Fences and walls arent the answer

To the editor:

I just have to respond to John Hearns letter to The Courier on July 23. He, like many others is a proponent of a fence along the border. But a fence will do little but temporarily obstruct the flow. Has Hearn ever been to the border in Arizona or New Mexico? The ground is soft sand. It would only take three healthy men with shovels a day to tunnel under any fence. Fences are meant to keep out honest people. Most houses in neighborhoods are fenced in and we still have home burglaries.

If you want to stop the flow you need to put up a wall. Since Hearn is concerned about the measly $4 billion dollars Obama requested, think about the $10 trillion it would take to build and maintain a wall. Israel has walled in their borders and has electronic sensors and armed guards at almost every point. Their entire border is less than a third of Texas border, and they spend a large part of their national budget on border security and they are still penetrated.

Capitalism and freedom is the cause of border migration. The economic pressure for cheap products and services it the root cause of the billion dollar human smuggling industry. In fact both human smuggling and the illegal drug trade separately generate more economic effects than Americas combined gold and silver mining industry. To stop the flow you need to address demand. Make a law that says if a person is caught having an illegal immigrant mow their lawn, clean their house or conduct repairs the government would take that persons house without compensation. But nobody wants to go there.

We can make illegal immigration virtually a thing of the past. All we have to do is turn the United States of America into East Germany. Wall in our borders, give people citizens papers, set up millions of government check points, have the government dictate who companies can and cannot hire and allow arrests for any reason the secret police believes is warranted. But nobody wants to go there either.

Hearn wrote We cannot long remain a country without secure borders In reality the borders have been porous for the last 170 years and during that time America has grown into a great power and premier country. And also in reality the border will be porous for the next 170 years and America will be just fine. Because nobody wants to turn the USA into East Germany just to stop the flow of people across the border.

Illegal immigration is just an unpleasant fact of life like tornados, hurricanes and floods. You can not stop it no matter how many ICE agents or national guardsman you throw at the problem. All you can do is put in policies and systems to mitigate the after effect. So the paranoid and frustrated, John Hearn and others like him are only engaging in petty politics.

Tim Doherty

Conroe

Originally posted here:
Fences and walls arent the answer