<p>
</p>
<p>And where’s the money going to come from? Where are we going to get the manpower to enforce it? That’s about 3100 kilometers to secure. It isn’t chump change.</p>
<p>Ari,</p>
<p>The money has already been appropriated for most of the fence (except for some remote parts of Texas) and additional personnel. President Bush signed the appropriations bill last week. He hasn’t signed the Act that actually authorizes the fence to be built.</p>
<p>Am I reading this correctly ???
Someone on this board is actually suggesting we build a fence and have our military in force with “shoot to kill orders” ???</p>
<p>I can only imagine the resultant cries against the government for “targeting” the poor, poor innocents that are only attempting to find a “better life”…</p>
<p>(I would plant a couple dozen tongue-in-cheek smileys here as well if I knew how). </p>
<p>I would personally like to know more about what the minutemen are about…and I mean that literally: PERSONALLY KNOW. I would hate to think they are a bunch of racist individuals. Just as I would hate to think that government officials are a bunch of people who only are there because they love power, not because they desire to “serve” their country. But, there you go…</p>
<p>We currently do not have the money or military available to police our borders, so if these people ARE willing to do so as volunteers in a non-violent way (as they claim), then I think that is a reasonable action at least until our government gets its proverbial “act” together. Nobody has convinced me (because all I hear are the inflammatory cries of “RACIST!” and “KKK!”) that the minutemen are out to do anything other than what they claim they are about : defending our borders against illegals.</p>
<p>The minutemen do nothing violent or illegal. They do not try to catch any illegals, they stand at the border and when they see someone illegaly crossing whether the crosser is mexican, white, middle eastern, etc, they call the border patrol on them. They never take it upon themselves to actually catch the illegals since they are not legally allowed to do so.</p>
<p>I love how people think we cannot build a fence that can keep illegals out. We can send someone to the moon, but we cant build a fence. We can build an atom bomb but we cant build a fence. The chinese could build an enormous wall hundreds of yrs ago, but the United States of America cannot build a fence. The commies can build the berlin wall and keep anyone from crossing, 50 yrs later Americans cant build a fence. Common people. This really is easier than u make it out to be.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’m thinking long run. This fence is going to need more than just building. It will need maintenance, defense, and tons of long-term capital to be put into it. Besides, we all know that initial appropriations are always WAY off the mark…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Find where I said that we CAN’T. We’re more than capable of doing so. I’m asking you where the capital to build, maintain, and enforce it will come from. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No, it’s not. You think this thing is going to cost beans?</p>
<p>“Where are we going to get the manpower to enforce it? That’s about 3100 kilometers to secure.” I dont no what u meant but it essentially came off as building a fence is ptless cause u wont be able ot back it up or enforce it.</p>
<p>Sure it costs money, but we can spend that money on the fence and the NG to back it up. It will really help in the long run considering how much money illegals suck out of the system</p>
<p>“Illegal immigration costs the taxpayers of California — which has the highest number of illegal aliens nationwide — $10.5 billion a year for education, health care and incarceration, according to a study released yesterday.”
<a href=“http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20041206-102115-6766r.htm[/url]”>http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20041206-102115-6766r.htm</a></p>
<p>Those statistics are from 2004 and just for state of California!</p>
<p>I’ve just read the article, and I’m a bit confused. The article stated that illegal immigrants pay $16 billion to the state in taxes; I can’t imagine illegal immigrants are paying taxes on April 15th because then they’d be discovered–they wouldn’t have SSN’s or the like. What are these taxes? Taxes out of paychecks? Sales taxes? Does anyone have a better idea about to what the article is referring?</p>
<p>I think the article does make a good point, though. The study doesn’t take into account all of the other contributions of illegal immigrants to the state like spending to boost the economy and the jobs they perform when they get here.</p>
<p>Many do have SSNs–the going rate for false SSNs here in NC is $300. The study doesn’t take into account the economy boost for the jobs and spending they do, but it also doesn’t take into account other costs (mentioned in article) like court costs and ESL education. I know here in our area of NC, public schools have dropped foreign language in elementary and cut it back in middle school due to the increased cost each year of ESL education. Something else I was shocked to learn was that when a student registers in public school here, the school is not allowed to ask about immigration status. Therefore, one can be in this country illegally from anywhere (not speaking of just hispanic population) and is entitled to all educational services (even specialized ones).</p>
<p>I would like to clarify my position on the fence. The fence that I think is crazy is the one that is currently proposed…double barrier with a road in between. That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve seen. How is that going to work between Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, both of which hug the border? Quarter mile long tunnels between buildings in those cities have been found. Similar problems with tunneling exists between Tijuana and San Diego.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-08-16-alleged-druglord_x.htm[/url]”>http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-08-16-alleged-druglord_x.htm</a></p>
<p>I’d like to know how a fence will solve this one. HUGE waste of money.</p>
<p>Its not easy to come up to a fence that is gonna have tons of electronic monitoring equipment on it and dig a tunnel without anyone noticing. There will be equipotment on the fence that the second it is touched a sensor will go off and alert someone on the exact location of the fence that wastouched. And then let me ask this question Idmom06, you obv dont like the fence cause Bush is building or w/e, but what is ur solution instead. Should we allow illegal immigration. Because no fence = illegal immigration</p>
<p>golani -</p>
<p>The tunnels have their entrances and exits hidden in buildings on both sides of the border. These guys aren’t tunneling in the wide open right next to a fence. My uncle (the fed), has described tunnels with electricity that accommodate Humvees for pete’s sake. Read my link for a description of one of the more elaborate tunnels discovered along the Cali border.</p>
<p>I don’t disagree that something needs to be done at the border. And my opinions have nothing to do with politics. I just think the solution is more law enforcement, more money/training directed toward developing intelligence, infiltration of cartels, etc. Seems to me this would be a better way to spend a few billion bucks. And we need laws with teeth that put the onus on countries like Mexico to take care of their own criminal element.</p>
<p>Right but when you build the fence, there is enough electronic survelience equipment on it that it wont allow for a tunnel. Just look at the israelis, there hasnt been a single tunnel through their new security fence despite how badly the palestinian arab terrorists want them. The solutions to the illegal imigration problem that u said are meaningless. Its all been done. If we can send man to moon, we sure as hell can build a fence</p>
<p>golani,</p>
<p>3100 or so kilometers of fencing isn’t terribly technologically advanced. It’s EXPENSIVE. Sending a man to the moon is an initial sunk cost followed by a decade or so of marginal costs (e.g. each mission.) The fence is a sunk cost (probably more expensive than the moon landing, anyway) followed by DECADES of marginal costs. </p>
<p>It’s not that we CAN’T do it. It’s that it’s economically a pretty hefty undertaking.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t it make sense to send the illegals back after they build the fence for us? We’re not going to hire union guys to do it, are we?</p>
<p>It it possible that the Palestinians haven’t any tunnels under the Isreali fences because they don’t have any Mexicans they can hire to do the digging?</p>
<p>I can kid, because I don’t beleive the fence will ever be built. The illegals are here becuase someone here invited them here. It isn’t your or I; its the employers. It’s a great racket. Employers benefit from having to pay lower wages while taxpayers pay all the social costs of having these people here.</p>
<p>Dadguy,</p>
<p>Well, it’s not QUITE that simple. Taxpayers do get lower prices for goods, and employers free up capital for other ventures.</p>
<p>I see your point, although I doubt either of us would accept lower wages for ourselves even if it did help the economy.</p>
<p>golani - I still don’t think you get it about the tunneling…</p>
<hr>
<p>2,400-foot Tunnel ‘Beats Them All’ </p>
<p>Builders of passage were well-funded, investigators say
By Onell R. Soto and Leslie Berestein
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS
January 27, 2006
JOHN R. MCCUTCHEN / Union-Tribune</p>
<p>The 2,400-foot-long tunnel runs from a warehouse near Tijuana’s airport to this Otay Mesa warehouse. A sign says it is home to V&F Distributors LLC, but it is unclear who rents the building. In the corner of a cavernous Otay Mesa warehouse, a small room held a big secret: the door to a passageway from Mexico. </p>
<p>U.S. agents had been investigating the possibility of an elaborate drug-smuggling tunnel between Tijuana and San Diego for more than a year, but couldn’t find it DESPITE USING MILITARY EQUIPMENT SO ADVANCED IT IS CLASSIFIED.</p>
<p>Instead, as often happens with drug cases, the break came from tips. </p>
<p>The tips led to the discovery of the longest cross-border tunnel in U.S. history, running nearly a half-mile from a small warehouse near Tijuana’s airport to the large Otay Mesa warehouse. </p>
<p>“This tunnel beats them all,” said Michael Unzueta, special agent in charge of the San Diego office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which investigated the case along with the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Border Patrol. </p>
<p>The tunnel runs 2,400 feet through sandstone and compacted sand and is equipped with lighting, ventilation and groundwater drainage systems.
Chest-high water collected at its deepest point, MORE THAN 9 STORIES BELOW warehouses and busy border roads in Otay Mesa. </p>
<p>“This is like being in a really big, long mine shaft,” Unzueta said after walking through the muggy passageway. “It’s really just carved right into the earth.”
Concrete was used to provide steady footing at a steep incline on the U.S. side as well as to support the walls of an 85-foot shaft under the Mexican warehouse. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20060127-9999-1n27tunnel.html[/url]”>http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20060127-9999-1n27tunnel.html</a>
Inside a large warehouse in Otay Mesa yesterday, investigators showed the opening into a 2,400-foot cross-border tunnel. Agents said the tunnel was the work of a well-funded and determined drug-smuggling group.</p>
<p>The tunnel was the work of a well-funded and determined drug-smuggling group, Unzueta said. Mexican agents seized 2 tons of marijuana on the Mexican side. Their U.S. counterparts found 200 pounds. </p>
<p>Neither side has reported any arrests. </p>
<p>The head of the San Diego DEA office was asked at a news conference yesterday if the Arellano-Felix cartel was responsible for the tunnel.
“It’s the usual suspects,” John Fernandes said, naming the notorious Tijuana cartel, which has been locked in a battle with rival groups for control of the region. “The sophistication (of the tunnel) indicates the organization is equally as sophisticated,” he said. </p>
<p>The Arellano-Felix cartel was dealt a blow several years ago with the arrests and killings of its leaders, but officials on both sides of the border say reports of its demise are premature. </p>
<p>Other drug-running groups headed by accused traffickers Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán operate in Baja California and move drugs into San Diego County and the rest of the United States. </p>
<p>Investigators said yesterday that their work is just beginning. </p>
<p>While some agents continue to follow tips, others are working to determine how long the tunnel has been in use. They are poring over what they’ve found so far, looking for fingerprints, DNA evidence, cell phones and computers that might link the tunnel to those who built and operated it. </p>
<p>“Right now we are in the midst of running down leads,” Fernandes said. </p>
<p>The 48,222-square-foot Otay Mesa warehouse was built about three years ago on Siempre Viva Road by a U.S. partnership that bought the 1.6-acre lot in June 2001 when it was vacant land, according to property records. </p>
