A Case Study in the Outsourcing of U.S. Border Control

[Spartan1980]

OK since you don't like that source, how about the NYT?

That moment has arrived. The country is now unable to provide either the necessary humanitarian relief for desperate migrants or even basic controls on the number and nature of who is entering the United States.

The immigration courts now have more than 800,000 pending cases; each one takes an average of 700 days to process. And because laws and court rulings aimed at protecting children prohibit jailing young people for more than 20 days, families are often simply released. They are dropped off at downtown bus stations in places like Brownsville, Tex., where dozens last week sat on gray metal benches, most without money or even laces on their shoes, heading for destinations across the United States.

At the current pace of nearly 100,000 migrants each month, officials say more than a million people will have tried to cross the border in a 12-month period. Some of those arriving today will have a strong legal case to stay under international refugee treaties and federal asylum laws, but most won’t have a formal asylum hearing until 2021.

The flow of migrant families has reached record levels, with February totals 560 percent above those for the same period last year. As many as 27,000 children are expected to cross the border and enter the immigration enforcement system in April alone. So crowded are border facilities that some of the nearly 3,500 migrants in custody in El Paso were herded earlier this month under a bridge, behind razor wire.

In recent days, officials have grasped for ever-more-dire ways to describe the situation: “operational emergency”; “unsustainable”; “systemwide meltdown.”

One top official said simply: “The system is on fire.”

More here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/u...er-mexico.html

Whether you like it or not, and we can debate on methods, legislation, technology, BP and immigration court staffing levels, and all the other minutia, but we've been doing that for 50 years. There's no longer time for social experimentation. We are no longer able to throw stuff at the wall to see if something sticks. The one thing we haven't really gave an honest try in the past is a wall. Trump called it when he was running. You guys are going to have to eat your crow at some point. The question that remains is are we going to have a country left?

[HCM]

OK since you don't like that source, how about the NYT?


Whether you like it or not, and we can debate on methods, legislation, technology, BP and immigration court staffing levels, and all the other minutia, but we've been doing that for 50 years. There's no longer time for social experimentation. We are no longer able to throw stuff at the wall to see if something sticks. The one thing we haven't really gave an honest try in the past is a wall. Trump called it when he was running. You guys are going to have to eat your crow at some point. The question that remains is are we going to have a country left?

I’m all for border security and I want that 5 billion era marked for the wall spent on things that will result in ACTUAL border security, not the APPEARANCE of border security.

What I don’t want is a to be 5 years down the road with a shiny wall some people are climbing over while others come on boats along the gulf coast (which is how it will play out). AND that 800k court back log now at 1.5 million and a 1400 day processing time for cases. Not to mention the current back log of outstanding deportation orders doubling as well.

We have been building fencing since the late 1990s. It a tactic that works in certain places, notably urban areas like San Diego and El Paso but it works by funneling traffic to other areas where they are easier to catch. That still leaves the issues of consequences and post arrest logistics.

If you think a wall is going magically stop all (or even a majority) of illegal border crossings like a tourniquet cutting off blood flow you are living in a fantasy land.

A wall may change how and were illegal entries happen but it will “stop” nothing and it will take years to do it. An effective wall along the entire US border is a 10-15 year project. As you said we don’t have that kind of time.

Trumps call for a wall is a great sound bite from a political / marketing point of view but in reality it’s bullshit.

In fairness to trump did try to imposes consequences in the form of 100% prosecution of illegal entries but that was spun into “family separation” which was a collateral effect of prosecution. The fact that kids get turned over to child protective services every day when their parents get arrested was lost - a big political /marketing / media fail by the Trump administration.

I am talking about putting money into things we can 1) Do now or in the immediate future and 2) will not be tied up in years of litigation by a “Hawaii” or “San Francisco” Judge.

[TGS]

Whether you like it or not, and we can debate on methods, legislation, technology, BP and immigration court staffing levels, and all the other minutia, but we've been doing that for 50 years. There's no longer time for social experimentation. We are no longer able to throw stuff at the wall to see if something sticks. The one thing we haven't really gave an honest try in the past is a wall. Trump called it when he was running. You guys are going to have to eat your crow at some point. The question that remains is are we going to have a country left?

The conditions outlined in that article are due to a failed enforcement system, not due to the lack of a wall.

You're attributing those conditions to the lack of a wall, without admitting to the fact that our enforcement system is hamstrung. Walls won't make a difference when the EWIs climb the wall just to be picked up by the waiting greenshirts on the other side who are forced to parole them into America pending adjudication of their claims.

What HCM, myself, and many other LEOs want to happen isn't to "throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks". That's actually what you're trying to do. What we want to do is to actually act on our legislated statutes, so that the enforcement system has teeth. We want the courts to be staffed properly so that we can actually prosecute people for their crimes against the American people, and so the immigration courts can actually deport people in a sane manner. We don't want asylees paroled into the US when their claim is obviously bogus, like when they put down an address/relative they're going to stay with being the same fucking name/address that the other 500 people who got rolled up that day also put down. What I want to happen is illegal immigrants who steal American identities to actually do time for it, instead of every USAO turning it down due to ridiculously high thresholds because there's way more work to handle than there are AUSAs and docket space.

