June 17, 2008 7:06 AM

An incredibly thoughtful look at border security (guest post)

Whether you agree with advocates for undocumented immigrants or not, this piece just posted by Duke over at Sanctuary is worth reading. It's one of the most thoughtful pieces I've read outlining the underlying economic forces behind the current immigration situation and the flaws in current plans for "securing the border," and it links to a host of useful resources on the issue.

Highlights include this astute analysis of the effect of NAFTA on Mexican peasants and workers:

NAFTA, while bringing trade and investment to Mexico, has had unintended negative consequences on both sides of the border for working people and the poor. Whole segments of the US manufacturing sector have been relocated to Mexico resulting in job loss for US workers. At the same time, the lifting for trade restrictions in Mexico have allowed cheaper US commodities to enter the country, decimating Mexican agricultural markets and throwing millions of small farmers out of business. Additionally, the availability of even cheaper labor sources in places like China has forced manufacturing wages to go down.

I would add to the causes of declining wages in the Mexican industrial sector the typical trend of prices outpacing wages that happens in most developing countries as free trade policies enable foreign investors to take a disproportionate share of newly generated wealth, a phenomenon that is also not too uncommon in the developing world, as David points out in a recent HuffPost piece on NAFTA.

As for the failings of border security:

Anti-immigration advocates continually point to the supposed success of the 14 mile border wall in San Diego as their model for effective border security, underestimating it's costs while touting it's effectiveness. Spokesmen like Tom Tancredo have often claimed that the wall had only cost $1million a mile to build and Duncan Hunter has championed the changes the wall had made in the San Diego area in regards to the flow of undocumented migrants. What none of the immigration hawks mentioned was the fact that the original 14 mile wall did absolutely nothing, and that it took millions of dollars of additional resources and manpower to make it even reasonably effective.

This is to say nothing of the loss of human life that has been caused by the re-routing of the flow of migration patterns from safe urban areas to desolate and dangerous wilderness areas. Or the racist backlash that the sudden influx of immigrants into Arizona, the new route of choice, has caused in that state. Clearly, the policy of border security needs a lot more thought than the simple "we need to start by securing the border" sound byte that every politician, Democrat or Republican, is spewing in their stump speeches right now.

Agree with him or not (and I know many readers of this site will disagree), Duke raises a host of important arguments that are important to consider as we think through how to move forward in reforming our broken immigration system.