Tom Kovach
Borderline math
Cameras prove that the Right is right
By Tom Kovach
A recent news item from California proves something that conservatives already know: the political Right is absolutely right about border security.
The item describes the use of an array of pole-mounted cameras to watch the heavily traveled San Ysidro area of southern California near San Diego. The area is known as the busiest land border in the world. Of course, as the cameras prove, the area is busy with border traffic that is both legal and illegal.
From the 18th of May (when the cameras went into use) until the 28th of June (when the news story aired), the Border Patrol says that 191 people were apprehended in that 5.2-mile stretch of the American-Mexican border. Keep in mind that, during those 41 days, those are the people that got caught. For many years, the Border Patrol has been compelled by the facts to admit that a certain portion (many estimates say half) of illegal border crossers are successful. But, for now, let's stick with this "documented" number.
A little quick math tells us that 191 people, divided by 41 days, is 4.65 people per day. Let's round that up to five people, because we don't want anyone trying to travel the desert with only one foot. Five people per day, along a five-mile stretch of border, equals in person per mile, per day. Now, multiply that by 2,000 miles of border, and you have 2,000 people illegally crossing our borders every day.
At this point, the Left will try to throw up a red herring by saying, "Wait! You're trying to use the statistics from the most-traveled section of the border, and apply that same level of traffic across the entire border. What about the vast, remote areas of the border?" And, on the surface, that would seem like a good argument. But, as usual, a Leftist argument is long on emotion and short on logic. So, let's dissect the Left's most available argument.
One of the reasons that the San Ysidro area was chosen for the cameras, besides the sheer volume of illegal alien traffic, is the terrain that is peculiar to that area. The terrain is pocked with gullies and washouts. Some areas resemble the moguls that are seen in ski tournaments. Because the terrain is rough, it is more difficult to catch the illegal border crossers. (First, they must be seen. Then, they must be captured.) The cameras aid the Border Patrol with only one half of the formula. The steep washouts provide hiding places for crossers on foot, and make pursuits difficult. Yet, even with these factors, an average of one person per mile apprehended every day. How many more are able to get through every day?
Remember, the above figure for apprehensions is in an urban area that has a solid fence. (Although the area pictured above is fairly desolate, other parts of the San Ysidro Valley are densely populated. Thus, the chances of blending into the population within a mile inside the fence are much greater than if one crosses the border in an unpopulated area.) Although the chances of successfully blending in after detection are greater in an urban area, the chances of successfully avoiding detection in the first place are greater in a rural area. And, hundreds of miles of the American-Mexican border are either totally without fence, or the fence is in such poor repair as to be ineffective.
The "professional" border crossers ("coyotes") know this. So, while the new cameras in San Ysidro might observe people crossing by foot, because they move slowly in the rugged terrain, there are no cameras along the vast majority of our border. And, in large sections, there is neither camera nor fence. Thus, while people crossing on foot can be observed by camera, and captured by vehicle patrols, there are much fewer resources available to catch the illegals that cross the borders — literally — by the truckload in the flat terrain of the open desert.
Therefore, any argument against multiplying the San Ysidro numbers by the total border mileage fails. Why? Because the number of people that can be packed into trucks, times the number of trucks that can drive across flat terrain with no fence, vastly outweighs the Left-wing argument that the San Ysidro numbers can't apply along the rest of the border. The coyotes might be evil, but they are not so stupid that they would prefer to cross the border near high-tech cameras and higher concentrations of Border Patrol agents. They prefer their money by the truckload, thank you. So, if anything, the formula used at the start of this column probably underestimates the total number of people sneaking into our country each day. And, remember, that number only includes those that got caught. If only half of those that attempt to get in get caught, then 4,000 people are sneaking into America every single day. Only a portion of those people are sent back across the border right away. The rest languish inside our borders, awaiting hearings, because they have "rights" once they get here. A certain portion of those detainees escape, and then stay here indefinitely.
Those on the political Left try to say that those of us sounding the alarm are inflating the numbers. But, as this column shows, the estimate of 3,000 people per day is probably quite low. And, don't forget that this process has been building up since even before the 1986 mass-amnesty law. Three thousand people per day, times twenty years of lax enforcement, equals 21,900,000 illegal aliens inside our borders. Now, if there were over 20 million people lined up on the other side of the border, poised to enter all at once, we would call it a massive invasion. We would demand that our president deploy the military immediately to repel the invaders. Instead, we sit around chortling while the TV pundits play word games, calling them "undocumented workers," or "guests." The hard reality, as proven by the new cameras on the border, is that the Right is right.
Our current president says that it is impossible to rid our country of these invaders. But, between 1776 and 1783, we managed to rid ourselves of the armed forces of the most powerful empire on Earth at the time. Between 1812 and 1815, we did it again. Between 1846 and 1848, we stopped Mexico from trying to steal Texas, then we invaded Mexico (thus driving home a point: "don't mess with Texas"), then we gave Mexico back to the Mexicans. If we can do that to the assembled armed forces of various nations that have attacked us, shouldn't we be able to rid ourselves of the mobs of poor and unorganized aliens that trickle across our borders? Or, do we have the TV up too loud to notice them stealing our jobs? Are we too glued to the couch to defend our own country? Do we not care about the blood spilled in Lexington, or Louisiana, or Laredo? Will standing up to defend ourselves become "a job that Americans won't do"?! Will the voters in November be too interested in their welfare checks to worry about their border? Will they forget about the "borderline math" presented here?
