BellaOnline Forums News and Politics Current Events Secure Fence Act of 2006

As most know by now, Bush signed into law the Secure Fence Act of 2006. This Act is meant to be a part of the effort to reform the immigration system. Bush realizes that this Act alone will not completely secure our borders, but it is a step in the right direction.

The Act:

~ Authorizes the construction of hundreds of miles of additional fencing along our Southern border.

~ Authorizes more vehicle barriers, checkpoints, and lighting to help prevent people from entering our country illegally.

~ Authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to increase the use of advanced technology like cameras, satellites, and unmanned aerial vehicles to reinforce our infrastructure at the border.

I agree with Bush and feel that this Act will help our borders become more secure. It makes sense that the illegal immigrants will become discouraged when the barriers to entry are increased.

Brooke

Did the Berlin Wall work? No.

But it sure did create a lot of animosity among the people on both sides.

Next thing you know, someone in power will convince society its a good thing for Americans to have to have travel papers to go from one state to another.

In case you weren't around when there was a Berlin Wall, it was created for a fairly similar purpose--to keep unwanted people out of East Berlin.

They put up towers to watch for unwanted people trying to cross, they manned the borders, they had dogs and shooters. It was a great place to live. Find an East Berliner from that era and just ask them how great it was.

It, like Bush's "Fence," was a show of strength, a representation of just how great and powerful the ruling regime was.

It wasn't called the "Wall of Shame" for nothing. It created massive barriers between families, kept friends apart, blocked commerce and free trade, and generally served to make life miserable.

If the powers that be have their way, our U.S. version of this "Wall of Shame" will eventually become higher and longer, it will be patrolled on a regular basis by gun-toting men and women who will have instructions to shoot unauthorized travellers.

Does that really make you feel safer? Doesn't do a thing for me. If the "criminal" element still wants to move back and forth across the border, they will. Money talks and powerful people like money. But regular people, people like you and me, we're going to suffer for it.

But if you really like that wall, Brooke, and I'm sure you do from the sound of things, then get ready for major changes. Because the next logical step for our elected officials is to make it necessary for you and me to carry "officially authorized" travel papers to go anywhere---here in the US or through that lovely wall.

When we don't learn from history, its bound to repeat itself.

We've truly become the ugly Americans by allowing this.

The Berlin Wall was built to keep the East Berliners in the Soviet sector. In contrast, our border fence is being built to keep illegal immigrants out.

A better comparison would be that of the fence built in the 1990s in California. It has been successful in reducing the number of illegals coming into California.

Securing our borders isn't entirely about making us "feel safer." The costs associated with illegals in our country is staggering. Our states spend billions of dollars on welfare and education for the illegals. It has been estimated that a quarter of the people in the Los Angeles jail are illegals. Unfortunately, the border states are hit the hardest financially, and otherwise. I could certainly think of better ways to spend our money.

If they truly want to live in the USA then why don't they go through the process to come here legally? We are not "Ugly Americans" just because we are tired of giving away our resources. What other country allows people to enter illegally and then provides them with an education, healthcare, and other financial welfare?

Brooke

"The Berlin Wall was built to keep the East Berliners in the Soviet sector."

Absolutely not so. The Soviet regime erected the fence to keep out the influences of the Western World--that was their explicit, stated purpose. We're attempting the very same thing--attempting to keep out people that have been labeled as harmful to our country.

Bush and his regime state the fence is absolutely about the safety of America's borders. The idea is to keep the "criminals" and the "illegals" away from our citizenry.

As for the "drain on the economy," I hate to break it to you, but the people coming across our borders live here, pay rent/mortgages here (yes, they purchase property), they pay taxes (maybe not in their name, but they pay them), they purchase goods and services, etc. American's aren't "giving away" resources. Had these people any actual chance of legal status, they would have earned the right to these resources just the same as you or I--by hard work, enterprise and direct monetary contribution to society. I've absolutely no problem with spending my tax dollars to educate children or to provide for the welfare of children, the needy/at risk and the elderly. If they're here and they're contributing to the economy through sales tax, etc. it doesn't bother me a bit.

Your "fence" in California hasn't been any more successful than any other fence or wall anywhere else. Border crossings haven't been reduced. People just become more creative about how they do them. Students and others come in on day passes or student visas and then let them expire. Its really pretty simple.

As for your estimate regarding inmates in LA jails, unless LA can prove the legitimacy of that claim, I would discount it.

If you want to effectively make a difference, work to create programs that allow people to move back and forth easily for work and education purposes. Fight for fair trade practices between countries. Push for social justice.

I've no need to compare my home to other's (God forbid, what an insult to other countries if I did this at this stage). We're failing the people who live here in numerous ways.

This fence is just another way in which we're failing.

Applied for your travel visa yet?

By the way, the wall is already being painted in exactly the way the Berlin Wall was. Walls work both ways, to keep people out and to keep people in. This wall, just like the Berlin wall, splits families, afraid to cross it.

