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TechnoratiThe Twisted Logic of the Border Wall
The concrete wall rising along the Mexican border is supposed to help keep illegal immigrants out of America. But it's precisely because it will do nothing of the sort that its politician defenders are willing to throw billions of dollars and hordes of political capital into constructing it.
Those politicians know something they hope their constituents won't figure out: Walls don't work.
A 10-foot wall does nothing to stop someone with an 11-foot ladder. The Border Patrol has admitted that there are dozens of tunnels under the wall. People fly over in small airplanes. More than 40 percent of illegal immigrants to this country come here legally and then overstay their visas.
There are ways to reduce the flow of illegal immigrants: more border security guards, deployment of a high-tech "virtual fence" (though technical glitches are slowing this down), vehicle barriers and (above all) enforcing America's immigration laws, including penalties against employers who hire undocumented workers. Indeed, according to border mayors and law enforcement officers I interviewed, the wall will perversely weaken our border security.
"We're fortunate that right now Mexicans have positive feelings about America and have provided invaluable assistance to the United States in several criminal investigations," McAllen Mayor Richard Cortez told me while I was investigating the wall for Grist Magazine. "But if you really want a security problem, have Mexicans hate the United States, and I'll show you a security problem."
A working solution is exactly what the corporations who fund politicians' campaigns don't want. Cracking down on illegal immigration would interfere with the flow of cheap, nonvoting labor they use to keep wages low and bust unions.
The great tragedy of the wall, however, isn't just the colossal waste of taxpayer money that's being funneled to build it. Its true lasting impact will be the scar it leaves on the landscape of the Southwest and on the wildlife of our great nation.
Illegal immigrants will find a way to tunnel under, climb over or go around the wall or just violate their visa terms as long as people are willing to hire them. Those options aren't open to the endangered jaguars, wolves and jaguarundi that need to cross the border to survive.
Ocelots need so badly to go to and from Mexico that they've been tracked swimming across the Brownsville Ship Channel, 250 feet wide at its narrowest point. That option would be shut forever to them if the wall is built. Irresponsible Bush administration border activity already has reduced the remaining American herd of Sonoran pronghorn antelope to 20. There were more than 500 when President Bush took office.
This wildlife massacre will have devastating economic consequences as well. The Rio Grande Valley is one of the top bird-watching destinations in the world. It's a unique place in America that's filled with tropical birds that fly from Central and South America to nest, filling the trees and the air there with glorious song and flashes of lilac, saffron and crimson feathers.
Birders visiting the area pump $125 million into the Texas economy each year and support thousands of jobs. Few people want to come all the way to South Texas to stare at a concrete wall.
The twisted logic of the wall requires destroying America to save it. But we need a new logic - fast. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff just waived 37 laws - among them the Endangered Species Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Native American Graves Protection Act and many others - to give himself the legal authority to build the wall.
Chertoff's constitutionally groundless action is being challenged in the Supreme Court, but a decision is unlikely to come before the Bush administration's politically connected contractors start pouring concrete. The administration is anxious to complete the wall before a new president takes office; all three candidates have expressed opposition to having a border wall on sensitive wild lands.
To achieve action faster, Congress must cut off funds for the wall immediately. That won't happen unless constituents demand that they stop having their intelligence insulted with a border wall that wastes our money, devastates our natural wonders and doesn't work.
Glenn Hurowitz is the author of the new book Fear and Courage in the Democratic Party.
Copyright 2008 Star-Telegram Operating, Ltd.
24 Comments so far
Show AllBuild a wall around war criminals Bush and Cheney and then padlock it. A better use of cement.
People fly over in small airplanes
I would love to see some evidence to back up this baseless claim.
There is a line between the US and Mexico, the Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) and ANY aircraft that crosses that line without a Defense Flight Plan filed to an airport with customs service is intercepted by the military.
Taking a plane to illegally cross the border is a very unwise choice indeed, and I highly doubt these 'illiterate peasants', would be able to afford pilot training if they are stuck working in fields in the first place.
Andersoncooper- I was working from memory. I do apologize. It's been a while since I had to crack a Canadian Highschool history textbook...
If the wall would stop the pregnant women and 40% of the men it would be a huge success.
Immigration Canada says big jump in Americans moving to Canada and less Canadians moving to America.
More and more US plates on the hi-ways in Canada and it isn't tourist season. There has also been a huge rise in University enrolement of American students. Land purchases by Americans on the rise in Canada. I feel that these Americans have lost faith in America and those with the option are leaving. I sure as I have read some postings of jobs lost and bad healthcare more would look into it.
