HOW SHE SEES IT House needs immigration reality check
By MARY SANCHEZ
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
"This is it?" the reporter asked on his first trip to the U.S./Mexico border.
"This is it?" he repeated, incredulously pointing at three strands of barbed wire.
Vast ranges of scrub brush -- stretching as far as anyone could see -- surrounded the journalists, on a tour of this most famous boundary.
The newbie to immigration reporting had just learned that in most places, the U.S.-Mexico border is no more than a barbed wire fence, if that. Other places, he soon learned, are a fortress of fencing, high-tech equipment and manpower.
The same reality check should also be given to the 239 members of the House of Representatives who recently passed a proposal to beef up border security, without addressing why so many illegal immigrants continue to be absorbed by the labor market.
The U.S.-Mexico border is 2,000 miles long. About 3.5 percent of it, or about 70 miles, is fortified. The House approved $2.2 billion to build fences along an additional 700 miles. So that would be 770 miles covered. And about 1,230 miles to go. At a cost of $3.2 million a mile.
House members voting "yes" to the recent proposal also need to realize fences are not absolute barriers. What is being used now has been tunneled under and scaled.
If those facts aren't enough to knock some monetary sense into the House immigration proposal, here's one more factoid: Other efforts to militarize the border have not decreased the number of illegal immigrants in the United States.
That's right, all of that cost for little-to-no gain.
Between 1986 and 2002 the number of border patrol agents tripled. During the same period the probability of capturing an illegal immigrant crossing the border fell to an all-time low (from the 20 percent to 30 percent rates to 5 percent.)
The cost of making an arrest grew from about $300 in 1992 to $1,700 in 2002. That's 467 percent inflation, with worse results.
The last time massive fencing was erected at the border it simply pushed the illegal traffic of people to the more dangerous mountain and desert regions. People did not stop coming. They just died in greater numbers trying, thousands in the last decade.
Economic realities
Some people dismiss this as the bleeding-heart attitude. For people with that mindset, consider economic realities. The more than 11 million illegal immigrants currently in the United States would not all be here if they did not fill voids in our labor pool. They come for work and readily find jobs.
They are not all displacing U.S.-born workers. This follows basic laws of supply and demand.
But the House approach wants to pretend cracking down on illegal immigrants will bring only pluses to the U.S. economy.
Also approved was increasing fines against those who hire people illegally, and using law enforcement to hunt down people without work authorization.
In a move to give some credence to the "illegal, illegal, illegal" crowd, the House also voted to make unlawfully being in the country a felony, instead of admitting it is really a paperwork violation.
At the same time, a majority of the House also refused to consider changing visa policies to give needed workers a route to arrive legally -- that, they argue, would be amnesty. No, it would be economically prudent.
Barriers and monitoring are necessary at the border. The threat of a terrorist slipping across is real. The violence of drug cartels virtually controlling some areas to feed U.S. drug addictions also needs more attention.
But House members who voted for the recent proposal should be called on their "let's build the walls higher" bravado. Considering whether such plans will solve the problem of illegal immigration became an afterthought, if weighed at all.
Thankfully, the House does not have the final say.
The Senate in 2006 will take up its own proposals -- some far more deserving of the term "comprehensive immigration reform." Maybe the senators will have actually spent some time walking the border, studying economics.
X Mary Sanchez is an opinion-page columnist for The Kansas City Star. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune .