This sounds like a great idea, do you think it will work if given a chance?

Question

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/us/26fence.html

Obviously it is still expensive, but it seems to me that a virtual border might fare better than a physical fence that can be jumped over or tunneled under while no one is around to see... what do you think?

As you can see when reading the article, the towers would beam real time images to command centers as well as laptops located in patrol vehicles. This means whoever is patrolling the border can respond much more quickly those crossing the border illegally.

Answer 1

Cameras only observe what is happening. There still needs to be someone to catch them before they are able to find a good hiding place.

The truth is that a fence or monitoring system is really not needed What is needed is to enforce the laws we already have and take away some of the incentives for the illegals to come here.

Illegals are caught by police everyday all across the country. They are then released and told to report for trial at a later date. Illegals should be detained and deported quickly. That would send a message.

Heavily fine companies that hire illegals. Most of them know they are doing it. They do it to save money so make it cost them more than it is worth.

Take away incentives. A child born in the US to illegals should not be an automatic citizen which allows the parents to stay too. Take away the free health care, education, driving privileges, welfare, housing, etc. They should have to work for everything and fear it being taken away.

If this was done, then truly only the ones that really want to work will be here.

Answer 2

No, because when they see them, then what? The minutemen reported over 700 illegal crossings in the first two weeks of April. Even being supported by the national guard in 'operation jump start' the border patrol was only able to respond to about 200. Watching them cross isn't good enough.

However, if they were actually going to enforce, that might be ok for some remote areas. We don't trust the 'if' though given the rules our border patrol have had to live with so far. They seem a lot more likely to prosecute border patrol than illegal immigrants, from where I sit.

A fence will create bottlenecks which will be a whole lot better than it is now, and will remain when Congress quietly fails to fund border patrol in the future. (Remember how much of the fence they have funded so far?)

They have no credibility at all.

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spirit dummy, about the sensors, the smugglers simply pee on those and it stops them functioning.

Answer 3

I think it has promise. I wonder what can be done if they make a made scramble for it. I mean the worst we can do is export them back. Some of them would rather be in jail I think. So if 1000's of illigals cross the border...how do we track them? We already know they are coming over....we don't need something to tell us that...we need something to catch them once they get here or stop them from coming in entirely...

Maybe if we can attach some kind of laser beam to each tower with a high powered guidance system...or maybe a large tranquilizer cannon on each....That might be more of a deterent.

Answer 4

I say do both. You probably don't realize it, but there are a lot of drug smugglers down here at the border. They will most likely shoot these devices up on a regular basis. I live in southern Arizona. We have a blimp in the air that is used to detect small aircraft coming across the border to smuggle drugs. Every time they take the blimp down for maintenance, or bad weather I see small aircraft coming from Mexico. When it is up I never see them. This is no coincidence. We need to do everything we can to secure this border for many reasons, not just illegal immigrants.

Answer 5

There are already areas including east of San Diego where there is essentially a virtual border with minimal fencing and lots of electronics.

The verdict isn't in yet.

Answer 6

It would be easier to just lock up the Americans hiring them and less illegals would run for the fence if once they got here Americans were scared to hire them. Kill the motivation. This would cost less and the corporations that get busted would fund the next raid.

Answer 7

No. Nothing virtual. Something real and concrete, like the GREAT WALL OF AMERICA!

A three hundred foot high solid wall of concrete, steel, and barbed wire across the entire U.S./Mexican border and out to sea for a hundred miles.

Answer 8

the technology seems too glitchy. not to mention terrorists may develop something to inhibit these things from working. i don't think we need to rely only on technology OR only a physical wall OR personnel. we need a combination of all 3 to make this work properly.

Answer 9

couldn't this still be tunneled under? and where are the people that are gonna stop the border jumpers? i mean if all it does is take a pretty high def picture, its kinda useless.

Answer 10

screw towers and cameras, try snipers. that'll stop the illegal crossings and employ hundreds I guarantee it.