Despite Border Fence Bill, U.S. Keeps The Door Wide Open

Joe Bell

A recent story in the Washington Post made the case, probably unintentionally, that the federal government is more proficient at doing things it should not do than it is in accomplishing essential tasks that only it can undertake. The October 6 article said after lawmakers authorized construction of a 700 mile long fence along the U.S.-Mexican border they almost immediately “rushed to approve separate legislation that ensures it will never be built, at least not as advertised…”

After passing the bill authorizing construction, lawmakers gave the Bush Administration the option to direct the fence funding to other purposes. The revenue can also be used for roads and technology that will support the Department of Homeland Security’s preference for a virtual fence. The Post said congressional leaders “pledged in writing that Native American tribes, members of Congress, governors and local leaders would get a say in ‘the exact placement’ of any structure.”

The chances of getting so wide a range of individuals and groups, each with their own constituencies and agendas, to agree on placement will likely be impossible.

Senator John Cornyn, R-Texas, mused, “It’s one thing to authorize. It’s another thing to actually appropriate the money and do it.”

Yes, they are two distinct things. The Post concluded that while the law mandating construction calls for the fence to be operational in 18 months “the law funding it envisions five years.”

Those are the facts and here is what they mean: The border will remain porous into the distant future.

While Congress appears unable to both authorize and appropriate money for national security it has no problem squandering cash on things that are none of its business. For example, Washington has wasted so much money on education that the House Republican Conference has boasted education funding has increased faster than the states can spend the money. That’s nothing to brag about. Nowhere does the Constitution charge Washington with creating and maintaining a national school system but it does call upon the federal government to “provide for the common defense.”

It is not that America cannot secure its borders. The technology, the materials and the expertise are available. The problem is that those who need to take action will not and that is inexcusable. A reasonable individual would think that the severity of the 9/11 attacks coupled with the knowledge that the borders are a sieve would have motivated Congress to take action years ago.

Admittedly, special interest groups have blocked progress. Businesses want cheap labor, but illegal immigration should not be an economic development program. A nation is more than an economy. Environmentalists have also muddied the water. In 2004, the California Coastal Commission denied a federal request to fortify the western section of the U.S.-Mexican border claiming the damage to sensitive habitats outweighed national security concerns. The Department of Homeland Security plan to fill in a half mile long canyon would have, according to the CCC, damaged an estuary that served as a sanctuary for endangered birds. Might we assume the birds would have sense enough to fly to another location instead of watching trucks dump dirt upon them and the canyon?

The evidence shows a fence is needed and would work. A January 11, 2006, Congressional Research Service report said a 14 mile stretch of fence that was constructed along San Diego “proved to be quite successful.” The report said that when the fence was expanded into a three-tier fence “apprehensions dropped rapidly in the San Diego sector in the late 1990s – from 480,000 in FY 1996 to 100,000 in FY 2002. …the number of agents assigned to the San Diego sector also increased significantly over this period…”

But a few miles of fence here and there is not security. A CRS report from April 6, 2006, said, “An estimated 11 million unauthorized aliens reside in the United States, and this population is estimated to increase by 500,000 annually. Each year, approximately 1 million aliens are apprehended trying to enter the United States illegally.”

There is no reason why such a fence has not already been built other than a lack of resolve. Arguments against the barrier are hollow. Some say it would be like the Berlin Wall. That is false. The Berlin Wall divided a single nation. A fence along the U.S.-Mexican border would separate two sovereign nations. The purpose of the Berlin Wall was to keep people prisoners inside East Germany. The purpose of a fence along the U.S.-Mexican border would be to prevent people from one nation from entering another nation illegally. There is no such thing as a “right” to come to America. Every sovereign nation has the right and duty to control who crosses its borders and to establish standards for entry. There is nothing unseemly about that practice. With a lenient immigration policy that allows about 800,000 people to enter annually, America has nothing to apologize for.

Every nation, under the best of times, must secure its perimeter. Otherwise it is not a nation – it is merely a parcel of land on the map. Adding to the imperative - America is at war and its enemies have shown a determination to embed themselves into the national landscape. Years ago Congress should have passed legislation that set a date for the beginning and end of the construction of a border fence. Yet today members of the major political parties are consumed with positioning themselves for Election Day by hurling accusations and counter-accusations over e-mails written by a former congressman to a congressional page. They should exert equal energy and outrage over security. That they do not is an indication of why America’s future increasingly resembles a question mark.

In 1620 the signers of the Mayflower Compact pledged to combine themselves “together into a civil body politic for our better ordering and preservation…” Would that today’s representatives set an example by combining themselves in that same spirit.

The experts failed to predict the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Today few Americans anticipate a sudden dissolution of the United States. Yet, as Jean-Jacques Rousseau pondered, “If Sparta and Rome perished, what state can hope to endure forever?” If the American people cannot renew their sense of national identity as embodied in their founding documents; if they cannot reinvigorate their commitment to the principles that brought their ancestors or themselves to these shores; if they cannot summon the will to open and close the national door as they choose, then the collapse of the United States is as predictable as it is tragic. A failure of will to do such a simple thing as secure the borders does not indicate a national commitment to endure.

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Joseph Bell has hosted a radio talk show and is a former editorial writer/columnist for several Connecticut newspapers. A former liberal Democrat, Bell has not been on the conservative side of the aisle for very long. He voted for Clinton/Gore in 1992. Abandoning the convictions that he had held and defended through adolescence and into adulthood was not easy. Sincere soul-searching and a commitment to distinguish fact from fiction compelled him to accept that liberal ideology was bankrupt.

jbellopedresponse@hotmail.com