On fences and nonsense: Bush signs an Act

- Daniel Bernal

During the fall of 1989 a wall went down. For some that was the first global socio-political event they had witnessed. The Berlin Wall fell, and those of us growing up - and losing sleep due to nuclear-paranoia - saw it as a hopeful sign.

A decade and a half later, hopes are down, and walls are coming up.

This fall, on October 26 th , President Bush signed the “Secure Fence Act”. This bill allows for the construction of more than a thousand additional kilometres of fence along the US-Mexico border.

“We have a responsibility to secure our borders,” said a confident Bush before spilling his signature. More than affecting the security of the United States , what this fence will do is affect the flow of illegal immigrants, one would presume.

The PEW Hispanic Centre, a non-partisan “fact-tank” based in Washington D.C, estimates that 11.1 million illegal immigrants currently reside in the U.S. Of this figure, approximately forty percent enter the U.S. legally and overrun the allotted length of their stay.

According to professor Nestor Rodriguez, co-director at the Centre for Immigration Research at the University of Houston , building a fence does not reduce the rates of illegal immigration. Instead, immigrants choose to cross the border further away from populated areas, deep into the desert, where deaths due mainly to dehydration are more likely.

The Act allows building over 1100 km of additional fence along the 3200 km border. Looking at these figures, it seems hardly effective to control this border by fencing one third of it.

For the reasons above the signing of this bill appears nonsensical. Never mind that the Act doesn't allocate funding for this project. So, residents of the U.S, start wondering who will sign the $6 billion cheque.

Thus, we must keep asking: What's the purpose of this fence? The New York Times editorial reminds us that the U.S. is on campaign for mid-term elections. Hence, the Republican Party has made illegal immigrants a hot issue – or “illegal aliens” as policy makers call them – to forget what is happening in Iraq . While they do this, the accuse Democrats of being soft on immigration for supposedly wanting to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants. Democrats are not for simply giving amnesty, they just propose to grant legal status to those immigrants that have been in the country for an extended period of time, have no criminal records and have paid taxes.

What is more – and nobody seems to realize –, it would be an aggressive slap to the U.S. economy if those illegal immigrants stopped doing menial tasks and were deported back to Mexico.

The U.S seems to not have learnt anything from years of bad immigration policies. In fact, we can agree with the Republicans that immigration is an issue. But, for serious issues you don't come up with patch-up solutions. What needs to happen is a comprehensive review of immigration policy. How about attracting investors to create more jobs on the Mexican side of the border? Or expand the guest-worker program? Or, how some Democrats have suggested, allow people that have been living illegally for a long period of time to stay?
No answers.

As for walls, it seems that this one is not going up anytime soon. If it does, then think of Berlin : it was down not long after it was erected; or from China : that one never kept anybody out.

Background & Research
A Great Wall? (NewsWeek)
United States - Mexico Barrier (Wikipedia)
Operation Gatekeeper (US Dept. of Justice)
Bush Signs U.S.-Mexico Border Fence (ABC) - Oct 26, 2006
Great Wall of Mexico (Global Security)