Fences and Walls

Two commentators at leading newspapers today offered their two cents on immigration reform. Thomas Friedman of the NYTimes has a column entitled “High Fence and Big Gate.” Here is a link to that column. He favors the guestworker-to-citizenship route proposed by Sen. Spector and a “big fence” – “if not a physical one, then at least a tamperproof national ID card for every American, without which you could not get a legal job or access to government services.”

Robert J. Samuelson wrote for the Washington Post. His column – “Immigration Impasse: A Way Out” is here. He proposes a big wall (20-30 feet high), amnesty, and no guest worker program.

The proposal for big fences in both columns was striking to me. Friedman was at least thinking about the “fence” in metaphorical terms, signifying the implementation of mechanisms to improve internal and border regulation of migration. But the Samuelson piece proposes a physical fence.

The physical fence idea is a bad idea. It would cost billions to build a fence hundreds of miles long and 30 feet high. It would not be impervious to infiltration unless every foot of it was guarded. And to think that is a good idea shows a flat disregard for those who have to live on the border. Think of the glory of having a 30 foot fence in your backyard, as far as the eye can see. More helicopters buzzing overhead. More big trucks rolling through the dirt. What fun border residents! (Meanwhile, folks in the interior who hire and benefit from low-wage undocumented labor don’t have to deal with these quality of life costs. How nice for them!)

But more importantly, the research suggests that the fenced border approach to immigration is counterproductive. In his op-ed in yesterday’s NYTimes, “The Wall That Keeps Illegal Workers In,” Douglas S. Massey suggests that the border is not out of control at all.  He notes that “The rate of undocumented migration, adjusted for population growth, to the United States has not increased in 20 years. . . .What has changed are the locations and visibility of border crossings.”

He observes that folks used to cross in El Paso or San Diego, metropolitan areas where “the daily passage of even thousands of Mexicans . . . was not very visible or disruptive.” But when fences were built in San Diego in the early 1990s, migrants formerly engaged in orderly (if unauthorized) crossings were rerouted in dangerous ways — and then captured on film!! The response? Military style operations at various points of entry that have forced migrants to do some serious re-routing.

The border chaos (including the border deaths) that we hear so much about grew out of attempts to secure the border with big fences. And, Massey notes, “although border militarization had little effect on the probability of Mexicans migrating illegally, it did reduce the likelihood that they would return to their homeland.” He concludes that “the only thing we have to show for two decades of border militarization is a larger undocumented population than we would otherwise have, a rising number of Mexicans dying while trying to cross, and a growing burden on taxpayers for enforcement that is counterproductive.”

In other words, maybe we’d best re-think that border fence….

-j