Border Fence or Immigration Enforcement

According to congressional estimates (as reported by globalsecurity.org and elsewhere) the proposed fence along US-Mexico border would cost between $1,000,000 and $3,000,000 per mile. And, according to security experts, it would be as effective as posting signs "Please do not cross the border" every few miles... Remember the Berlin Wall? That was a real wall, made of 12 ft high and 4 ft wide concrete reinforced by mesh fencing, signal fencing, anti-vehicle trenches, barbed wire, dogs, sentries, watchtowers, and shoot-on-sight "death strip". And yet, thousands of people sneaked through it successfully. What is the use of the proposed chain-link fence then? Just an enormous waste of money, mostly directed to the usual government contractors.

The illegal immigration should be attacked at the core of the problem: the employment of illegal aliens. The flood of illegal immigration would slow down to a manageable trickle if there were no jobs for illegal aliens. And that can be accomplished only by making it not economical for employers to hire illegal aliens.

How? Easy: spend the money not on useless fence, but on real enforcement of immigration and employment laws.

The 1 to 3 billion dollars wasted on the fence would be enough to hire a couple of thousands of new immigration agents for ten years. Their job would not be to scrutinize the employment records of the companies suspected of hiring illegal aliens. Starting with the biggest ones (no names here, but perhaps a big retailer?), moving down to the smaller players. Penalize the offending companies severely, and penalize the managers of these companies as individuals (not many managers would risk going to jail just for some labor cost savings). Soon the jobs would dry out, and with them the incentives to cross the border illegally. An added bonus would be the few thousand decent jobs created this way which would provide some help to border states economies (even though these were government jobs, which I dislike in principle).

Recently Arizona passed state laws making the business of hiring illegal aliens a bit more risky (loss of business license). Very soon after alarming headlines appeared in the news: "Illegal immigrants packing up and leaving Arizona" (from CNN), "Arizona Seeing Signs of Flight by Immigrants" (from New York Times). Wait! Wasn't that just the point? So it can be done!

Don't waste money on ineffective fence. Use it to hire agents that can really reduce illegal immigration by enforcing employment laws.