Secure Borders -- What Does it Take?

Admittedly multi-layer fences cannot do the job alone. They may slow down the traffic if the Border Patrol is beefed up and if it does the job it is being paid to do. Other border infrastructure such as roads and electronic and aerial surveillance will also help. The roads will enable the patrol to get there faster when a violation is detected by whatever other means are available.

We should utilize the National Guard, rotating them in and out for their two weeks of active duty. They should be fully trained and deputized to act as Border Patrol auxiliaries. The Minutemen might also be able to play a role in this regard but I would make sure that any of their members who have shown a propensity to violence are weeded out and that they also are well-trained on what they can and cannot do with regard to border violators.

Construction of detention facilities near the border is imperative so there are at hand many places to detain the border violators. Those apprehended should be put to work building those facilities and the other border infrastructure for the duration of their stay in this country. This is not slave labor. That is just hyperbole. This is a way of recouping the cost of apprehension and detention pending an immigration decision. OTMs should never be paroled because they simply disappear never to be seen again. Mexicans could be paroled back to Mexico with their families if they promise to return to complete their detention or until their case is decided. They must be admonished that any other return to the U.S. will cause them to classified as felons and be sentenced to two years of detention or jail. Of course, all must be photographed, fingerprinted and DNAed.

Employers may recruit the paroled border violators on the Mexico side of the border in facilities organized and funded by the Mexican government but only U.S. state employment offices will be authorized to examine the evidence presented by an employer to prove that he has advertised for American workers to no avail, having offered a fair wage by American standards and a hiring preference for citizens.

Interior workplace enforcement, involuntary deportations, and employer sanctions can also be viewed as essential parts of a comprehensive border security plan because they create disincentives to repeat offenders. Employers must be required to validate the immigration status of all employees, both existing and new, using an automated system devised by the federal government. Employers must be held accountable for the immigration status of their employees whether they were hired knowingly or unknowingly. Not knowing is not an acceptable excuse.

Cross border traffic of all kinds must be reduced. If you are a citizen of Mexico, you don’t work in the U.S. unless you have a tamper-proof ID issued on the basis of employer-produced evidence of need. If you are a citizen of the U.S., you are not allowed to commute from Mexico to work in the U.S.. You must live here if you want to work here. Mexican tractor trailers will be unhitched at the border and re-hitched to tractors belonging to American trucking companies. Repeal NAFTA.

No Mexican children are allowed to go to school in the U.S. if they live in Mexico. There can be no border security with the present volume of pedestrian and vehicular traffic. Schools, hospitals and other service organizations must be required to verify the immigration status of all individuals before any service can be provided. Children whose parents are legally employed in the U.S. must attend school. Employers must reimburse hospitals and emergency rooms for any costs not recovered from their employees or their families or, alternatively, must provide family health care coverage for all foreign employees.

This is what it takes to secure the borders. Comprehensive border security is not simple. It requires round the clock enforcement and severe penalties for those who fail to enforce the law including for the president of the U.S. Failure to enforce immigration laws must be an impeachable offense -- a high crime or misdemeanor.