Border control

[construct]

This is something that should be fairly simple.

I have never visited the U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico, but I have taken a train from Luxembourg to Paris, and I have ridden a bus from Nice to Monaco. It looked to me like anybody could just walk across those latter two borders pretty much anywhere he wanted. There weren't any walls; there weren't any towers; there weren't any fences--at least not any more than there were anywhere else--at least I don't remember them.

When you get to the border in the wilderness of Minnesota or wherever, what do you see? Is it even possible to make the border "secure" in the sense I'm thinking about without building something like the Berlin Wall? Surely that's not what we're talking about, is it?

 

[BostonPirate]

the conservatives want walls on our borders.

I think it is an awful idea that never works. there has never been a wall built that a tunnel wasn't also built under. it is a waste of money and resourses.

 

[construct]

the conservatives want walls on our borders.

I think it is an awful idea that never works. there has never been a wall built that a tunnel wasn't also built under. it is a waste of money and resourses.

Sure, but If I were to go to North Dakota and walk out through the prairie and cross the border, what would I see? A forest ranger if he wandered by?

 

[BostonPirate]

Sure, but If I were to go to North Dakota and walk out through the prairie and cross the border, what would I see? A forest ranger if he wandered by?

no and its an issue up here but we are not making laws to hunt people down and put them in tent cities without warrants.

In Boston we have a huge influx of Irish and Haitian immigrants. I have never asked the legal status of anyone, so I have no idea how many of either party I have ever known.

what is happening up here right now in regards to haitians, is that the US is not sending haitians back to haiti due to the substandard living conditions down there. SO they come in as visitors to canada and then slip over the northern borders. then they know they have time to get a wife and have children.

now....lets put some perspective on this whole immigration thing... walls and laws.

what would happen if we built a wall to keep black people coming over the northern border? what would happen to the politician who wrote a law saying that all people that were suspicious of being haitians... black colored skin.... to provide papers or be detained indefinitely and then deported?

it is such a headache.

our borders are just imaginary lines... in some cases up here there are towns that hav ehalf their population in america and the other half in canada. somehow they don;t have to resort to that southern insanity to figure out how to deal with the immigration issue.

 

[construct]

Thanks guys. That's pretty much what I imagined. So I haven't been operating with a false image. The idea of a wall makes me think of building something like the Great Wall of China . . . twice! Seems kind of silly to me.

 

[rareboy]

We're just building a beaver dam stretching from BC to Halifax to keep anyone from sneaking north across our border to get universal healthcare and drugs at a reasonable price or bootlegging poutine.

 

[grantt]

Thanks guys. That's pretty much what I imagined. So I haven't been operating with a false image. The idea of a wall makes me think of building something like the Great Wall of China . . . twice! Seems kind of silly to me.

If walls bother you, you must change a few OTHER things.

Eliminate "if you are born here, you are an instant citizen." That is in not in those european countries you mentioned.

Eliminate free things. Eliminate a free education for all who just show up. Must have proof of being a legal citizen. Would cut down on schools, teachers, etc.

Eliminate healthcare on demand that is free. Here in Texas we spend billions of dollars on free healthcare in our hospitals. Billions.

Eliminate illegals in our prisons and jails. If you commit a crime and wind up in our facilities, you are sent back home....no questions asked. Would save untold money on jails and facilities. One third of prisoners in southern states are illegal.

So, the serenity of "no wall" is pleasant, but you MUST change a few other things.

 

[iman]

We need a National ID card with no benefits extended to people without a card and a workable guest worker program.

Most of our ancestors came here for the exact same reason that immigrants come here now. Anyone in a poor country that can come here and get a job, educate and feed their family and live a decent life would be foolish to remain in their native country, impoverished and starving. The Republican desire to punish these people for the initiative they have shown is despicable.

The Republicans want the status quo so that they have the issue, the cheap labor and the inability of a large workforce that can ever vote.

 

[construct]

If walls bother you, you must change a few OTHER things.

Eliminate "if you are born here, you are an instant citizen." That is in not in those european countries you mentioned.

Eliminate free things. Eliminate a free education for all who just show up. Must have proof of being a legal citizen. Would cut down on schools, teachers, etc.

Eliminate healthcare on demand that is free. Here in Texas we spend billions of dollars on free healthcare in our hospitals. Billions.

Eliminate illegals in our prisons and jails. If you commit a crime and wind up in our facilities, you are sent back home....no questions asked. Would save untold money on jails and facilities. One third of prisoners in southern states are illegal.

So, the serenity of "no wall" is pleasant, but you MUST change a few other things.

No, sir. I blithely refuse to so much as consider any one of those things.

 

[rareboy]

How about not treating Mexico as a source of cheap third world labour and require the companies that shipped all their manufacturing to Mexico and hire illegal Mexicans at pennies on the dollar pay the same wage as they would to a US or Canadian worker.

It would make the dream of actually making a decent wage a reality and I'm sure that Mexicans would have no more interest moving to the US than I would.

