Want to secure your borders? Heres a state of the art model to look at:
-- First, a razor wire fence;
-- Then a road for vehicle patrols;
-- Another fence that sends out an alarm when it is cut;
-- A 400 foot gap covered with motion sensors and night vision cameras (the Soviets had a similar strip along their western border, which they would rake every morning and then have patrols look for footprints during the day - of course, they also used mines);
-- Finally, another fence with more sensors.
This is what Israel plans to put around Gaza after its withdrawal, to prevent infiltration by terrorists. The cost is about $2.3 million per mile. For the 2000-plus mile U.S. southern border, the cost of this would get close to $5 billion, and the cost would more than double for a similar system on the longer northern border.
The Border Patrol Service (part of DHS) has been increased in size several times since 2001, but the steady growth in the number of patrols and sensors has not stopped the flow of immigrants (and its worth asking whether it best serves the national interest to stop immigrants coming to the U.S. for economic reasons, as opposed to blocking illegal crossings by terrorists and criminals).
A high tech fortified border might cost too much even for the U.S., suggesting that in this case, a solution is likely to require coming up with better immigration rules rather relying only on more patrollers and a technological fix.
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