Form over function

The $2,000,000,000 700 mile fence is more of a political prop than it is anything useful and/or practical. Experts agree!

Experts see U.S. border fence plan as impractical | US News | Reuters.com Building a fence to try to secure the U.S. border with Mexico is impractical and would simply lead illegal immigrants to cross elsewhere, according to former Customs and Border Protection agents and other experts.

Another former U.S. Customs special agent, who declined to be named, said the fencing would also struggle to bridge hundreds of creek beds spanning the Arizona-Sonora border, which are prone to flash floods from May through October.

“You are going to have to build hundreds of culverts big enough for debris the size of brush and small trees to float through the length of the border,” said the former agent.

“If it is wide enough for bushes to get through, then people can get through.”
...
But analysts warned it would have a limited impact on security.

“It may work to curtail crossings in the immediate area it has been built, but it won't stop illegal immigration,” said Doris Meissner, senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington.

“Experience has shown that traffic will shift to other parts of the border” where there is less vigilance, added Meissner, a former commissioner at the now defunct U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

She cited previous policing operations in the 1990s which secured heavily crossed urban stretches of the border in El Paso, Texas, and San Diego, California, but drove determined migrants out into remote desert areas to cross.

“The draw for illegal immigrants is the availability of employment in the United States, and that is not being addressed by this fence,” she said.

No, simply a foam boulder prop to be used in political television commericals. Can we have a serious political party running the country yet?

(link via TalkLeft)

oh, and by the time every governmental contractor and crony gets a taste the $1,2000,000,000 Star Trek rock will become $2,000,000,000,000 of spending, mark my words.

Tags: immigration