Exactly what is it that makes you think that you deserve a better life than someone else just because you were born on the right side of a man-made line. There was a time when if you were born on the wrong side of the railroad tracks of a town, your future possibilities were greatly reduced. We've realized that's wrong.

In Europe, they've realized that those lines that divide countries work the same way. It's inately unfair.

What's more is, the poeple who have the gumption to cross those lines have exactly the types of qualities any country needs. We think that about our own ancestors. Why do we not believe it about today's people who have the same kind of nerve? Do we really think human talent is differently distributed? Who do we think our ancestors were? Not the folks who were successful on the other side of the ocean. They were the folks those countries thought they were better off without, the dregs of society.

No country has ever lost by taking in immigrants. Visit any medical school. They are all full of the kids of immigrants, legal and illegal.

This wall is wrong. I personally had a hand in tearing down the Berlin Wall. I still have my hammer and chisel and the pieces I personally broke from it. And I have in my head a sound. When you got within a mile of the wall, even in the middle of the night, you heard clink! clink clink! clink! People came from around the world to tear down that wall, and when it was open what they talked about was this:

That wall stood only because people permitted it to stand. The moment they came together and came in numbers to demand its removal and actually act on that demand with hammers and chisels, it fell. And they were amazed and ashamed that they had allowed it to stand so long.

Mr. Bush, tear down this wall!

DJC

Brava, DJC.

The Border Wall is nothing but a stunt designed to get people to vote for a very desperate Republican Party in the Nov. elections. Bush is just doing his usual fear-mongering because he knows that people will vote on things based on fear. Last election it was fear of terrorists, this election it's fear of immigrants.

We are just going to have to agree to disagree on the history behind the Berlin Wall.

As for the cost of immigrants in Texas. The Federation for American Immigrants Reform (FAIR) released data indicating the illegal population in Texas alone is 1.2 million. The estimated cost to Texas taxpayers for emergency medical care, education and incarceration is $4,670 million annually.

As for the crime in California, "The Criminal Alien," which is a report issued by the California Joint Committee on Prison Construction and Operations reported that California spends more than $500 million a year to arrest and imprison illegal immigrants who commit serious crimes.

These are substantial numbers indicating a real problem.

My local paper had two stories on Friday regarding the physical danger to illegals in their attempt to come across. Perhaps if we make it a bit more difficult to get here, not only for the illegals but for those trying to make a profit by bringing them over here, then they will instead turn to the legalization as a means of entry.

Brooke

Brooke: Many U.S. citizens live in denial about what happened in Berlin during the Cold War period. The facts are readily available via European museums and field anthropology units. I would advise reading a history NOT produced by a U.S. writer if you want the true story of the wall and the economic and social costs associated with building it.

It would cost the country much less in the long-term if basic services were provided for all contributing citizens--documented and otherwise. Again, the undocumented citizen that has lived and worked in the U.S. has made positive contributions to society, the economy, and the tax base at all levels. The state of Texas recognizes the very real contributions these individuals make to the state and has made deliberate efforts, until recently, to make up for the injustices the federal laws create (i.e. provision of access to education at all levels--through college, provision of medical services, access to benefits).

$4.6 million dollars is a drop in the bucket in the state's annual budget. It's not enough to even fully fund one educational program for Texas college students.

The "real" problem with the currernt immigration measures lies in the creation of policies which result in an insular environment and encourage xenophobic attitudes, like those espoused by FAIR.

Legislation such as the DREAM Act, AgJobs and the SAOIA of 2005 encourage realistice immigration reform. Though this legislation is not perfect, it comes closest to the need of satisfactorily addressing the need for realistic reform with regards to the undocumented already in the United States. It protects workers and pay-rates, while reuniting families and restoring healthy migration patterns, and ensuring a timely, transparent and secure process for future flows.

Making life harder for immigrants, families, workers and employers on both sides of the border will not solve social and economic problems in the U.S.

Building a wall across the southern border that is high enough and wide enough to prevent border crossings sends a dangerous message to our second largest trading partner, to our future trading partners, and to the U.S. regime of allies and friends in Latin America. It says that the United States does not trust you, does not want you, and does not need you. Such a decision would be myopic and bad for national security, public safety and the economy.

U.S. enemies will view such a situation as an opportunity to prey upon the negative feelings shutting down the border will engender in Latin America. Drug traffickers, human traffickers and members of organized crime organizations will view it as an opportunity to exploit and entrench themselves into societies already desperate for economic improvement. Businesses will be harmed because of the ensuing and inevitable increase in costs and challenges of moving their goods across the U.S.-Mexico border � a situation anathema to the goals of free trade. Economic growth in the United States will stagnate because of the inevitable slowdown in the growth of the native work-force as the baby-boom generation reaches retirement age and the lack of a market-sensitive and workable essential workers program that provides a steady, reliable work-force.

As the poet T.S. Eliot wrote in 1925: "This is the way the world ends; This is the way the world ends; This is the way the world ends; Not with a bang but a whimper." (The Hollow Man)