random rants and references

Reading two articles in today's Washington papers suggests a neat market-based opportunity for protecting the borders from terrorist infiltration and getting better control over the (currently illegal) immigration of alien workers. Let's review the bidding and look for an opportunity.

President Bush would like to get an Immigrant Temporary Worker program to allow Mexicans (or others) to enter the country and work legally for short defined time periods. This could greatly reduce the amount ( and enforcement costs) of the current illegal border crossing problem; potentially allowing more border resources to be focused on terrorist infiltration. This program is not selling very well as people are concerned that it will devolve into an amnesty program with substantial social and economic costs. Perhaps, but a review of two articles in today's Washington papers suggests a some interesting facts.

The Washinton Post reports on a GSA investigation that faults border monitoring system . It seems that there are serious problems of functionality and accountability in a network of cameras and sensors installed for the U.S. Border Patrol along the Mexican and Canadian borders. : "The problems with the $239 million Integrated Surveillance Intelligence System (ISIS), which U.S. officials call crucial to defending the country against terrorist infiltrators, are under investigation by the inspector general of the General Services Administration. .....
Homeland Security officials say the ISIS network of cameras and sensors is helpful in spotting intruders and guiding border agents in hot pursuit, but needs to be expanded. It covers only a few hundred miles of the 6,500-mile Canadian and Mexican borders, and can be evaded by crossing the border where there is no ISIS gear."

Ok , we spent $239Million to cover only , maybe, 4%-5% of the border and it doesn't work very well. Does that mean that for $5-6Billion, we could cover all the border equally ineffectively (but "helpfully")? Keep that number in mind. Also note the basic fact that barriers get bypassed.

The Arizona Minuteman Project (MMP) is a volunteer effort, so it didn't cost $240Million and 8 years to learn, as the Washington times reports, that Illegal aliens dodge sentinels along border . For their first week, the MMP volunteers have reported over 300 illegal aliens to the Border Patrol for arrest. But as the article notes : " Minuteman Project volunteers, manning outposts along a 20-mile stretch of the Arizona-Mexico border, have managed to block a major corridor used by migrants headed north.
Those intent on illegally entering the United States, however, found new routes east and west of here. .....
Last year, more than 40 percent of the 1.15 million illegal aliens caught by the Border Patrol were taken into custody in this southern Arizona region, known as the Tucson sector. ...
The Sonora State Preventive Police were working with the Mexican military and Grupa Beta, a government-funded humanitarian organization, to route would-be migrants to Aqua Prieta, just across the border from Douglas, ....
Smugglers, known as "coyotes," diverted operations in the past several days to move the northbound migrants through Douglas and Nogales, ....
The smugglers make an average of $1,000 per person brought illegally into the United States, officials said. "

Once again, put up a barrier and illegal immigrants walk around it. Of course in this case, the Mexican government and its agencies helpfully assist them to do so. And the immigrant workers pay a lot for help in crossing. Is that a Border Crossing market - Could it be an opportunity?

Let's do a little math on those numbers and include that fact that the Border Patrol claims they only catch about 33% of the aliens illegally crossing the border. That would indicate that about 3.5 million aliens cross each year; and 40% of those, or about 1.4 million cross in the Tucson sector alone. If these Tucson area crossers are paying "coyotes" $1,ooo each, that's a $1.4Billion annual business (potentially $3.5Billion nationwide). Paid by would-be workers to get into the US for low wage employment, all that money goes to border criminals; none of it to us.

Why not view it as a $1.4 Billion/year market and take advantage of it to benefit ourselves as well as the market clients (alien workers) ? $1.4Billion is enough to pay for and equip, at $100K each, 14,000 border agents. But we don't need that many; the border experts want about 2000 more agents, mostly for the SouthWest. Using that $100k guestimate, 2000 agents should cost about $200Million.

Now suppose we sell aliens annual crossing privileges - with worker permits and ID's as control measures - for say $500 ? The "coyotes" are out of business; and the immigrant worker saves $500 and avoids all the risks of crossing plus the hassle of living illegally once here. The US Immigration folks make $700Million. Deducting $200Million for the 2,000 new agents (which may not be needed if we went this way), leaves $500Million/year to pay for sensor systems and anti-infiltration efforts focused on the terrorist threat. And that's just the Tucson sector.

Of, course we are only talking about 40% of the problem here; so the numbers could be a lot higher - as much as 2.5 times higher or $2.5Billion annually. At that rate, we could fully fund a nice "helpful" ISIS in two years. OK, so it's not really that big a market. But, even at a 50% reduction, it could go a long way towards solving the Mexican border and immigrant worker problem; and provide some funding to address the other social-economic problems of our long history of winking at illegal worker immigration.

So why not view the border control and temporary-worker immigration problem as a market opportunity and solve it like good free market capitalists - instead of creating a black market for criminals to exploit?