I don’t understand the big deal everyone is making about illegal aliens/immigrants in the U.S. There appears to be a very simple way to solve the problem and in order to do that we have to ignore the government idiots, media fools, and anyone else that is trying to make things more complicated.

Legal Entry

First, let’s look at how people can enter our country. It’s a simple matter of either legal or illegal entry. Legally anyone can come in through a port of entry or across the border through regular checkpoints as long as they have the proper paperwork.

That leaves the illegal entries. One might come through a checkpoint or port of entry using fake papers. One might smuggle himself in almost any way: a small airplane, a boat or ship, or in a car/van/truck across the international borders. Let’s face it, with the length of our existing borders people can just stroll across in many places.

See how easy the problem is to solve? Not yet? Okay, then let me spell it out for you. We have now brought it down to two steps: Make sure people coming through checkpoints or ports of entry are doing so legally and control the illegal entries.

Strangely enough the more difficult of the two problems is controlling entry through the ports of entry as it will require technology that may or may not exist today. We have all heard stories of how the facial recognition software used by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and FBI regularly identifies some poor slob as Osama bin Laden or some other wanted criminal. We obviously have to do some work on that.

In order to get entries under control we need only harness technology. Most police departments now use electronic fingerprinting and those prints go somewhere to be stored. Hoping that all these electronic fingerprints go to a national database, we simply have fingerprint scanners installed at every port of entry and every person coming into the country presses his/her right thumb onto a scanner.

Assuming the technology is up to it, each fingerprint is immediately compared with the national database and, if found, a pass or arrest notice is shown on the computer monitor. If not found, the individual is pulled aside and must provide full information regarding name, place and date of birth, and permanent address. Each of these is entered into the database and, the next time the person enters, (s)he is automatically cleared through.

Oh, yes, we have to remember the flight crews. Each airport has a customs impound area and, as long as they stay in there, they don’t have to be checked. If they leave that area they have to give up the fingerprint.

Note that this will make the DHS very happy as it will require more equipment and more personnel. Being a government entity, DHS will purchase the equipment at inflated prices and overpay their employees, running their budget up by a few billion dollars — something that every government agency wants.

So much for the legal entrants and controlling the ports of entry. How about the illegals that somehow come across the borders?

Stopping Illegal Entries

Realistically there are only two ways we can stop them. The method that is most commonly considered is securing or hardening the borders. In that case we have three we have to worry about. The US-Mexico border is about 1,800 miles long; the US-Canada border is about 3,425 miles long; and the Alaska-Canada border is about 1,410 miles.

[NOTE: For convenience I am rounding off all the figures using the average of values from three different sources, none of which agreed.]

Most people, when thinking of securing the border, want a wall or fence built along the entire length. Assuming that’s the solution considered you have to factor in the cost of installing the fence or wall.

We have to understand that building such a structure is not sufficient in itself. It would have to be patrolled or be under electronic surveillance. No, I’m not saying we should do the old Berlin Wall thing and put land mines along the length of the fence/wall. (Although …)

In order to discuss electronic surveillance I’m going to make a lot of guesses based on a whole bunch of assumptions. First, using the figures above, we have a total of 6,635 miles or 35,032,800 feet of borders.

What happens if someone tries to dig under our wall/fence? How about putting in seismic monitors to “listen” to such attempts? I have no idea how sensitive seismic monitors are today, but in the mid-sixties we had detection devices that were sensitive out to about thirty or forty feet. Assuming that this technology has kept pace with others, I’m going to use one hundred feet as an average. Using that figure means that each such monitor can cover two hundred linear feet. That would require 175,164 to cover our borders. At, oh, say, a hundred dollars apiece that would be $17.5 million just to buy the monitors. That does not include the installation and cost of wiring or wireless connections.

Then, cameras. Hmm, they’d have to be able to view anything within a hundred yards or three hundred feet. Day and night. Through fog and rain. That implies both visual and infrared capability. Okay, so each camera can cover about six hundred linear feet which would require 58,388 units. You and I could probably buy them for about eighty bucks each, but the government will pay ten times that resulting in $46,710,400 of our tax dollars going to purchase the cameras. Again, there is the cost of installation and cable or wireless connections.

We now have all our borders covered by seismic monitors and cameras. Hmm, we’ll have to have someone watching all these on a 24/7 basis. That will require a number of central monitoring facilities. Each one will require a considerable number of video screens and seismic monitor receivers. Watching all this will require hundreds (maybe even thousands) of people to watch them 24/7 which, in turn, will require an enormous increase in budget for the DHS — once again, an absolute heavenly situation for a government agency.

With all this we’re already up to over a billion dollars in just installation. Recurring costs will be another few hundred million or so and what do we have? If one of the monitors shows someone sneaking across the border we have to dispatch a team to handle it. Those teams, sitting around 24/7, are going to cost another few million or so each year.

Then, of course, you have to consider that a lot of the Canadian border (with both the US and Alaska) is located in topography that will be very difficult to cover on the ground. That negates or, at least, makes a quick response nearly impossible. So much for securing/hardening our borders with a fence or wall. It seems that every solution at which we arrive causes or brings up new problems. What else could we do?

Well, rather than having cameras and seismic monitors, we could just patrol the fences/walls — constantly. Going back to our guesstimate of 35,032,800 feet of borders we would need anything from 29,194 to 175,164 troops/guards to patrol the border. Why such a big difference? Assuming good weather and visibility, a guard could realistically see 600 feet ahead and behind him/her. That would be 1,200 feet divided into the length giving the lower estimate. In inclement weather you could cut that down to 100 feet ahead and behind giving us the higher number.

We’re talking hundreds of thousands of troops/guards here with an enormous cost to the government. Not something that we really want to consider in my opinion.

The Ultimate Solution

That brings us to the third and only real solution to stopping illegal aliens from sneaking into our country. And that ultimate solution is simple — shorten the borders. Instead of protecting 6,635 miles, how about we just worry about 225 miles? [Again, I'm rounding things off, so don't get down on me for being twenty-six point three inches off in my estimate.]

First, we bring Guatemala into the union as the 51st state. Being surrounded, Mexico’s individual states will then join us as our 52nd through 82nd states. Finally, we bring in Canada’s 10 provinces and 3 territories as the 83rd through 95th states making us the United States of North America, consisting of 95 states. Our only international border is between our state of Guatemala and the Central American nation of Honduras.

Just for the heck of it let’s cut a new canal connecting the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans — we already gave away the Panama Canal and, as the largest country in the world, we really should have our own. Yes, it’s almost ten times as long as the Panama Canal, but with our modern technology, it should only take a few years to do it. The bonus is that the canal will provide a very positive border that can be monitored with only cameras. At 225 miles, that’s 1,188,000 feet and should need only 1,980 cameras at, once again $800 each, for a total of $1,584,000 plus installation and wiring. There will be the same need for monitoring stations with the associated increase in budget for DHS. A benefit, though, is we won’t need the seismic monitors because there is no way someone will dig underneath it.

And that’s all it will take. Think of the obvious benefits. We can now control our one little border very easily. The democrats in congress will be in heaven as we’ll have a hundred and thirty some million new citizens that congress can tax. Of those there will probably be close to a hundred million that will need health care, social security, and welfare — again, something on which democrats love to spend our tax dollars.