 

[BostonPirate]

Eliminate illegals in our prisons and jails. If you commit a crime and wind up in our facilities, you are sent back home....no questions asked. Would save untold money on jails and facilities.

so when guantanamo closes you are in favor repatriating the people being detained?

 

[CowboyBob]

Sure, but If I were to go to North Dakota and walk out through the prairie and cross the border, what would I see? A forest ranger if he wandered by?

Border control is a complete joke. It's all about image.

The main border crossing onto North Dakota is at Pembina. It's about 50 miles south of a large Canadian city, Winnipeg, and the Canadians head south into North Dakota towns traveling down I-29 for weekend holidays. The customs buildings appear like an armed camp. It's designed to impress and intimidate. Razor wire, armed guards walking dogs, helicopters.... it makes the USA appear well protected. It's all a facade.

A friend of mine to travels to Poland every year said it was easier to get into communist Poland back in the 80's than it was getting into the USA. And friendlier too.

Travel 12 miles to the west and cross at the Neche border crossing. It's a sleepy little building. If you have North Dakota or Manitoba license plates on your car you barely have to slow down to wave at the customs agents as you cross. The crossings close ay 10pm and their security is an orange cone with a sign taped on it saying travelers to use the Pembina crossing. It's the same thing at the Walhalla crossing and Maida crossing, etc.

When I head to Winnipeg and back I detour through the Neche crossing. It takes on average 30 seconds to cross the border. At the Pembina crossing there are too many formalities and the customs agents try their damnedest to intimidate you. I just find it annoying.

The farmers on the border have field roads that cross the international border. They're not guarded, or watched. Some (republican) politicians came up with the bright idea to put up electronic alarms along the border, but when they realized deer, moose, bobcat, grouse and millions of other wildlife cross the border without a passport that shot the idea down in a hurry.

After telling a friend of mine in Chicago about this she panicked..... "OH MY GOD! the terrorists will come in!!" she cried. If this is what you really feel, then the terrorists won. After all, they want you to be afraid. Same thing with the politicians..... "build that damn fence". If you're afraid then they've won.

 

[construct]

Well, I've been thinking. Building the wall might not be such a bad idea. The government could hire workers to build the wall and, I suppose, to handle whatever infrastructure needs might be noticed through a big-ass government program that would last indefinitely. It would be paid for partly by raising the long-term capital gains tax rate to 28%. The rest would be paid for by a graduated income tax from which the first $30,000 per individual filer would be exempt. There would be greater exemptions based on the number of exemptions claimed on the return.

There you have it--a wall that has no impact of the national debt. It has the added advantage of redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor, increasing the velocity of money circulating, and lowering the unemployment rate. I love it when a single solution ameliorates several problems at once.

 

[CowboyBob]

Building a wall to "protect" the USA will never work. If someone really wants to get in, they will get in.

In time, the walls are always taken down. With the exception of the Great Wall of China, now a tourist attraction, walls always come crumbling down. Walls have negative connotations associated with them also.

Hadrian's Wall, The "Iron Curtain", The Berlin Wall

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_walls

It's now become nothing more than a political football. Something for Republicans to rally behind, to stir up emotion. That John McCain ad is laughable. I feel sorry for that old geezer now.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0lwusMxiHc[/ame]

It's painful to watch.

 

[BostonPirate]

construct, I love your posts...lol

 

[bankside]

I'm okay with the walls to be honest. Good fences make good neighbours.

However, I don't really see the need. A Hundred Bajillion dollars on the longest string of razorwire in the world? Or invest that money in our police forces to actually detect problem people, not problem border crossings.

I don't know, to be honest I'm indifferent because on one hand I strongly feel that countries should reserve citizenship for their citizens and not just anyone who randomly wanders in, but on the other hand I can imagine more effective ways of enforcement. I would definitely confirm someone's citizenship when they apply for benefits, that alone would be one technique.

 

[BostonPirate]

why don't we just put collars on all people that aren't white, and when they cross the electric border we just blow up their heads?

there has never been a fencce built by a gov't that a tunnel hasn't been built under.

it is a waste of time and money that we could be spending on fixing the real issue

 

[Callum]

If America wants to fund a wall to put along the Canadian border...

Have fun. One long-ass, nonsensical and ungodly expensive process that will be...

 

[bankside]

why don't we just put collars on all people that aren't white, and when they cross the electric border we just blow up their heads?

there has never been a fencce built by a gov't that a tunnel hasn't been built under.

it is a waste of time and money that we could be spending on fixing the real issue

That would never be allowed under Canada's charter of rights. All Americans would have to wear collars like that, regardless of colour.

 

[BostonPirate]

people keep bringing race into the immigration debate, but has anyone actually advocating treating illegal immigrants from Mexico/Central/South America any differently than illegal immigrants from eastern Europe or Asia?

I think the GOP wants them all out.

then why did the governor instruct the police to learn more about handling racial profiling appropriately if she didn't expect one particular race targeted, being the one on the arizona border.

really

they aren't saying illegal irish immigrants are bringing crime over the mexican border.

so lets not play what if games and be real.