Mexico Trucker Online

It might be the wall that never was.

Last month, President Bush signed the Secure Fence Act of 2006 authorizing the construction of a 700-mile fence along a third of the U.S.-Mexico border. It was an event worthy of scads of news releases and an impressive White House photo-op.

Two weeks ahead of an election, it was also well-timed fanfare.

The problem with this picture is twofold.

For one, legislation creating this fence was passed, but there’s no money to back it up. Some estimates put the cost between $4 billion and $8 billion, of which only an initial $1.2 billion has been appropriated.

Second, Congress missed a golden opportunity to address the equally important issue of immigrant labor. Lawmakers could have sculpted some form of guest worker program to go along with their get-tough approach to our borders.

Instead, Congress took the easy road. Members passed only the part of “comprehensive immigration reform” that sells emotion and buys votes.

Interestingly, a Department of Homeland Security report released Monday indicates that federal agents arrested fewer illegal immigrants trying to enter the country in fiscal year 2005.

The reported drop from 1.2 million arrests to 1.1 million arrests was the first decrease since 2003. Over the past year, the department added nearly 2,000 Border Patrol agents and upped security infrastructure, including cameras and sensors.

According to the Washington Post, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff fudged on whether the 700-mile fence would be built. Instead, he spoke of increasing the presence of electronic and vehicle barriers in the next three to six years.

“I think our ultimate view is that we want to have a virtual fence across the entire border,” Chertoff said.

If what we’re doing now is working, why do we need an additional 700 miles of unfunded fence?

Even Chertoff acknowledges that the fence isn’t really a solution.

“Without a temporary worker program, getting control of the border by the end of 2008 would be very, very difficult,” Chertoff said.

To his credit, Bush has continued to press for a guest worker program. In a speech the day he signed the bill, he said such a plan would reduce pressure along the border.

“Willing workers ought to be matched with willing employers to do jobs Americans are not doing,” Bush said.

In fact, border security and immigrant labor should be seen as two sides of the same coin, sort of like Operation Hold the Line meets Operation Mow the Lawn.

In a meetings this week, the Mexican ambassador to the United Nations said both countries are missing a timely opportunity for change. With a host of baby boomers approaching retirement age, the need for younger workers is going to spike during the next few years.

Now’s the time to fashion workable, streamlined “circularity of labor” between the world’s first and 12th largest economies, Enrique Berruga Filloy said.

Instead, U.S. businesses are outsourcing jobs and the government is constructing fences — actual and philosophical — back home.

The fact is, we need Mexican labor, whether or not we’re willing to admit it.

And, please, the scapegoating is getting old: illegal immigrants suck the economy dry, illegal immigrants don’t pay their fair share, illegal immigrants don’t want to assimilate, etc.

You want to stem illegal immigration? Call your congressman (or congresswoman) and senators and tell them to crack down on employers who hire and benefit from illegal labor.

Tell them to pass a guest worker program that allows for an orderly transfer of labor from Mexico.

Hold them, and yourself, accountable. Because this “problem” didn’t happen overnight. It happened because all of us are willing to look the other way when it comes to immigrant labor, but we’re quick to point the finger when it comes to border security.