The Myth of "Border Control" (Part I)

When I think of Laredo I think of the sun. Nothing in that place escaped it; even the wind blew warm well into the evening. I think of all the things that surprised me. I would never have guessed the most popular spectator sport along the US-Mexico border was hockey (Go Bucks!), or that Laredo's most lavish and axiously anticipated annual civic celebration was George Washington's Birthday. Nor was I aware words like "greibi" and "sonovabiche" were common nouns in a uniquely eloquent and endlessly inventive language called Spanglish.

But once these recollections are filed away in memory, my mind drifts to the most important thing my year-long sojourn in Laredo taught me. I think about what a sad, cruel, stupid hoax this country's so-called "illegal immigration problem" is. More than Satanic daycare cults, marauding teenage "superpredators," impending Social Security collapse, or any other pseudo-crisis of our day, the "broken borders" issue is all about political posturing and has zero to do with serious policy proposals. It is pure political theater, of the most base and vulgar kind. Except that on this stage, when Brutus lunges with his dagger, he really does draw blood.

To live in Laredo is to confront the business end of America's border control apparatus face to face every day. Border Patrol (BP) SUVs are a more common sight on Laredo's streets than police cruisers. BP choppers clop-clop-clop back and forth across the sky, day and night, endlessly. You cannot drive away from Laredo more than fifteen miles in any direction without stopping at a BP checkpoint. BP police even meet you on the entrance ramp each time you board a plane. Yet, for all this flexing of federal law enforcement muscle, living in Laredo convinced the kind of border control Lou Dobbs and other nativists clamor for is a practical impossibility. Even if it weren't, the realization of their vision would mean catastrophe for both the US and Mexico. Spend some time in Laredo, or in any other border town, and there’s a good chance you’ll agree. It was from the heat-shimmering vantage point of Laredo, Texas that I could see, for the first time, what "securing our sovereignty" would really require at ground level.

At a minimum, it would mean stopping (and searching!) every car, every truck, and every container entering the US from Mexico. It would mean interdicting every passenger plane entering US airspace and interviewing every passenger (although seldom mentioned by the close-the-borders crowd, many "illegals" are people who flew to the US on tourist visas then simply never flew home). And it would mean erecting, and guarding, a veritable Maginot Line across almost 2000 miles of open desert. The resources this would require, in terms of money, personnel, fuel, equipment, and man-hours would make our current crisis of spiraling health care costs seem trivial by comparison.

And that is only the minimum program. What about the "illegals" already here? What about the estimated 12 million undocumented Mexicans (and others) currently picking lettuce, laying asphalt, waiting tables, and wiping white babies' butts all across the fruited plain? Now the bill just doubled; probably more than doubled. Plus, you'll need a plan to locate, capture, detain, and deport a population almost as large as that of Illinois, spread over a discontinuous land mass of almost 10 million square miles. Good luck with that. Coincidentally, 12 million is the total number of people killed during the holocaust (the more commonly cited figure of 6 million excludes non-Jews). Will Dobbs and Co. take a cue from Eichmann and ship the Bad Brown People back across the Rio Grande in cattle cars?

It will not happen. It cannot happen. It will not happen because it cannot happen.

But let's pretend it could. Let's pretend, just for a moment, that the US population at large could somehow be duped into making the sacrifices needed to realize this herrenvolk fever-dream of Fortress America. If that ever happened, they'd slam face-first into the other great contradiction of total border control: the very methods needed to achieve that level of security--all that stopping and searching, interdicting and detaining--would paralyze US-Mexico trade. Let me be clear: I am not talking here about cheap Mexican labor. I am talking about trade; the movement of saleable goods. Secure the border and, within a few weeks, US-Mexico trade will grind to a virtual halt. Within a few months, millions of dollars will be hemorrhaging from both the US and Mexican economies, with economic depression, mass unemployment, and generalized misery close behind.

And this is not just some thought experiment. Back in 1969, then-president Richard Nixon launched Operation Intercept (OI), an all-out, unilateral, charge-the-windmills effort to halt the smuggling of marijuana into the Southwestern US from Mexico. Massive law enforcement resources were brought to bear, and la frontera was effectively sealed for several weeks. OI didn’t stop too many people from getting stoned (Mexican growers simply waited out the effort, betting—correctly—it could not last; US growers stepped in during the interim and reaped a windfall). However, OI succeeded brilliantly in creating chaos along the border. As Time magazine reported: “U.S.-bound traffic on busy Mexican routes 2 and 15 backed up for miles while drivers waited as long as three hours to get thought customs. Many U.S. tourists were unwilling to put up with the delays, and many Mexicans, outraged at being ‘searched to the skin,’ joined a boycott against nearby U.S. cities.” Mexico, being the smaller, weaker partner in the bi-national relationship, suffered most. During OI, trade in Mexican border towns declined by between 40 and 75%. Had Nixon not terminated OI when he did, his get-tough policy would surely have led to a massive increase in attempts by Mexicans to escape their fate by crossing into the US illegally.

It will not happen. I cannot happen. It will not happen because it cannot happen.

Yet, the phony debate about “immigration reform” plods on. Why?



The remainder of the article will be posted no later than Sunday, Febrary 22nd, 2009.