Securing our Borders to Secure our Economy

First, how crazy are you?

I doubt any sane person believes that sleeping with their home’s front and back door wide open is wise and it is certain they wouldn’t go to work the next morning leaving their garage door open. It’s not only dangerous, the thought process involved for someone to deliberately leave their home unsecured reflects an unhealthy mind. It’s certainly no way to run a home but without adequate borders, this is what we’ve been doing with our country.

A recap of our current effort to secure our home

The Secure Fence Act of 2006 was first introduced on September 13 of 2006 by Peter T. King (R-NY). The bill called for the construction of 700 miles of physical barriers along the Mexico-United States border. Additionally, the law authorizes more vehicle barriers, checkpoints, and lighting as well as authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to increase the use of advanced technology like cameras, satellites, and unmanned aerial vehicles to reinforce our infrastructure at the border.

Border barrier consisting of double chain link and barbed wire fences with light and infrared camera poles

The bill was passed by the House of Representatives with 283 voting “for” with 138 against. Days later, the Senate passed the bill with 80 voting “for” with 19 against. Most Republicans voted in support of the Fence Act while most Democrats voted against it. In October of 2006, President George W. Bush signed The Secure Fence Act of 2006 into law.

In January of 2008 the 110th Congress introduced Reinstatement of the Secure Fence Act of 2008 (H.R. 5124). This bill called for Homeland Security to construct an additional 700 miles of two layered, 14 foot high fencing along the southwest border. The bill died in committee and was never voted upon.

By April 2009 Homeland Security had erected about 613 miles of new pedestrian fencing and vehicle barriers along the southwest border from California to Texas.

In May 2010, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) unsuccessfully reintroduced for the second time his “Finish the Fence” amendment which would require Homeland Security to construct an additional 353 miles (568 km) of fencing along the US-Mexico border.

Growing State Budget Deficits

The left continues to fail to understand that if our country does not get our borders secured, state budget deficits will continue to grow, threatening our economy and our ability to recover from the recession by further burdening taxpayers with more taxes.

For information regarding state costs of illegal immigrants and state education budget short-falls, see Breaking the Piggy Bank: How Illegal Immigration is Sending Schools Into the Red.

The IRS is an Enabler of Illegal Immigrants

As for the left’s argument that illegal immigrants pay taxes, a recent audit by the Treasury Department found that $4.2 billion per year is handed out to illegal aliens from a program called the Child Tax Credit/Additional Child Tax Credit. The study found that the IRS did not require citizenship documentation for this tax credit. This study and others also pointed to widespread fraud involving other ‘refundable tax credits’ such as the ‘First Time Homebuyer Credit’ and the ‘Earned Income Tax Credit’ which is available to low income parents, as well as identity theft involving stolen Social Security numbers.

Illegal aliens use the IRS to collect additional money from the federal government, in additional to other programs they collect from including Obamacare. The IRS should not double as a welfare program and the ‘refundable tax credit’ program should be ended entirely, but it is even more absurd for the normally strict IRS to turn a blind eye to illegal aliens collecting welfare through this system.

Governor Perry’s view on a Border Fence for America

From Julia Preston, “Some Cheer Border Fence as Others Ponder the Cost”, “The New York Times”, October 18, 2011

Perry said that building a border-length fence would take “10 to 15 years and $30 billion” and would not be cost-effective.

In 2009, the Congressional Search Service reported that the Department of Homeland Security had spent roughly up to $21 million per mile to build a primary fence near San Diego. The cost had ballooned as the fence extended into hills and gullies along the line.

The same year, Customs and Border Protection estimated costs of building an additional 3.5 miles of fence near San Diego at $16 million per mile. Even this lower figure would yield a rough projection of $22.4 billion for a single fence across the 1,400 miles remaining today.

Imagine, 22.4 billion to secure America. Contrasting this against the $787 billion Stimulus bill, which analysts are saying (as predicted) hasn’t stimulated squat, we then see we could have built a border around America just over 40 times. We don’t hear much of an outrage about the wasteful failure of the so-called “stimulus” but you will always hear the left whine over 22 billion because it’s too much money to spend to protect America.