Do walls stop planes as well? Or is it a long list of great walls of history.
You want to stop illegals, arrest the owners of the companies that hire them.
If you want to put a wall betwen Canada and the US that is fine with me, I will be there is a minute. I feel when the sh*t hits the fans one day there will be a flood of Americans running north.
BTW, the Scots as such didn't exist at the time of Hadrian's wall, those were Picts. The Scots were about 300 years later.
Galen. Interestingly you are also wrong about Offa's Dyke which was not in the Netherlands, but in Murcia along the Welsh border where it presented a serious obsticle to the Welsh who also never broached it and conquered Murcia. In fact the dyke follows the border and if it had NOT worked, the modern Welsh border would have been to the east of it's present day line.
Did you not consult any sources before your post?
Galen, you are also wrong about the Berlin Wall, it was designed to keep people in not out. That is a very different proposition in that you cannot fortify a wall on the inside because you use your own land that people need to have access to. In the case of a wall facing out, you can dig ditches, drain water, bury wells, spread wire or other obsticles or even mines if you think you really need to. Remember, we haven't signed any convention to get rid of mines at this time. Defending to the south would be very easy compared to the Berlin Wall.
The more I have been thinking about walls, the more I think you are not correct in the assertion that walls are failures. I think that history shows us exactly the opposite. For instance:
1. Hadrian's wall completed 130 AD kept the Picts out in any real numbers till after 400 AD when the Roman legions left. The wall itself was fortified by British for a century longer and there was no Pict invasion around the wall ever. - Effective live: 270+ years.
2. The Great Wall of China was begun in about 221 BC and was rebuilt sometime after 1449 AD. It succeded in keeping the Mongols out until 1644 when a gate was opened by a general that was angry with the political leadership at home. - Effective life: 200+ years or 1800 years counting early walls.
3. The Berlin Wall lasted about 27 years and it succeded in keeping in most East Europeans that didn't have official permission to leave. It was maybe 90-95% effective which was plenty for the the East Germans. It in fact was a brilliant success of a desperate government. I will add it was truly evil as well. I had the opportunity to see it from both sides while it was in use and it was successful in its design and implementation. - Effective life: 27 years.
4. The Long Walls of Athens were begun about 450 BC and lasted till 404 BC. They were designed specifically to keep the Spartan army from being able to starve Athens. The wall actually connected Athens with their port which allowed them to withstand any land army which it succeded in doing for its entire life. Sparta eventually beat Athens in the Pelloponesian wars by eliminating their navy which protected their food shipments. - Effective life: 45 years.
5. The Maginot line was designed to prevent the Germans from crossing the border with France, The line ran from Belfort in the south at the Swiss border to the edge of the Ardennes where it curved and followed the Belgian-French border towards the Atlantic. It was designed to stop the Germans for 2-3 weeks in anticipation of mobilizing the French army and the transport of the colonial amry in Africa to France proper. It worked flawlessly. The Germans did not attack it and instead invaded Belgium and the Neterlands and then swung south to attack France from the North. France held up 21 days which was in fact the three week period for which the Maginot was designed. - Effective life: 21 days.
6. The Apartheid wall in Palestine. This one is controversial, but in the areas where the wall is complete, attacks across the border from Palestine to Israel have dropped up to 95%. - Effective life unknown.
In all these cases, save the Berlin Wall, the design was to stop or delay armies, not civilians. The border with Mexico also has other geography that make it a good candidate for a wall.
1. There is no Mexican army trying to invade the US like the Germans had to invade France. There are to soldiers and tanks that are trying to cross over. There are only peole that have no money, no water, no food, and a desperate desire to come here where they can improve their lives.
2. There is no land on either side of the border which people can move around. No Maginot line here. No Belgium to invade then turn left. There is ocean on either side and that is particularly easy to defend against illegal immigration.
3. Most of the land where the wall is going is very inhospitible. If there were people that came to cross and they were unable to move north as they expected in the time frame they expected, they would be caught in the open in the heat of the desert with only the water they carried with them. Not a good place to be.
4. The wall is not designed to keep people in like the Berlin wall so it is easier defend the outer side. Defending the inner wall is very difficult.
In short, Walls have a history of working VERY well in their intended purpose. If we *do* finish the wall, there may be a lot of angry poeple on both sides, but there is a mathematical certitude that there will be a reduction in people coming across.
