The Death of the US-Mexico Virtual Fence 467
eldavojohn writes "A couple of years ago it was announced that the Boeing-built virtual fence at the US-Mexico border didn't work. Started in 2006, SBInet has been labeled a miserable failure and finally halted. A soon-to-be-released GAO report is expected to be overwhelmingly critical of SBInet, causing DHS Chief Janet Napolitano to announce yesterday that funding for the project has been frozen. It's sad that $1.4 billion had to be spent on the project before the discovery that this poorly conceived idea would not work."
Re:$1.4 Billion (Score:5, Informative)
Asking immigrants to follow the law and immigrate legally isn't being a xenophobe.
No, but structuring the legal immigration process so that it's darned near impossible to immigrate unless you're highly-educated is.
My wife and I have been trying for years to help a friend of hers who is a Nigerian national living in Italy come over. At one point a staffer in our congressman's office got so frustrated with the law that she actually suggested that my wife's friend come on a tourist visa and then overstay! It appears that the best legal option is the immigration lottery.
Re:Awesome (Score:1, Informative)
That would be true, except the conservatives who were pushing this before the great satan became elected to the office of president needed a hopeless cause to distract their constituents from their problems, some of which were induced by the republican-led government (like a trillion dollar unnecessary war). The current distractions are all Obama, health care, and guns. Once the republicans get back into office, they'll go back to railing against immigrants, drugs and people who aren't like "good old-fashioned red blooded americans".
Re:$1.4 Billion (Score:4, Informative)
Absolutely, those jobs will get taken by Americans - often high school students and people going to college part time. Problem is today in most cities you can't get a job as a burger-flipper as a high school student. They simply aren't available.
Similarly, if you don't manage to get a college degree and want to get a job you will find that minimum wage jobs pretty much require speaking Spanish, because all your co-workers speak nothing but Spanish. If you are bilingual and have even a little bit of experience you can be the "foreman" but of course there are only a few of those jobs available.
The work that can't be outsourced is now going to low-wage workers right here in the US. Because these people are earning 10x what they could get back home, they are willing to put up with anything to get and keep minimum-wage jobs. This isn't going to change when they become legal, voting citizens. We are building our very own slave underclass right under our noses and most people just don't care. Somehow, we are doing this to "help" the poor in Mexico. Which isn't helping at all because it just allows the upper class there to ignore the situation.
Re:$1.4 Billion (Score:1, Informative)
The source for that story is the Greek historian Herodotos.
Re:$1.4 Billion (Score:1, Informative)
This assumes that each new person is a net cost to government coffers.
That's what would happen with open borders. That's what happens now with just a broken border. Even with a good economy, there only so many jobs. Illegal aliens are exploited by employers who pay them slave wages. The only source of tax revenue from them is sales and gas taxes and the like, but at those wages, how much are they really giving back?
If that's true, then we have bigger problems than immigration.
Uh, yeah. Come to California to see it all in action, and compounded by a batshit insane state government that has effectively declared open economic warfare on anyone in the "net plus" column. Some of the corrupt antics here border on those of fascist governments of the past- openly padding their pockets, taking bribes from lobbyists and openly expressing utter contempt toward anyone who questions their corruption. Personally, I'm amazed no one has taken a shot at one of these scumbags yet. It's *that* bad.
Re:$1.4 Billion (Score:2, Informative)
Americans will do those jobs, though usually for a bit more money (which is to be expected when you have to pay those pesky income and social security taxes.)
Many illegals also pay income and social security taxes. In fact, they often pay MORE than legal residents would, because they don't dare file for the income tax refund.
Re:California Agriculture Wins Again (Score:3, Informative)
Not even the japaneese have a robot that can pick a cotton or grape field for the cost/quality that you get from a poor human
And that's just a complete fucking lie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_picker [wikipedia.org]
A cotton harvester can economically out-perform dozens of poor humans. And grape pickers aren't that far behind.
Re:$1.4 Billion (Score:5, Informative)
Each new person? No. But I would say it's safe to assume that each new illegal immigrant (undocumented worker, labor sans paper -- whatever) is.
Do a little research. In 2004, it was estimated that 15% of California's public student body were children of illegal aliens. At around 6.2 million students today, 15% (assuming the number hasn't increased) comes out at around 1 million students. At a cost of about $9k-$12k per student, That's nearly $100 billion dollars a year. JUST in educating them. That's not counting the costs in "free" or "subsidized" lunches, either. Or "free" transportation.
Do you have any idea how many people it takes to generate 100 billion in state tax revenue for California? How many people who actually aren't using fake SSNs and setting the w-2s so they get next to no income withholding?
Re:$1.4 Billion (Score:4, Informative)
To your first point, regardless of reason, is fairly broad, and I don't think anyone who argues that doesn't agree with it being overly broad, but there are many many countries that have little to no restrictions on immigration for certain classes of people. For example, anyone who is born on in Ireland has a right to be both a Republic of Ireland citizen or a British Citizen. Also the Republic of Ireland allows anyone who has grandparents or parents born in Ireland to apply for citizenship.
