Via WaPo we learn: Bush Set To Send Guard to Border:

Officials suggested their mission would be to play a supporting role by providing intelligence, training, transportation, construction and other functions, while leaving the actual guarding of the 2,000-mile line separating the United States and Mexico to the Border Patrol. The National Guard would be a stopgap force until the federal government could hire civilian contractors to take over administrative and support functions from the Border Patrol, freeing more agents to actually hunt for immigrants slipping into the country.

One of my first reactions is: doesn’t the Guard already have more than enough on its plate at this point in time? And, second: is this really the kind of thing that the Guard was created for and is trained to do?

From there I lapse into high cynicism: if this is a temporary, stopgap move doesn’t that indicate that this is pure politics? Is this not playing to the base that is quite upset about immigration in the context of sinking poll numbers and a pending mid-term election?

Clearly, Bush has lost control of this issue. For years he was focused primarily on the economic aspects of the issue, and was the champion of a guest-worker program. Now, all of a sudden, it has been discovered that his poll numbers are in the low thirties that there is a need for an immediate “stopgap” deployment of troops to the border to shore up the Border Patrol.

As James Joyner notes:

Our inability to prevent illegal immigrants from crossing the border virtually at will is longstanding. The impact of augmenting the border patrol for some fixed period, even if relatively effective, would end the second forces are withdrawn unless the Border Patrol is beefed up to a commensurate level in the interim.

Might I also note that we have the finest and most impressive military force in the world, if not in all of time, but they are not a catch-all tool that can be deployed to fix every problem. Rhetoric about “invasions” and “reconquests” aside, this is not a military problem. It is primarily an issue of economics and also a law enforcement problem. Of all the complicated things that it is, a military issue it is not.

Further, I would James’ post last week on this question, wherein he correctly states:

It is a bedrock principle of American politics that the military does not get involved in domestic policing under any but the gravest of conditions. Peacetime standing armies were anathema until necessitated by the enduring Cold War. We even have a provision in the Bill of Rights precluding quartering of troops in private homes.

This reluctance to politicize the military stems from the abuses seen in Europe and domestically during the Colonial era and has been reinforced time and again by observation of the developing world, where professional militaries are the only trusted institution and not infrequently assume the reins of power.

Short of an armed invasion from Mexico, it is simply bizarre to consider militarizing the border.

Kingdaddy also has a good post on this subject, in which he lists a series of potential reasons that might be motivating the President. As he notes, none of them are especially comforting.

Via Reuters” Arizona calls for crackdown as immigrants protest:

Lawmakers in Arizona, a fast-growing border state that is the biggest U.S. entry point for illegal immigrants, called for a crackdown on undocumented workers on Monday, as millions nationwide protested to demand new rights and respect for foreign residents.

Republican legislators prepared to introduce potentially one of the toughest state anti-immigrant proposals, a $100 million package that would deploy National Guard troops to the desert border with Mexico and use radar to track anyone trying to sneak across the border.

Increasingly Arizona has been a point of entry for illegal immigrants, which has causes a number of problems along the border. The irony here is that the wave of immigrants moving into AZ is the result of fortification of the California border. And, no doubt, if the Arizona border is fortified, they will start moving through New Mexico…

At any rate, there have been a large number that have used this route:

Arizona recorded more than half of the 1.2 million arrests made last fiscal year along the frontier.

If anyone has seen the Sonoran desert that covers southern Arizona into Mexico, one should have a pretty good idea of exactly how desperate these people are and therefore the massive challenge that exists in curbing the problem.

Of course, it comes down to economics:

The southwestern state has become a mecca for tourists and retirees fleeing harsh winters, and relies heavily on illegal immigrants, especially in the construction and service industries, said Tom Rex, associate director of the Center for Business Research at Arizona State University.

He said the state needs more workers. “In certain industries, we could have even offered higher wages and still would not have been able to fill those jobs,” he said.

The bill includes what is oft considered the Holy Grail on this topic: going after the employers:

The bill being prepared on Monday would include strict sanctions for employers who knowingly hire illegal workers.

This is tougher to accomplish that conventional wisdom holds. While an employer may suspect that a worker is illegal, knowing it something different. If the worker has documentation, it isn’t as if the typical contractor or agribusiness supervisor is going to be expert on documents and be able to spot phonies. And then there are the jobs that don’t require documentation at all–day labor or workers operating as sub-contractors who deal with their own taxes (or, are supposed to do so).

The Reagan amnesty in the 1980s focused heavily on employer sanctions–and all that did was create a massive document-forgery business.

If the employers have plausible deniability in the hiring of illegals, these kinds of rules aren’t as effective as they sound.

From the same NYT piece cited below (which is about the pending meeting of the chief execs of the US, Mexico and Canada), we have the following:

But it is borders that will provide the common theme for the summit meeting. Canadian officials hope to persuade Mr. Bush to ease new rules for travelers crossing the Canadian border into the United States.

The new rules would require Americans and Canadians entering the United States by air and sea from Canada to have a passport beginning Jan. 1. Travelers crossing the land border would need a passport or new travel identification card a year after that. Currently a driver’s license or birth certificate is often acceptable.

Since most Americans do not have passports, some Canadian officials, fearing a negative impact on tourism and trade, have suggested that Washington could make driver’s licenses and birth certificates more tamperproof. But it is difficult for Washington to tighten the border with Mexico without taking similar steps with Canada.

