. It has started Operation Streamline, which arrests Mexicans crossing the border illegally in an effort to give them a criminal record before they are returned to Mexico. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has conducted raids on businesses and arrested illegal workers for identity theft.
Such law enforcement actions are part of the so-called border calculus. And like calculus, these policies are complex. Critics charge that the U.S. economy depends on cheap labor like junkies who are addicted to illegal narcotics. Others claim illegal immigrants are a drain on the economy. The unintended consequences of halting illegal immigration are unknown and hotly debated.
State Rep. Frank Corte Jr., R-122nd district, chair of defense affairs and state-federal relations, said immigration reform is a national issue, but there are actions Texas can take independently to help secure the state’s border with Mexico.
“The number one issue now in Texas is border security…People in Texas want something done,” he said in an interview.
The Texas government has used its own funds to set up an intelligence fusion center, the Border Security Operations Center in Del Rio. The facility houses state law enforcement, federal officers such as the Border Patrol, game wardens and others with a stake in border security. A second center is being proposed for the Eagle Pass area.
Texas has spent $100 million from its own coffers to beef up its 1,250 miles of border with Mexico. That, coupled with the federal funds coming in under the DHS’ Secure Border Initiative, means large amounts of money to be spent on technologies to secure the border. Where and how it will be spent is a matter of debate.
Foster, whose coalition of border mayors and community leaders opposes physical barriers, quoted a Border Patrol agent who said that physical fences only delay an illegal crosser three to four minutes. Estimates carried out by the Congressional Research Service say that maintaining these fences over their lifetime may cost up to $49 billion, he said.
“We feel that for $49 billion we deserve more than three to four minutes. We feel that we can achieve that through technology rather than physical barriers,” Foster said.
The coalition recently sued DHS for allegedly violating 37 federal laws in their efforts to build physical fences along the Texas border. Landowners, and Foster, have accused the department of heavy-handed tactics. He described discussions with DHS officials as being one-sided. Constructing fences requires environmental, economic and cultural impact studies. These have not been doen, he said.
“We would like the opportunity to sit down and talk with them, but that is where the wheels have come off the cart with the Department of Homeland Security,” Foster said.
A DHS spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
Another part of the so-called border calculus has been the deployment of National Guard personnel under Operation Jump Start. The two-year program — designed to boost the number of “boots on the ground” until the Border Patrol succeeds in bolstering its own numbers — was scheduled to end this month.
The governors of California, New Mexico, Texas and Arizona, citing the crime wave in Mexico caused by the drug cartels, have all called on President Bush to extend the program by six months. Three of the governors traveled to Mexico City in June to offer their support to the government of President Calderon, according to the Associated Press.
The Bush administration has responded with a proposed $500 million aid package to assist Mexican law enforcement in its fight against the drug cartels.
Vasconcelos said he would like to see more money flowing south, and not the $10 billion that helps the drug cartels buy the latest weaponry. His country wants the same kind of technology being used on the U.S. side.
“The reality is we don’t have enough technology on the Mexican side of the border,” Vasconcelos said. The Mexican army has the best equipment, but it relies on troop numbers more than technology to perform its mission, he said.
Vasconcelos would like to see joint rapid reaction forces comprising U.S. and Mexican personnel that can go after the drug lords and their networks.
Cameras, sensors, overhead surveillance assets and command centers are non-existent in Mexico, he said. “The use of technology is very important and fundamental. If we mirror the technology being used in the U.S., then we can be more efficient in this war.”
Vasconcelos echoed the thoughts of many in Mexico when he expressed skepticism of the U.S. efforts to strengthen the border with physical fences.
“We respect the sovereign decision from the U.S. government, but it is in fact discouraging for us. It sends a bad message to a neighbor… It projects an attitude of a lack of coordination.”
As the carnage from the drug war in Mexico mounts, critics there use the fence as a symbol of U.S. insensitivity. There are those who want the Mexican government to stop its law enforcement efforts against the cartels. The demand for narcotics comes from the United States. It’s their problem. Let the drugs flow freely and end the violence in Mexico, the critics have said.
“We are neighbors forever on this continent, for better or worse, so let’s work together on these problems,” said Vasconcelos. “Pointing fingers at each other doesn’t help anybody.”
Meanwhile, as a Congressional Research Service report on border barriers pointed out, there are more questions than answers as far as border calculus goes.
How much will maintaining the tactical and virtual fences cost? What funds will be required to buy private land to build fences? Will these costs be higher in remote or environmentally sensitive areas? Will DHS be prepared to deal with an increase in cross border tunnels and other strategies to defeat the fences? What will the crime rates be along areas where the fence is not fortified?
These equations have yet to be solved.
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