The whole of the EU is a immigration free zone for other EU Citizens. Someone who is a French citizen can move to Germany for whatever reason they wish.
I am an American who legally immigrated to the UK and all government forms are printed in many languages that are not even found within the EU, such as Hindi and Chinese. Legal, illegal and asylum seeking immigrants to the UK have the right to demand services in their native language. While admittedly not everyone agrees with it, there are a many other countries that aren't so openly hostile to immigrants.
Re:$1.4 Billion (Score:5, Informative)
"Name one other country that allows anyone to cross into its borders regardless of the reason."
Like, almost every other country that isn't having a religious-xenophobic-hyperventilating-freak-out episode, to be frank. For almost the entire existence of our country (and my life) we could travel from the US to Canada and back with no documentation and no questions asked. Worked perfectly fine, and at low cost.
Re:It's sad that $1.5 billion (Score:5, Informative)
It's sad that $1.5 billion had to be spent to try and protect honest God-fearing Americans from poor Mexicans who wanted to pick our fruit for below minimum wage.
There, fixed that for ya.
Re:$1.4 Billion (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Awesome (Score:3, Informative)
Minor nitpick, but the U.S. produces more than "a little oil". It's the third largest oil producer in the world [doe.gov], behind Saudi Arabia and Russia, and produces more than Canada and Mexico combined (2 of the 3 biggest suppliers of U.S. oil imports, Saudi Arabia is the 3rd).
In terms of historical oil production, google came up with this chart [wikimedia.org] which I was going to link to initially and shows a rather steep decline. But it contradicts the DOE's own chart [doe.gov] even though it cites the DOE as a source. So I'm guessing the wiki chart is wrong and uses figures massaged by a peak oil advocate.
Re:$1.4 Billion (Score:1, Informative)
Not saying it isn't a problem, but dude...check your math:
15% of 6200000 students = 930000 students
Average cost per student in CA ~$8500 (http://www.ed-data.k12.ca.us/Articles/article.asp?title=California%20comparison) for a total cost of $7.9B *not* close to $100B.
You are off by more than 1 order of magnitude.
Most estimates are that the state of CA spends ~10B total supporting illegals. A lot of money for sure, but the state budget this year is around $85B after slashing close to $50B since the recession began. Getting rid of all illegal children from the schools would be a drop in the bucket toward fixing the state budget.
Re:Awesome (Score:3, Informative)
In terms of historical oil production, google came up with this chart [wikimedia.org] which I was going to link to initially and shows a rather steep decline. But it contradicts the DOE's own chart [doe.gov] even though it cites the DOE as a source. So I'm guessing the wiki chart is wrong and uses figures massaged by a peak oil advocate.
Nice assumption, but you know what they say about assumptions. The DOE chart shows "petro" values declining from a peak of 11M barrels in 1983-ish, while the Wikimedia chart shows a decline from about 9M barrels in 1985-ish. This should indicate to you that the DOE chart includes petrochemicals that are not oil - like LNG [wikipedia.org] and coal.
Oh, and check the DOE's raw data [doe.gov] for a chart that is specific to crude oil, that lines up pretty much exactly with Wikimedia chart.
Re:Why didn't the virtual fence work? (Score:5, Informative)
60 Minutes did a story on this system a few months ago. As best I recollect:
1) The initial plan was vague. If you don't have an actual plan, then you won't ever have to call call the project done. This is good for Boeing, bad for the people paying the bills.
2) They finally decided that the plan would be that computers and cameras should surveil the area between towers, and, alert the people running the dispatch center of suspicious activity. "Suspicious activity" = people in the area. No person would be walking in these areas unless they were trying to cross the border illegally.
3) Boeing designed and delivered the initial system. THEN sat down the dispatch people at the consoles. Who promptly said it sucked and was worthless. You heard that right: Boeing did NOT bother to bring in the users who would use the system during the design phase. Also, it was here that the 'discovery' was made that the optics and cameras were WAY more expensive than Boeing originally said (because a web-cam is one thing, and camera that can resolve a clear picture at two miles is another). Of course, better optics means (a lot) more data (which the networks couldn't handle), larger storage requirements for the DVR, etc.
4) Re-work time.
5) Finally the trial tests. Oops. The heat seeking portion doesn't work in the heat of a desert. The radar kept triggering on wind-blown bushes and the occasional Rocket J. Squirrel. The radar didn't work for people sized targets in the rain. If you are a group of bad guys and see that that the camera is swiveling toward you, freeze for a bit (drop to your hands and knees and pretend to be the authorized Bullwinkle J. Moose). The camera will move on. The electronics equipment couldn't handle the heat. The electronics equipment couldn't handle the dust. The dust clogged gear was on the wrong end of very tall / difficult to climb towers.
6) In-truck computers. The Border Patrol was supposed to chase down people being guided by laptops hooked back to base. Except it is essentially impossible to drive around in the (extremely bumpy) desert AND work a computer at the same time.
Did I mention that a single World-War One style trench subverts the whole thing?
Nine towers and 28 miles in, the problems seem insurmountable. Boeing keeps saying they could deliver a system that works though. Just throw gobs more billion at it.... It's a 2,000 mile border.