I wonder if a great debate about al Qaeda crossing the Canadian border will now erupt, or, even better, if there will be calls to militarize the frontier with the Great White North? I noted the other day that the security issue is a red herring in the current debate, so I expect that, on balance, the northern border will continue to be a footnote in the debate.

The debate–important as it is–over illegal immigrants/immigration in general from Mexico really isn’t about terrorism–although it has given an additional rhetorical layer to the debate.

Wrote Michael Barone in US News & World Report (Living With Illegals?):

Capitalism “laughs at frontiers,” wrote the French historian Fernand Braudel. The dynamic American economy has attracted illegal immigrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries to work in construction, hotels and restaurants, meatpacking, gardening and landscaping. We talk as if our immigration laws can structure our labor markets, but in practice, Congress’ task now is to get our immigration laws working in tandem with labor markets. We are not going to expel a population the size of the state of Ohio. But we shouldn’t simply acquiesce to violation of the law. We need to legalize and regularize the flow of immigrants the labor market demands.

Exactly.

(Emphasis mine).

On balance, I think that the emphasis on border security as it pertains to terrorism in the current debate is over-blown and something of a red herring. Not only has it been demonstrated that getting into the country legally is not difficult for terrorists who as so inclined to do so, I am unconvinced that the Mexican border would be the route of first choice of al Qaeda or like-minded individuals in the first place.

The busy nature of that border makes it appealing in one sense, but because of heightened awareness of drug trafficking and illegal immigrants, it is the more-observed of the borders.

If I was a terrorist seeking a land-crossing into the United States, I would probably choose Canada, as the following from QandO illustrates:Speaking of border security.

We tend to consider the Canadian border to be innocuous and safe–yet it is longer than the border with Mexico and it is essentially unguarded along huge swaths of real estate. If a terror groups was truly interested in infiltrating the US via illegal border crossings, surely the Canadian border would be more appealing.

Of course, given tourist visas and the like, I still would think that legal entry would be the method of choice.

More to the point: the terrorism/security issues is a red herring in the current debate (which is really about illegal workers and what to do with them and future such persons), as the notion that we can “control” our borders is largely a fantasy.

Here’s part of the problem: it is impossible to extract 12 million people from the US. The cost is prohibitive and the logistics a nightmare. Further, the extraction of said individuals from the economy would have a substantial effect on a number of industries, such as the produce industry in California.

These are facts, and facts are stubborn, sometimes unpleasant things. Facts often clash with the way we want reality to work.

Another fact is that the economic forces at work here, the pull of jobs and the push of Mexico’s economic underdevelopment, are more powerful than rules passed by Congress or even physical walls. At the moment those forces are sufficiently powerful to induce large numbers of persons to risk death (and to even die) in making the attempt to cross the border as it is.

If one denies these facts, one cannot formulate a feasible border/immigration policy.

Yes, in simple black and white terms, those persons in the US of whom we are speaking are here illegally, and rewarding illegal behavior should be rejected. However, reality often clashes with simple views of the world. Further, the truth of the matter is we have contradictory policies and processes in place that encourages the inflow of immigrants, both legal and illegal. To deny that economic reality is the main issue at work here is to approach this question from a perspective of total unreality.

So one can bemoan that the Senate’s willingness to pass a guest-worker program is just a capitulation to illegality (such as here, here and here) is to ignore the real forces at work here. I am not unsympathetic to the basic notion, but policy has to be practical and this is not a simple issue. As such, a guest-worker program is not a simple capitulation to illegality, it is a capitulation to reality.

Indeed, there is no way to stop the flow of illegals into the United States from Mexico short of a very serious militarization of the border (which would divert a substantial number of troops and resources that we cannot currently spare)–and it simply isn’t going to happen anyway. Further, the effects on trade that would take place under a truly “controlled” border would be economically devastating. As such, the only possible policy solution is to try and manage the border through a guest worker program, or some similar measure. And even that will not “solve” the problem.

Further, those who see this as a reconquista or some dire alteration to our country need to stop and think about what happens when integration of immigrant populations does not take place. See, for example, France (or, to a lesser, but still important degree, Germany). Isolation and xenophobia leads to far more negative consequences than what we currently have happening.

We have to acknowledge reality, and from there we need to set up policies that work to integrate these populations into US culture and society. And there is absolutely no reason that immigrants from Latin America, whose cultural foundations are not that radically different from those of the US, cannot be fully and completely integrated into one big happy US family. Anyone who lives in California, Texas, Arizona or New Mexico (and other parts of the country as well) knows that there can be an elegant and wonderful blending of things Latin into the existing culture. Further, ours has always been an evolving, malleable culture to begin with, and I think that that is a good thing.

If one is really worried about the idea of immigrants from Mexico seeking to exist in separate conclaves, and to pursue radical ideas of reconquest—then the best way to accomplish that is to tell them that they aren’t welcome, and that they should hide from the view of the rest of the country while they continue to clean the local McDonald’s or pluck chickens at the local poultry processing plant. Isolated groups are the ones that eventually cause serious problems. Groups that can integrate into the broader society are ultimately a boon to that society. One wants the children of immigrants to be vested in the United States of America, not steeped in the anger and frustration of isolated and rejected parents.

At a minimum, to make this debate into a simple issue of legality v. illegality is to wholly ignore a massive, complex issue–and not one that has simply been created by Mexicans crossing the borders in defiance of our laws.