Fence Meets Wall of Skepticism

WaPo Legislation passed by Congress mandating the fencing of 700 miles of the U.S. border with Mexico has sparked opposition from an array of land managers, businesspeople, law enforcement officials, environmentalists and U.S. Border Patrol agents as a one-size-fits-all policy response to the nettlesome task of securing the nation's borders. Critics said the fence does not take into account the extraordinarily varied geography of the 2,000-mile-long border,

True. 700 miles is not enough, we need three times that much.

which cuts through Mexican and U.S. cities separated by a sidewalk, vast scrubland and deserts, rivers, irrigation canals and miles of mountainous terrain. They also say it seems to ignore advances in border security that don't involve construction of a 15-foot-high double fence

And are much easier to breach, so that farmers can get the cheap labor they want.

and to play down what are expected to be significant costs to maintain the new barrier. And, they say, the estimated $2 billion price tag and the mandate that it be completed by 2008 overlook 10 years of legal and logistical difficulties the federal government has faced to finish a comparatively tiny fence of 14 miles dividing San Diego and Tijuana. "This is the feel-good approach to immigration control," said Wayne Cornelius, an expert on immigration issues at the University of California at San Diego. "The only pain is experienced by the migrants themselves

The migrants will not be hurt if they don't try to breach the fence. They need to stand in line to come in legally. And if we need more workers, we should adopt something like the Canadian plan where they bring in workers for up to 10 months, but who must go back then, and the people asking to bring them in, provide a airline ticket to send them home at the start.

It doesn't hurt U.S. consumers; it doesn't hurt U.S. businesses. It only hurts taxpayers if they pay attention to spending on border enforcement."