I can’t say I agree with some of what Governor Jan Brewer has advocated or seen enacted. But now, after having lived in a cultural milieu right on our borders — what to me seems a strange, even bizarre cultural environment, full of perversions of power and social dysfunction that is absolutely destructive — I definitely agree with at least one idea: We must get total control of our border.
We need fences and increased border area security forces. I think that actually, on our side of the border, we need an electrified fence, to keep these dysfunctional people out. We need strong paramilitary forces at Yuma, Quartzite, Parker, and Kingman, to conduct strict and efficient border security.
They love their homeland deeply, mainly because it’s all they know. That’s a reflection of their narrow world view and ignorance. Even so, driven by the poverty their rapid population growth produces and the economic collapse of their failed, weak systems and cultural collapse, they continue to insist in moving into the U.S., even as they proudly insist they “don’t like it here — they’re only here for the bread.”
Once we get our western borders secure from the invasion of these “takers” who are trying to infest us from California, we need to talk to our friends in El Paso (a New Mexican city, stuck in Texas by politics) and Albuquerque, and show them how to secure the Pecos River entry sites from California’s similar Texan hoard, trying to invade us from the East.
Stan Bass
Lancaster, Calif.
bobunf posted at 2:56 pm on Fri, Jan 25, 2013.
You're forgetting the sea.
You're also forgetting the problem of "corruption." Many of the border guards would admit people for money or out of empathy and sympathy. Even the SS had many who looked the other way. So, besides, guards, you'd need spies to spy on the guards.
Also at crossing points (unless you want to hermetically seal the border and cut off all trade with Mexico - like oil, gas and food). The food will be a special issue since we'd have increasing difficulty growing our own. It would be so easy for a conspiracy of a few guards to admit thousands of immigrants.
The need for spies should be obvious, and not just at the border.
You're forgetting that about half the undocumented got that way fro\m overstaying their visas. Securing the border with hellfire would only eliminate half the inflow - if that.
All this for what? So you eat your burger with no onion and wash your own dishes?
Great cause.
sockratties posted at 2:32 pm on Fri, Jan 25, 2013.
168 hours per week = 21 eight hour shifts per week per post X 3 soldiers = 63 troops. (you must include travel time or housing, ergo 8 hr. on post). Soldiers have 30 days leave per year so it will take 84 soldiers to provide 24/7 watch per post per year. 2000 miles X 2 posts per mile = 4000 posts. 4000 posts X 84 troops = 36000 troops plus housing, transportation, sanitation, food, logistics, command center and training would cost a little more than $500,000 per soldier per year. That would put the cost of a patrolled fence at someplace on the north side of $18 billion per year. You may not agree with some of my “guestimates” but all the references I could find the cost of a modern soldier are over a half million dollars per year.
PatrioticPerson posted at 6:44 pm on Thu, Jan 24, 2013.
Do we really need a fence? What if, for the 2000 miles along the southern border we stationed watchpoints with 3 soldiers each every 1/2 mile? They worked 12 hr shifts. Communication with Federal, State and Local Law Enforcement. Nothing / No one goes north or south except at Border Patrol crossing locations. Set it up for an unspecified time frame. Some area would not need these watchpoints as there is sufficient deterent in place.
This would require about 25,000 troops including support staff. Do you think we can find enough solders overseas to volunteer for this duty?
Arizona Willie posted at 12:48 pm on Thu, Jan 24, 2013.
VofReason: you are absolutely right on this. The government doesn't WANT to defend the border.
Our government is owned by Corporate " people " and the super wealthy.
MONEY wants illegal labor to increase profits.
MONEY always wins -- ALWAYS.
Congresscritters will stand and make speaches about illegal immigratin and propose laws and, perhaps, even pass a law or two to make it look good.
But they will NEVER vote for funds to ENFORCE the laws they pass.
Our current immigration laws would work quite well -- IF THEY WERE ENFORCED.
VofReason posted at 1:09 pm on Wed, Jan 23, 2013.
Does anyone think that if politicians had clear direction and courage to enforce the border that a fence could not be built in a short time and for many fewer dollars than the obvious fruad that has been perpetrated to date? Remember 70 years ago with less technology and construction techniques, the government built 1400 miles of the Alaskan Highway in 1942-1943 in less than a year. They don't build a border fence because they don't want to, not because they can't.
Masterrogue666 posted at 12:32 pm on Wed, Jan 23, 2013.
Border fences will not stop the flow of ILLEGAL ALIENS. However, it WILL slow them down to a trickle, as opposed to the FLOOD that now exists. Once there's a trickle, the resources won't be so overtasked to deal with the problem. Then more can be down to REMOVE ILLEGAL ALIENS that currently reside within our borders. No one thing can fix the problem. Only a multilevel approach that address anything that would support ILLEGAL ALIENS from coming to our country in the first place will succeed in the long run.
bobunf posted at 8:41 am on Wed, Jan 23, 2013.
Every year a few hundred people (less in recent years) die in our desert trying to evade our border security. That fact suggests that our border security is not a joke. Hundreds of dead people every year is not a joke.
YEAR DEAD PEOPLE
2012 179
2011 183
2010 253
2009 217
2008 186
2007 242
2006 223
2005 282
DonMey posted at 10:51 am on Tue, Jan 22, 2013.
The Iron Curtain in Berlin was used to imprison people, not secure their borders from illegal immigration.
