PROMISES, PROMISES: Securing US border impossible

PROMISES, PROMISES: Securing US border impossible

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have promised to complete a nearly 1,950-mile fence. Michele Bachmann wants a double fence. Ron Paul pledges to secure the nation’s southern border by any means necessary, and Rick Perry says he can secure it without a fence — and do so within a year of taking office as president.

But a border that is sealed off to all illegal immigrants and drugs flowing north is a promise none of them could keep.

“Securing the border is a wonderful slogan, but that’s pretty much all it is,” said Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute. “Even to come close would require measures that would make legal commerce with Mexico impossible. That’s an enormous price for what would still be a very leaky system.”

Perry, the longest-serving governor of a state that makes up roughly 65 percent of America’s border with Mexico, already knows that. What he’s actually pledging, clarifies spokeswoman Catherine Frazier, is achieving “operational control” of the border — defined by the U.S. Border Patrol as areas where it can detect, respond to and interdict illegal activity either at the border or after entry into the U.S.

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PROMISES, PROMISES: Securing US border impossible

Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are BOTH fools where the border security of this nation is concerned. A fence or a wall will NOT secure this nation. All a 30 foot fence or wall will do is force someone to manufacture 40 foot ladders.

Michele Bachmann is an even bigger fool than Romney and Gingrich put together. A double fence? Really? Twice the expense for something that in and of itself WILL NOT WORK?

It appears that these people, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann have never seen a PRISON, in real life or on television.

A prison has a fence. In many cases, prisons have a DOUBLE fence. Most of those fences are topped by barbed wire and/or razor wire. I many cases those fences are charged with high voltage electricity.

There is one thing that those prisons ALL have in common, other than the fences that are shared as a commonality; ALL of these prisons have ARMED GUARDS on their walls or in guard turrets. All of these prisons stand READY to shoot, and kill if necessary, those that violate the fence.

A fence, or a wall, regardless its size, regardless the methods used to reinforce its ability to contain and stop human beings, WILL NOT WORK by itself. Even a well manned and fully armed border is not going to stop ALL incursions from those that need to be kept out.

No system is foolproof, I don’t think Romney, Newt or Bachmann know that.

What Rick Perry is offering, OPERATIONAL CONTROL, is a feasible option.

Operational Control would incorporate several methods of security; fencing where effective, manned security, aerial surveillance (drones) and motion detection technology, all working in a concerted effort, would be a highly effective deterrent, but, even those combined efforts would not guarantee a 100% impregnable border.

This Ted Galen Carpenter from the Cato Institute is a person that I am certain has NEVER spent so much as ONE NIGHT on the U.S. border with Mexico and apparently doesn’t grasp the idea that increased, enhanced and effective border security could indeed make LEGAL commerce with Mexico a much easier endeavor if ALL traffic was forced to use nothing other than legal crossings.

I do have a question for Mr. Ted Galen Carpenter though; how much legal commerce with Mexico does he suppose takes place through ILLEGAL border crossings? So much for a pea brain opinion from a Libertarian think tank.

The U.S. Border Patrol says 873 miles of the border, about 44 percent, have been brought under operational control. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has said that “the border is better now than it ever has been.”

I would bet any amount of money that you can come up with that Janet Napolitano has never spent a FULL NIGHT on the U.S. border with the officers that are on that border on a daily basis, 24/7/365.

All Napolitano knows is what she is told by the underlings that she and Eric Holder put in place to do their bidding, individuals that are, quite likely, under orders to make sure that ALL figures reaching the press are figures that will make the Obama administration look good.

You doubt that? Think DEA money laundering and Fast and Furious.

Campaigning in Iowa last week, Gingrich signed a pledge to build a fence stretching the length of the border by the end of 2013. That may help him recover from a recent statement that illegal immigrants who have been established in the U.S. for many years should be allowed to remain in the country — a position his opponents have likened to amnesty.

Perry has steadfastly opposed the fence, saying it would take 10 to 15 years to build, cost $30 billion and wouldn’t work anyway. Instead, he wants to flood the border with more National Guard troops until the number of Border Patrol agents necessary to really secure the area are trained and deployed. He also wants to build strategic fencing in high-traffic areas and make better use of airborne surveillance. Perry claims that would mean full operational control by January 2014.

Romney, meanwhile, has publicly agreed with Perry that tackling larger immigration policy reform is impossible without first securing the border.

Read the words that Romney and Newt have used concerning border security, then read the words of Rick Perry, and ask yourself this; WHO is going to secure the border? Who CAN secure the border?