High-Tech Fence Didn't Work; Try Real Immigration Reform

The plan by the federal government to stop, or at least control, the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs across the Southwest border from Mexico by throwing up hundreds of miles of high fencing buttressed by hundreds more miles of high-tech "virtual" fencing never has worked very well.

First, there is the cost of the project, launched in late 2005 by President George W. Bush as the Secure Border Initiative. Nearly $4 billion later, most of the planned 661 miles of physical fencing has been built but there have already been more than 3,400 breaches of it, with an average cost to repair each one of about $1,300. It will cost an additional $6.5 billion to maintain for the next 20 years, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Second, the high-tech portion of fencing, known as SBInet, was originally scheduled for completion along the entire border last year. Because of technical problems in getting the system to work, it has been deployed only on a pilot basis in two areas of the Tucson border sector. The GAO projected last September that the virtual fencing in the San Diego sector would not be installed until 2014 or 2015.

So it came as good news this week when Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that the administration was halting work on the virtual fence, diverting $50 million in economic stimulus funds for the project to other border-enforcement purposes and freezing all other SBInet funding at least until a study she ordered in January is completed.

Napolitano did not say so, but this is likely the end of this "Star Wars" approach to controlling the border.

So if the fence, real or virtual, doesn't do it, what will?

The answer to that has been known for 30 years: comprehensive reforms that include a secure worker identification system, tougher sanctions against employers who hire undocumented workers, tougher enforcement against legal immigrants who overstay their visa, a system to allow significantly more temporary workers into the country, and a path to earned legalization for the 12 million or so illegal immigrants now in the country.

Legislation to accomplish most of these goals is about to be introduced in the Senate.

All that's needed now is the real — not virtual — backbone to enact it into law.

REPRINTED FROM THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE.

DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM