How can lack of a fence be justified given the drop in crime in San Diego post-fence, and the need elsewhere?

Question

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-border19aug19,1,4630356.story?track=rss

"Even more brazen have been several kidnappings of 50 to 100 immigrants by rival cartels, which hide them in stash houses in and around Phoenix until families pay a ransom. One captive's face was burned with a cigarette, another person nearly suffocated in a plastic bag. A woman was raped. Fingers have been sliced off and sent back to families with demands for money."

"Anthony J. Coulson, assistant special agent in charge of the DEA in Arizona, said records indicated that cocaine and heroin seizures may end up twice as high as last year. Marijuana seizures are increasing 25%. Nine months into the current fiscal year, he said, his team had already seized more pot than all of last year. "And 2006 was a record year," he said.

In the Tucson sector alone there has been a 71% increase in marijuana seizures over the last fiscal year, with the Border Patrol reporting 648,000 pounds confiscated since October.

In the Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale, Arpaio said, a cartel operative was openly selling heroin to high school students. "He was getting 150 calls a day on his cellphone," the sheriff said.

The DEA believes 80% of the methamphetamine in the United States is coming from labs in Mexico, which were set up after police raids shut down many of the labs in the U.S.

In Dallas, police are dealing with the deaths of 21 high school students from "cheese heroin," a mixture of Mexican heroin and over-the-counter cold medicine. A hit sells for $2 to $5. Several arrests of dealers have been made; now officials are bracing for the coming school season.

"It's a small packet," said Lt. Tom Moorman of the Dallas Police Department. "They can carry it in a pack of gum. Very, very small."

Antonio Oscar "Tony" Garza Jr., the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, has issued repeated notes to the Mexican government. Last year he sent an advisory to American tourists that "drug cartels, aided by corrupt officials [in Mexico], reign unchecked in many towns along our common border."

A House subcommittee on domestic security has investigated the "triple threat" of drug smuggling, illegal border crossings and rising violence, and it found that "very little" passes the border without the cartels' knowledge.

The panel found that cartels send smugglers into the United States fully armored with equipment -- much of it imported to Mexico from the United States -- including high-powered binoculars and encrypted radios, bazookas, military-style grenades, assault rifles and silencers, sniper scopes and bulletproof vests. Some wear fake police uniforms to confuse authorities as well as Mexican bandits who might ambush them."

That is just a few excerpts from just one article. Before you decide the fence is a bad idea, why don't you look into the problem, and the impact having a fence has had in San Diego?

SAN DIEGO FENCE: "In 1996, Congress approved a double-layered fence - with a steel fence as the primary layer, and an anti-climb fence as the second layer - for 14 miles along the border of San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico.

The fence has produced some improvement in the area, according to a Congressional Research Service report in 2005 that said illegal alien apprehensions along the fence region dropped from 202,000 in 1992 to 9,000 in 2004.

Meanwhile, vehicle drive-throughs in the region have fallen from between six to 10 per day before the construction of the fence to four drive-throughs for the entire year of 2004. Crime in San Diego dropped 56.3 percent between 1989 and 2000, according to the FBI Crime Index."

SAN DIEGO FENCE: "In 1996, Congress approved a double-layered fence - with a steel fence as the primary layer, and an anti-climb fence as the second layer - for 14 miles along the border of San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico.

The fence has produced some improvement in the area, according to a Congressional Research Service report in 2005 that said illegal alien apprehensions along the fence region dropped from 202,000 in 1992 to 9,000 in 2004.

Meanwhile, vehicle drive-throughs in the region have fallen from between six to 10 per day before the construction of the fence to four drive-throughs for the entire year of 2004. Crime in San Diego dropped 56.3 percent between 1989 and 2000, according to the FBI Crime Index."

http://www.crosswalk.com/news/11553363/

AND MORE ON THE NEED: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-border19aug19,1,4630356.story?track=rss

Answer 1

Build it and patrol it. Get it done.
There are no excuses anymore. We are talking about stemming a destructive invasion of our nation. It's outrageous.
Build the fence now.

Answer 2

Mexico and Mexican government officials seem to jump all over OUR border patrol when they are doing their jobs. Apprehend, lock-up, and deport. While they sit back, and say nothing or allow their own rivaling drug cartels abuse the hell out of their own people. That doesn't make much sense now does it. And this is the type of stuff the UN is upset about. But Bush, and Calderon say, and claim that they'll take care of the situations. Does it look like they are. Bush has spent more time making cuts to LAW Enforcement programs, then adding to them in all these years of office.

To me everything, and I mean EVERYTHING Bush does, points to that old movie of Dustin Hoffman, and Robert De Niro, Wag The Dog. Only this just doesn't include a made up war. It includes everything Bush claims he's against, yet does exactly the opposite.

Answer 3

In Arizona 500 pounds of pot are less they deport them without any jail time. The drug smugglers fully aware of this take advantage of this when no real jail time involved. When they cannot arrest and keep them drug smuggling will be alive and well.Spencer: He said he is going to have 150 miles of this fence finished by the end of September.
Dan Marries, KOLD TV: Spencer is referring to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. On July 18, Secretary Chertoff told an MSNBC reporter, quote, We're on course to building or having about 150 miles of fence by the end of this September. Spencer says, impossible.
Spencer: They won't even have twenty miles of single layer pedestrian fence - new. They have [built] two miles - in the last year - of double fence.
Whats that tell you.

Answer 4

My answer to this question which I have posted for the last months.....A 500 yd wide mine field from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico is more cost efficient and will have far greater results, than some old fence

Answer 5

It's not the cure all it will deter and make it harder for the illegals & drugs to enter the USA>It's payed for so build the darn fence>