Posted by
arandomguy on Saturday, August 05, 2006 11:34:45 PM
Bush has announced today that the border is more secure, now that he has begun sending National Guard forces to the border to aid existing law enforcement. I plan to analyze this and see just whether it is true or not.
First, there are still many failings along the border. Even with 6,000 national guard, the border patrol and other existing law enforcement is horribly understaffed. And those they do have are working so hard that they scarcely have time for extra law enforcement.
Second, the fence has not been built. A fence (or preferably a wall) is necessary along the border to hinder crossing. Though it won't totally prevent it, it will require time, allowing the border guards to make better use of their time, and hopefully catch more illegals. The fence must not be partial. The french built a partial barrier with the Maginot line. The Germans just walked around it. We must not let the illegals do the same.
Thirdly, the National guard is not going to carry weapons, or patrol the line. They are going to aide in behind-the-scenes jobs, to free up border patrol agents so they can more readily search the border. This is all well and good, but there must be armed national guardsmen on the line. People stay away from men with assault rifles. If we get the National Guard down there on the border, they should further hinder the crossing of illegals, resulting in less work for all involved.
Finally, 6,000 is not nearly enough. 10,000 at a minimum is needed to effectively prevent the crossing of Illegal Aliens into our country. That includes those will work at desk jobs (about 5 or 6 thousand), as well as more people to patrol the border (4 or 5 thousand more).
So in retrospect, it does not look like the border problem has been fixed. I can't even say that it has been shoddily patched. The best I can say, is that the government has (finally) taken a very small step in the right direction, toward total border enforcement.