Virtual fence virtually useless

Of course it's worthless. The gov't doesn't want to stop the illegals. I love this little bit of editorializing in the article:

The system, which is expected to cost more than $8 billion through 2011 alone, was designed to relieve the federal government of the technically dubious and far costlier prospect of fencing the entire 6,000 miles of borders with Mexico and Canada and further expanding the U.S. Border Patrol. *emphasis mine*

A fence is technically dubious? Castles, forts, and the Great Wall are basically fences. They work well at what they are supposed to accomplish. A fence is not an end to itself but a force multiplier. It allows a relatively smaller number to control a larger number.

Also, has anyone seen a huge call for building a fence with Canada? This is really bad reporting.

Let's see, we build the triple line fence for about the cost of a few months in Iraq. We can place seismic sensors to detect digging and cameras can easily detect people penetrating the fence. We don't have to worry about cows or brush because we only need to watch the interior fence. Yeah, that's technically dubious.

This article really does fail to give the virtual fence it's due. So far, it has been reliably shown that in more than 70% of cases these sensors, if serviced within the prior 36 hours, accurately distinguished small rocks from persons (or, at least, small rocks from the plethora of animate and inanimate objects the sensor confuses with persons, including cows, vehicles, bushes, moisture, wind, the chupacabra and wildlife in general). At least as long as the rock is not rolling.

Why does anyone think that a real Maginot fence will work any better than a virtual one? Unless we're prepared to build an impenetrable fence around the entire 6000 miles of border and several thousand miles of coastline, illegal immigrants will go around it. It may slow them down a bit and make it more difficult, but as long as the incentive is there they will come.

Now if we really want to curtail illegal immigration, then it seems to me that the way to do that is to crack down on the employers who hire them. Make it financially untenable for companies to hire illegal workers. No jobs - no incentive - no illegal immigration. (Well, much less anyway.) And it can't be that hard to come up with a system to verify that workers are legal.

For myself, I know I'm supposed to be up in arms about illegal immigration but I just can't get there. I find it hard to be angry at people who, for the most part, just want to provide a better life for their families.