<p>A representative for the partnership was unavailable yesterday, as was a 45-year-old La Habra woman who bought the warehouse last year. Its value is assessed at $2.8 million. </p>
<p>It is unclear to whom she rented the warehouse. </p>
<p>A sign outside says it is home to V&F Distributors LLC, but the building appears abandoned The inside is empty except for a couple of pallets of merchandise. </p>
<p>Neighbors in the industrial park two blocks from the border say that most of the activity at the warehouse stopped abruptly in October. </p>
<p>Before then, the warehouse was busy, with trucks regularly pulling in and out of its 12 docks, said Luis Barraza, who works at a company across the street from the rear of the warehouse. </p>
<p>Barraza said he believed the beige-and-brown building had been occupied by a produce company, but in November it appeared that new tenants had moved in. The landscaping around the warehouse was spruced up, but Barraza said the only visible traffic was a truck bearing a blue shipping container, which would be at Dock No. 9 by the time workers at nearby businesses arrived in the morning. </p>
<p>The container covered the entire door, and would remain there for one or two days before disappearing during the night. </p>
<p>Sometimes, Barraza said, people inside the warehouse would leave a few of the shipping bay doors open, and workers across the street noticed the warehouse was empty. </p>
<p>“It’s a pretty big warehouse, and nothing was happening there,” said Barraza, 27, a warehouse supervisor for Mecalux USA Inc., which makes shelving systems. “We used to joke that maybe they were laundering money or something. That’s expensive rent.” </p>
<p>The parking lot was so deserted that truckers going to nearby firms sometimes used it as a staging area, he said. </p>
<p>In Tijuana, investigators searching the warehouse where the tunnel began found seven cell phones, a van and two trucks and several documents, the Mexican attorney general’s office said. </p>
<p>That warehouse is part of Ejido Tampico, a group of landowners that rents property in the neighborhood to a variety of industrial users, including junkyards, truck yards and small workshops. </p>
<p>A watchman at a nearby heavy-equipment yard said he was surprised by the news that an immense tunnel had been dug under were he stood. </p>
<p>“I work at night,” he said. “I should have heard something, but I didn’t.” </p>
<p>A security guard at a nearby truck yard, from which the warehouse is visible, said he had not noticed anything strange. </p>
<p>However, another neighbor said tenants in the area could be reluctant to talk about anything they might have seen out of fear of retaliation. </p>
<p>“Everybody is afraid of problems,” he said, declining to give his name. </p>
<p>The construction of the tunnel, nearly 1,000 feet longer than an unfinished passageway discovered nearby in 1993, has raised several questions. It is unclear how long it took to dig and how that could be done without anybody noticing. </p>
<p>A 2,400-foot tunnel would generate several hundred truckloads of dirt, said Richard Hanlin, a retired San Francisco contractor with tunneling experience. </p>
<p>“That is a tremendous volume of material,” Hanlin said. “It’s not something you stuff in your pants legs and drop when you’re gardening.” </p>
<p>There were no conspicuous piles of dirt near either warehouse. </p>
<p>The pace of digging couldn’t have been fast, he said. Investigators said the walls bore the marks of air-driven instruments, such as a jackhammer or a clay spade. </p>
<p>But G.T. Lineberry, a professor of mining engineering at the University of Kentucky, said that given enough time, such a tunnel is possible to dig by hand. </p>
<p>“One doesn’t need to have a tunnel-boring machine or sophisticated rock cutting instruments,” Lineberry said. </p>
<p>Agents marveled at how the engineers were able to find their way underground. </p>
<p>It’s possible they got lost. </p>
<p>The tunnel from Tijuana goes north for hundreds of feet. Inside the United States, it intersects with a second tunnel coming in from the Otay Mesa warehouse. The main tunnel continues for about 100 feet before coming to a dead end. </p>
<p>The builders of the 1993 tunnel used San Diego County planning documents but still came up 120 feet short of their target. The Arellano-Felix gang was suspected of constructing the tunnel, but no arrests have been made. </p>
<p>Drug traffickers will go to ingenious and costly lengths to smuggle their wares into the United States, Unzueta said. </p>
<p>“People are always going to find a way around us,” he said.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No…but if globalization continues its slow creep, then some of us are going to have no choice…</p>
<p>Kind of makes you long for wiretaps, internal spying, and maybe a group of people dedicated to watching the border for unusual activity doesn’t it?</p>