We should remember that for something to be really effective, it doesn't have to be 100% effective, maybe only 50% effective. If people start to die of thirst looking for a way across, or if there are now dozens of tunnels rather than hundreds of cuts in a fence, or if you now have to brave the oceans on each side where you can drown or be caught easily, well all those things have a huge ripple effect south of the border. If you are a Central American now, you can bet that if you try a few times, you are going to get across. In 5 years, you may have half that chance or a quarter of that chance and that is going to make a hard trip many times more difficult. It will be the straw that breaks the camel's back for many people. In that regard it is going to be successful.
Here we seem more and more to be a sounding chamber. We don't like something for some good reason and we all resonate with that passion, then we start to behave more and more like toddlers, making claims about things that simply aren't true. Realism means research and thought not just wishes and spouting beliefs that have no basis. It is infact becoming more and more like a bunch of Republicans whining about evolution.
>>Galen - The picts and early Scots, as well as the Wendel culture all had boats. They just went AROUND!<<
Wrong Galen. They had boats but they did not go around. There was almost no recorded activity of raiders in the north of Britain till long after the wall was down. There was no Pict invasion of Britain while the wall was up. Sorry.
That makes it a success.
ISN'T IT A WONDERMENT!! WE HEAR ALL THESE
HUES AND CRIES...ABOUT "WALLS"...THAT ARE
SHAMEFUL DISGRACES...THAT NEVER WORK...ETC.
EVER WONDER WHY WE NEVER HEAR ABOUT THE "WALLS"
PLUS "SEPARATE ROADS"...THAT THE ISRALI'S ARE
BUILDING?
Goose2- The picts and early Scots, as well as the Wendel culture all had boats.
They just went AROUND!
Hadrian's wall was finished in about 130 and manned till the Romans left Britain in about 400. That is about 270 years of the wall working. Not all walls are failures.
The Mexican border wall means different things to different people. To some Americans, the wall means solidarity with Israel, which means ka-ching ka-ching. To some it means jobs, ka-ching ka-ching. To some such a "bold act" fortifies their political influence within their network. To some it gains them political support of racists which is better than having less political support. To some it represents an accomplishment to increase social standing, any "big" accomplishment will do. To some it means another bootprint on the necks of tree-hugging leftists, sadistic joy. And to some it means more bucks passed round and round to add to the GDP and the war treasury.
All of these motives naturally avoid the key cause of the unwanted immigration: US capitalists pushing Mexican farmers off their land, out of their cherished agrarian traditions of several thousand years, forcing them to migrate north where the same capitalists lie in wait to illegally exploit their labor. Notice how the migration is necessary so the family back in Mexico can have dollars to buy the illegally dumped capitalist commodities for survival.
Read this: http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4794
Imagine someone from a foreign land forcing you to do labor/food exchange with them on their terms, forcing you to migrate, then throwing up barriers to your migration. This is Friedmanite "laissez-faire" capitalism at its "best". US citizens can help correct the problem by shfiting their exchange/association away from the capitalists and toward their local communities.
I'm too lazy to check whether Texas, like other Southern states, have those Open-Season "self-defense" laws, which permit decent homeownin' folk to blow the head off of anyone who so much as squints funny toward their property line.
Laws or no laws, camus13, consider that they're the Hunt brothers, if you get my drift. So I suspect that the price of a ladder saved by any univited trespassers would be used to defray funeral expenses.
And don't forget the Hunt brothers, Idiot George's buddies who will not have any wall on their property.
So maybe, just maybe the South of the border folks can go to the Hunt ranch and walk over saving them the price of a ladder.
The Great Wall of China.
The Long Walls of Athens.
Hadrian's Wall across the neck of Britain.
Offa's Dike in the Netherlands.
The Maginot Line of France.
The Berlin Wall of Germany.
All built to keep people out. And all failed.
BECAUSE THE WALLS HAVE OPEN ENDS, AND THE PEOPLE YOU WANT TO KEEP OUT JUST GO THE HELL AROUND!!
The Berlin wall was called "The Wall of Shame". This is the new Wall of Shame.
Please, just tell me what in this country is not twisted anymore?
Maybe all the people going to China this summer will have had a chance to see what a "real" wall looks like and how it worked out for the Chinese. Hadrian did the same thing to control the Scots which didn't work too well either.
If corporations were losing their charters or going into bankruptcy from the size of the fines for hiring illegals, there would be no need for a wall. Enforcing against corporations alone (never mind individuals and their "gardeners", etc.) would solve the problem and it is the one thing REPUBLICANS WILL NEVER DO. (This is one more reason you need Democrats running your government.)
The irony of not having the fence breaching the property of the wealthy is how they plan to stem the flow of immigrants or is it just a way to employ cheap labor. It's only business, right?
I have several European friends who would love to see a wall around the entire US to keep them in and away from hurting others.