Our border security is a joke, and everyone knows it. It needs to be updated. Does that include lethal options such as mines? In my opinion, no.
sockratties posted at 9:00 am on Tue, Jan 22, 2013.
bobunf, downtown... You're right. A fence won't work and the cost to build and patrol are prohibitive. Also, bobunf, your facts are on the money except you missed the point that that the "iron curtain" was meant to keep citizens in, not non-citizens out... an even more difficult task. I traveled through East Germany to West Berlin a few times and visited East Berlin before the wall came down. You could actually feel the oppression. I was in the crowd when the wall was coming down. We don't want one of those walls.
We need to define just why we want to secure the border before we start building. Is it for security or because we want to be sure the reins of power don't slip from our hands. Are we afraid of a more represenative government or of al Qaeda slipping through. Chances are our reason for wanting a secure border might effect the method of securing it. Do we really want to start shooting everyone within range or just stop the bad guys?
bobunf posted at 4:26 am on Tue, Jan 22, 2013.
Ahh, interior enforcement. Maybe we could learn from the Stasi, who spied on everybody, not just those near the border. Full-time officers were posted to all industrial plants and one in every apartment building. Trolley conductors, janitors, doctors, nurses and teachers were used as informants; one informer per 6.5 people.
So, in Arizona, we'd need about one million informants; maybe more since we're a border state. 50 million for the whole country.
And they still couldn't secure their border, but, if you want a police state, there's nothing like German efficiency and attention to every detail.
On the other hand, maybe we could use our talents for something more productive - like educating our kids.
Arizona Willie posted at 9:12 pm on Mon, Jan 21, 2013.
samkat, Obama has not kept any promises to Labor.
He wouldn't even appear at a rally when Organized Labor was having trouble in Wisconsin and Michigan.
Obama is not a liberal --- he is a moderate Republican.
samkat posted at 5:14 pm on Mon, Jan 21, 2013.
Actually, the fence is no good without interior enforcement, something Obama has no intention of doing. With over 14 million Americans out of work, you would think he would side with them rather than the 12 to 20 million illegals.
bobunf posted at 10:11 am on Mon, Jan 21, 2013.
Willie, that's the best you've got?
Chat, I'm glad to see you've given up, and are accepting the new reality. With a majority of people in Arizona under 18 being Latinos who are native born citizens; and the alter kockers in Leisure World and the Sun Cities dying off, it's easy to understand what's coming.
Embrace it. It will be fun no longer to be the laughing stock of the country.
chatmandu002 posted at 9:27 am on Mon, Jan 21, 2013.
It's too late, the invasion is complete, they will get the vote soon and then vote themselves a new Caesar.
Arizona Willie posted at 9:26 am on Mon, Jan 21, 2013.
You're GD spam filter doesn't work because I see a whole lot of SPAM.
Arizona Willie posted at 9:25 am on Mon, Jan 21, 2013.
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Bluepoet posted at 4:20 am on Mon, Jan 21, 2013.
Stan,
You overlooked the threat from the skies...how's that impervious dome coming along, then?[scared]
downtownresident posted at 5:48 pm on Sun, Jan 20, 2013.
It was estimated that the San Diego fence would cost $1,000,000.00 per mile.
Actual cost: $10,000,000.00 per mile.
53 Miles of virtual fence, that never worked, cost us a BILLION DOLLARS, with a B.
The border is 1,969 miles long. You figure it out.
bobunf posted at 4:44 pm on Sun, Jan 20, 2013.
A special unit of the Stasi worked within the border patrol, posing as regular border guards to weed out potential defectors and sympathizers with potential crossers. One in ten officers and one in thirty enlisted men were recruited by the Stasi as informers.
All done with German efficiency, and they weren’t kidding: General Heinz Hoffmann: "anyone who does not respect our border will feel the bullet." Erich Honecker, head of the East German State: "Firearms are to be ruthlessly used in the event of attempts to break through the border, and the comrades who have successfully used their firearms are to be commended.”
About 1,100 people were killed at the border; tens of thousands more were injured or arrested.
In spite of all that, from a few hundred to a thousand people somehow managed to cross the border from East Germany into West Germany every year.
Do we really want any of that? Could it possibly approach being worth it? What part of “crazy “ do you not understand?
bobunf posted at 4:44 pm on Sun, Jan 20, 2013.
1.4 million anti-personnel mines - one every 3-1/2 feet on the average
24/7 monitoring by guards stationed in 7000 concrete, steel and wooden watchtowers, equipped with powerful rotating searchlights and firing ports to enable the guards to open fire without having to go outside. The watchtowers were constructed at regular intervals along the entire length of the border, one about every 6400 feet.
1,000 two-man observation bunkers also stood along the length of the border – one every 4500 feet on the average.
47,000 troops were on full-time border patrol - one every 95 feet on the average – equipped with armored vehicles, grenade launchers, anti-tank and mortar batteries.
Fences and walls multiple feet thick.
bobunf posted at 4:42 pm on Sun, Jan 20, 2013.
When talking about “secure borders” the East German example is instructive, being the most secure border ever. From 1952 to 1989 border security between East and West Germany was steadily enhanced, starting in 1952 when a “Sperrzone” 5 km (3.1 mile) wide was created in which only those holding a special permit could live or work.
Trees and brush were cut down along the border to clear lines of sight for the guards and to eliminate cover for would-be crossers. Houses adjoining the border were torn down, bridges were closed and barbed-wire fencing was put up in many places. Farmers were permitted to work their fields along the border only in daylight hours and under the watch of armed guards, who were authorized to use weapons if their orders were not obeyed.