Have a happy 4th of July!
© Tom Kovach
A recent news item from California proves something that conservatives already know: the political Right is absolutely right about border security.
The item describes the use of an array of pole-mounted cameras to watch the heavily traveled San Ysidro area of southern California near San Diego. The area is known as the busiest land border in the world. Of course, as the cameras prove, the area is busy with border traffic that is both legal and illegal.
From the 18th of May (when the cameras went into use) until the 28th of June (when the news story aired), the Border Patrol says that 191 people were apprehended in that 5.2-mile stretch of the American-Mexican border. Keep in mind that, during those 41 days, those are the people that got caught. For many years, the Border Patrol has been compelled by the facts to admit that a certain portion (many estimates say half) of illegal border crossers are successful. But, for now, let's stick with this "documented" number.
A little quick math tells us that 191 people, divided by 41 days, is 4.65 people per day. Let's round that up to five people, because we don't want anyone trying to travel the desert with only one foot. Five people per day, along a five-mile stretch of border, equals in person per mile, per day. Now, multiply that by 2,000 miles of border, and you have 2,000 people illegally crossing our borders every day.
At this point, the Left will try to throw up a red herring by saying, "Wait! You're trying to use the statistics from the most-traveled section of the border, and apply that same level of traffic across the entire border. What about the vast, remote areas of the border?" And, on the surface, that would seem like a good argument. But, as usual, a Leftist argument is long on emotion and short on logic. So, let's dissect the Left's most available argument.
One of the reasons that the San Ysidro area was chosen for the cameras, besides the sheer volume of illegal alien traffic, is the terrain that is peculiar to that area. The terrain is pocked with gullies and washouts. Some areas resemble the moguls that are seen in ski tournaments. Because the terrain is rough, it is more difficult to catch the illegal border crossers. (First, they must be seen. Then, they must be captured.) The cameras aid the Border Patrol with only one half of the formula. The steep washouts provide hiding places for crossers on foot, and make pursuits difficult. Yet, even with these factors, an average of one person per mile apprehended every day. How many more are able to get through every day?
Remember, the above figure for apprehensions is in an urban area that has a solid fence. (Although the area pictured above is fairly desolate, other parts of the San Ysidro Valley are densely populated. Thus, the chances of blending into the population within a mile inside the fence are much greater than if one crosses the border in an unpopulated area.) Although the chances of successfully blending in after detection are greater in an urban area, the chances of successfully avoiding detection in the first place are greater in a rural area. And, hundreds of miles of the American-Mexican border are either totally without fence, or the fence is in such poor repair as to be ineffective.
The "professional" border crossers ("coyotes") know this. So, while the new cameras in San Ysidro might observe people crossing by foot, because they move slowly in the rugged terrain, there are no cameras along the vast majority of our border. And, in large sections, there is neither camera nor fence. Thus, while people crossing on foot can be observed by camera, and captured by vehicle patrols, there are much fewer resources available to catch the illegals that cross the borders — literally — by the truckload in the flat terrain of the open desert.
Therefore, any argument against multiplying the San Ysidro numbers by the total border mileage fails. Why? Because the number of people that can be packed into trucks, times the number of trucks that can drive across flat terrain with no fence, vastly outweighs the Left-wing argument that the San Ysidro numbers can't apply along the rest of the border. The coyotes might be evil, but they are not so stupid that they would prefer to cross the border near high-tech cameras and higher concentrations of Border Patrol agents. They prefer their money by the truckload, thank you. So, if anything, the formula used at the start of this column probably underestimates the total number of people sneaking into our country each day. And, remember, that number only includes those that got caught. If only half of those that attempt to get in get caught, then 4,000 people are sneaking into America every single day. Only a portion of those people are sent back across the border right away. The rest languish inside our borders, awaiting hearings, because they have "rights" once they get here. A certain portion of those detainees escape, and then stay here indefinitely.
Those on the political Left try to say that those of us sounding the alarm are inflating the numbers. But, as this column shows, the estimate of 3,000 people per day is probably quite low. And, don't forget that this process has been building up since even before the 1986 mass-amnesty law. Three thousand people per day, times twenty years of lax enforcement, equals 21,900,000 illegal aliens inside our borders. Now, if there were over 20 million people lined up on the other side of the border, poised to enter all at once, we would call it a massive invasion. We would demand that our president deploy the military immediately to repel the invaders. Instead, we sit around chortling while the TV pundits play word games, calling them "undocumented workers," or "guests." The hard reality, as proven by the new cameras on the border, is that the Right is right.
Our current president says that it is impossible to rid our country of these invaders. But, between 1776 and 1783, we managed to rid ourselves of the armed forces of the most powerful empire on Earth at the time. Between 1812 and 1815, we did it again. Between 1846 and 1848, we stopped Mexico from trying to steal Texas, then we invaded Mexico (thus driving home a point: "don't mess with Texas"), then we gave Mexico back to the Mexicans. If we can do that to the assembled armed forces of various nations that have attacked us, shouldn't we be able to rid ourselves of the mobs of poor and unorganized aliens that trickle across our borders? Or, do we have the TV up too loud to notice them stealing our jobs? Are we too glued to the couch to defend our own country? Do we not care about the blood spilled in Lexington, or Louisiana, or Laredo? Will standing up to defend ourselves become "a job that Americans won't do"?! Will the voters in November be too interested in their welfare checks to worry about their border? Will they forget about the "borderline math" presented here?
Have a happy 4th of July!
© Tom Kovach
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