Better things than a wall

Better things than a wall

Finally, a means has emerged of checking illegal immigration that doesn’t involve fences, patrols, sanctions or mass deportations; indeed it operates almost automatically — a recession.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the number of illegal immigrants apprehended along the U.S.-Mexico border has dropped steeply, down 17 percent the last six months from a year earlier. In the Yuma, Ariz., sector, apprehensions are off by 76 percent.

What’s at work here? Well, according to the Journal story, the recession appears to be a key factor in the illegal immigration downturn.

That’s good news on the immigration front, but it’s pretty scary when a country starts to lose its image as a land of milk and honey.

Of course there are other factors at work. The Bush administration has increased border patrols, National Guardsmen have been doing temporary duty on the border and, significantly, the administration has been cracking down on companies that employ illegal immigrants. So much so, that some employers are bitterly complaining.

To his credit, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is not being swayed by the complaints. “This is harsh but accurate proof positive that, for the first time in decades, we’ve succeeded in changing the dynamic and [are] actually beginning to reduce illegal immigration,” Chertoff told the Associated Press.

In a federal court case last year, groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce argued that the department had failed to account for the economic impact of new regulations on businesses. The argument “basically suggests we can’t enforce the law because it will prevent people from making money illegally,” Chertoff said. “The business community loves it [hiring illegal immigrants] because you have illegals, you pay them less, they have no place to go to complain.”

Why a wall?

So, we have to wonder, with all these signs of success, why is the administration still hellbent on building about 500 more miles of fences and walls along the southern border? And hellbent is the right word, given that the Department of Homeland Security has declared that it will ignore the requirements of more than 30 federal laws to speed the completion of fence segments in parts of Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas.

Congress unwisely gave the administration the power to do so in 2005, and it is unlikely that a veto-proof majority could be marshaled today to pass contravening legislation.

The laws were written to protect sensitive habitats, endangered and migratory species, and American Indian religious sites. Ignoring those laws should be done only in an extreme emergency, and the very success that other efforts are showing in reducing illegal immigration militate against any such declaration of an emergency.

Given the administration’s penchant for awarding no-bid contracts and throwing around billions of dollars with a minimum of oversight, Homeland Security’s eagerness to build more fences and walls becomes suspect.

President Bush is already working on a number of legacies. Hundreds of miles of expensive, ugly, intrusive and ultimately ineffective walls along our southern border should not be one of them. Walls, be they in Berlin or in the Palestinian territories or the Southwestern United States, are signs of dysfunction, testaments to an inability to solve complicated problems with anything but the most elementary of answers.