While moats and walls have been useful deterrents to incursion in the past, many have failed, particularly to conquerors and those that wished to infiltrate them. Most have been torn down like the Berlin Wall or become tourist attractions like the Great Wall of China. Quite truthfully, walls have outlived their usefulness as a way of keeping others out when they are determined to breach the wall in any way they can. Still, the United States has been spending tremendous amounts of money building a wall across its entire southern border, now being bolstered by border patrol, troops, landowners and volunteers, all with their expensive machinery, mostly trucks and cars, just to keep the trickling of illegal intruders from becoming a flood. Believe me, if they ever became a flood, there would be no way of stopping them as they poured through the wall like I saw a wave of eager concertgoers climbing a high fence to get into a rock concert for free to the dismay of a mounted officer who could not stop them. We are not only building an expensive wall, we have to back it up with expensive personnel and equipment like we did in World War I with our impregnable lines that got so many killed.

 

So, I had an epiphany the other day that there might be an alternative. A similar idea to creating a fenceless open range by using other means to curtail the wandering of domestic animals while letting wild creatures roam freely through that I had in one of my novels. It seemed to me that we are going about it all in the wrong way by using yesterday's methods to solve today's problems.

 

While it may seem to be blasphemy, I would paraphrase that much beloved President Reagan when he announced, "Mr. President, tear that wall down!" What! You say, you want us to tear down that expensive wall that we've been building at tremendous cost? Are you crazy? Of course not, just being practical and conservative, saving the government's hard-earned money and having to deploy so many "boots on the ground" at the border just to keep order behind a wall that doesn't work.

 

We should think in terms of the corporate way. In order to save money for their shareholders (basically a way to cut staff) corporations hire expensive consultants in the best fields to come up with viable alternatives to old technologies or technology that no longer work and require a lot of people to keep them working. Corporations always turn to higher technologies like the Internet and electronic devices and the necessary software to keep ahead of their competition. They want to provide goods and services to people in ever-increasing efficiency without the need for adding more bodies of inefficient workers who physically break down, require rest, have attitudes, and generally, slow down production. Low overhead Internet shopping is replacing stores manned by people. Even deliveries using drones instead of expensive vehicles and personnel are being tested. Automobiles are being made by robots to a precision unheard-of under human hands. New technologies trump older technologies every time, in time.

 

Surveillance has reached the point where it is very reliable, low-cost, and high resolution. There are many added features like GPS, lasers and infrared scanning that make surveillance far superior to security guards because of the 24/7 unmanned aspect of these devices. A series of metal poles, very high, mounted approximately 100 yards apart along the border, similar to a cross-country high-power transmission line without the wires, could be easily constructed with the appropriate surveillance equipment mounted on top, powered by wind or solar power or both. While these devices would be powered all the time, they would not transmit what they were viewing unless motion detectors determine movement in the area. Border patrol centers strategically placed near the border would pick up activity or any vandalism that would attempt to put out the surveillance equipment and transmit the position to the nearest center backed up with real time visual images.

 

Drones would be deployed along the border 24/7 on automated flight paths that would be overrode by a center's control reaching the location on an average of less than five minutes. If intruders are observed crossing, helicopters would be dispatched with border patrol agents, equipped with the best means of tracking down those encroaching the border and the latest means of subduing vehicles and/or running individuals, including those with guns. These would include lasers, sound generators that would incapacitate, stun guns, rubber bullets, and the like for making it difficult for anyone on the ground to continue. In the case of vehicles, a means of shutting down vehicle engines with a pulse. In the event of returned fire or any violence on the part of the intruders, the helicopters and drones would have lethal force.  Tunnels could be detected by seismic detectors.

 

 A law would have to be passed making the visual evidence from the surveillance equipment and the drones sufficient for immediately deporting anyone who crosses without legal paperwork. They would be summarily taken to the nearest border crossing and turned over to Mexican authorities. No need to detain anyone crossing without legal paperwork, simply return them from whence they came. Ranchers and other legal regular crossers, would merely have to wave at the cameras and be recognized so they could go about their business as they have for a couple of hundred years. The official border crossings for those wishing to enter the country legally would be relieved a lot of traffic and commerce could benefit greatly from not having a border bottleneck.

 

Once the surveillance equipment was installed, it could be continually upgraded until the border becomes porous for all wildlife and legal crossers and a true deterrent to those who would cross illegally. Eventually, even the traditional border crossings could be dismantled and superhighways and high-speed transit would cross the border with impunity because vehicles and those riding public and private transportation would all be monitored by the same surveillance equipment at points of entry to the transport systems.

 

The cost of the additional installation might be expensive, but certainly not as much as building a physical wall. The use of ground vehicles for border patrol, the cost of manpower to do routine tours like security guards, and the additional cost of troops or National Guard makes using the "boots on the ground" approach old-fashioned and extremely expensive as well as ineffective. Faster means of interdiction need to be employed.

 

On the other hand, giving all the unemployed a job on the border as additional border patrol auxiliary would be one way to help the job situation and lower unemployment, particularly in the border states. But we all know that the direction that the world is headed: Away from having young men and women sweat it out on long days in boring work that is suddenly punctuated by action that may or may not be healthy if guns are involved--unless they are in the military.

 

Copyright 2014 © Ronald W. Hull

 

8/23/14