At RealClearPolitics Igor Magalhaes asks a great question—how do you measure border security?
The border is remarkably vast and diverse: 1,933 miles long, with varying climates and terrains, stretching from the Pacific coast to the estuary of the Rio Grande River. This makes monitoring, enforcing laws, and measuring activity extremely demanding.
The clandestine nature of illegal immigration is another obstacle. While the increased use and reliability of technology have made monitoring the border more efficient, it is still far from perfect. The lack of assets in remote areas and sophisticated evasion techniques allow many foreign nationals to enter the country undetected.
Given that it is currently impossible to physically detect all illegal border crossings, other methods are used to gauge border security. Conducting surveys and using statistical models are two of them. While both are useful tools and provide great insight, neither is immune to defects. Their primary flaw is that they fail to incorporate major groups of the border crossing community by focusing mainly on adult Mexican nationals — who now make up a decreasing percentage of illegal border crossers.
The failure to capture the true composition of border crossers is actually a feature of the whole border security metrics’ framework. This is especially true with the absence of asylum claims — the leading cause of the current crisis — in their measurements.
Apprehensions are, obviously, a terrible metric. They tell you almost nothing. You don’t know whether apprehensions represent 1% of those entering, 10%, or 90%.
It would help if there weren’t a taboo against determining how many people are in the country illegally and how long they’ve been here. The figure 10 million is often thrown out but the actual figure may be much, much higher.
I’m not even sure how you’d go about measuring border security. Unfortunately typically for the sort of piece this article represents, the author does not appear to, either.
It could be much higher or much lower. People who study this have also noted that in the past we had many more migrants who came and worked a few months, then went back. Now, since it is more difficult to cross they just stay, an unintended (I think) consequence.
This article again makes it clear that while we need efforts to keep people from crossing, we should prioritize keeping people from working unless they are here legally. A strong verification system or something similar. This brings up complaints that small businesses cant afford this. That is not a valid complaint as we can easily subsidize smaller businesses to make this work. (I suspect the real complaint by small businesses is that it will hurt financially if they cant hire cheap illegal labor.)
Steve
Studies tend to be highly selective. They frequently neglect to mention, for example, that part of our system used to be periodic “repatriations” in which anybody looking Mexican, native born or not, was tossed into a boxcar and shipped across the border. Since I don’t approve of such rough justice, I would prefer other means.
My preferred approach would have the following legs:
1. Greatly increased work visas for Mexicans and Central Americans.
2. Fewer work visas for ordinary clerical and technical workers.
3. A much tougher verification system.
4. Stiff penalties for violations.
5. Abuse of the asylum system would be ended by same day adjudications.
What we have is a “compromise” between those who want to help the employers with cheap labor, those who want to help the migrant workers, and those who just want more Mexican and Central Americans in the United States for political and social reasons. That has resulted in a positive feedback loop which will collapse violently as all positive feedback loops do.
I like your five points. I suspect this is one of those issues where you simply must listen to the people on the ground, the quality of their positions, and your cumulative experience and judgment.
Attempts to reduce it to a science seem like a fools errand.
I don’t think the moneyed class in Washington really want to measure it because then they’d be pressured to reduce it. They don’t want E-Verify because they’d be at a loss without their groundskeepers, domestics, hotel cooks and cleaning staff.
Many of you will remember the Clinton era trouble filling cabinet positions when every nominee seemed to employ undocumented newcomers as domestics. That problem has been largely bypassed by using subcontractors, who cannot be expected to know the status of everyone they employ, can they?
A real E-Verify system with teeth would make it VERY expensive to maintain 6-10 estates and could force our lawmakers to residence overseas, where the climate is more friendly for the elite.