How about enforcing the fucking laws? Now THAT is something we haven't tried in the past.

[Joe in PNG]

A wall without guards is just a source of unauthorized building material. I'm sure there's a few Mexican villages that would be happy to recycle any unwatched sections.

If there's not enough people to actively guard the thing, it's a waste of money.

[Borderland]

There are areas right now where the wall is several hundred feet from the border. Which means that illegals step foot on US soil, go to the barrier and wait for a BP bus ride to a holding facility where they are processed and released because there isn't any place to hold them.

That will also be the case with many new sections of a wall. There are area where roads can't be built and a road is necessary to build, patrol and maintain the wall. If you look at any sections of the existing wall you will notice a road in close proximity to the wall.

The problem here isn't catching or stopping the illegals. Mostly they just step foot on US soil and wait for the bus. No sense striking out across the desert and risking death when your main objective is to request asylum.

The money needs to be spent on more BP agents, judges and a streamlined system of evaluation and deportation if it warrants. If they don't warrant deportation then give them legal status and put them to work in Trumps resorts.

[HCM]

An exemplar of “infrastructure” being an obstacle vs a barrier.

https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/local-m...V57eh9L7FyjqWI

Large Group Undeterred by Infrastructure West of Lukeville

[Borderland]

An exemplar of “infrastructure” being an obstacle vs a barrier.

https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/local-m...V57eh9L7FyjqWI

Large Group Undeterred by Infrastructure West of Lukeville

Looks like a drop off and pick up point. I wonder if they have a set schedule.

There is no high barrier in that area. The same is true for the border east of Lukeville. Mostly just a fence or vehicle barrier. That's the area where the BP could us some help with a high barrier but it still wouldn't stop them, just slow them down a few minutes. Once over or under the barrier they just sit down and wait for the BP bus so really what's the point? They end up here anyway.

Most of the illegals in this country came here legally and overstayed their visa.

[HCM]

Looks like a drop off and pick up point. I wonder if they have a set schedule.

There is no high barrier in that area. The same is true for the border east of Lukeville. Mostly just a fence or vehicle barrier. That's the area where the BP could us some help with a high barrier but it still wouldn't stop them, just slow them down a few minutes. Once over or under the barrier they just sit down and wait for the BP bus so really what's the point? They end up here anyway.

Most of the illegals in this country came here legally and overstayed their visa.

Visa overstays are a significant issue but not a majority of the over all population of illegals. Departure control is also something we have never had a good handle on.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbc...1.html%3famp=y

Given how poor our departure control system is there are many entries without matching departures and vice versa so I am always skeptical of the numbers but there is no denying it is a significant issue.

[GuanoLoco]

OK since you don't like that source, how about the NYT?


Whether you like it or not, and we can debate on methods, legislation, technology, BP and immigration court staffing levels, and all the other minutia, but we've been doing that for 50 years. There's no longer time for social experimentation. We are no longer able to throw stuff at the wall to see if something sticks. The one thing we haven't really gave an honest try in the past is a wall. Trump called it when he was running. You guys are going to have to eat your crow at some point. The question that remains is are we going to have a country left?

If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

“The Wall” is a purely political device designed to make an easily misled subset of the population believe that Trump has a simple solution to a far more complex problem. He doesn’t, and frankly the only thing happening is that he is making the situation worse.

The unintended consequence of his carrying on about a wall, closing the border, the country is ‘full’, etc. has been to drive up demand to emigrate to the US ‘right now’ before the opportunity is lost. I was listening to a piece today where south american smugglers were actually running radio adds playing off Trump’s public statements to drum up business with the fearful and easily misled.

The whole thing sounds an awful lot like the movement to “buy your AR-15’s NOW before Obama bans them.”

[Borderland]

If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

“The Wall” is a purely political device designed to make an easily misled subset of the population believe that Trump has a simple solution to a far more complex problem. He doesn’t, and frankly the only thing happening is that he is making the situation worse.

The unintended consequence of his carrying on about a wall, closing the border, the country is ‘full’, etc. has been to drive up demand to emigrate to the US ‘right now’ before the opportunity is lost. I was listening to a piece today where south american smugglers were actually running radio adds playing off Trump’s public statements to drum up business with the fearful and easily misled.

The whole thing sounds an awful lot like the movement to “buy your AR-15’s NOW before Obama bans them.”

Trump is absolutely the best incentive for anyone in the northern triangle to try to make it to the US before they erect more barriers and shut off immigration to those seeking asylum. More than likely why the numbers are way up in the last month. If he could just shut his mouth (which he can't) and work with congress the situation might improve but as it stands now nothing is moving except thousands of people trying to get in under the wire.

I guess he thinks they don't have news service and twitter in those SH countries.

Trump, the greatest illegal immigration promoter of the decade.

His real estate promotion experience has served him well. It's all very a very calculated ruse to get reelected.