Landmine Plan Trumps Border Troops and Fencing
by Joel Hagen
Yuma, Ariz. - Thousands of illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexican border in hopes of a better life through low-paying jobs will face new challenges once plans to enact another border protection bill are enacted. Recent months have seen proposals of fencing along key areas of the 1,950-mile border and an increase in National Guard troops in support roles. Those plans have been scrapped for another technology - landmines.
Although illegal in many areas of the world, the U.S. Department of State announced in 2004 a refusal to sign the Mine Ban treaty "because its terms would have required us to give up a needed military capability." White House officials are already pointing out the prudence of this earlier move.
"Land mines are cheap, as much as $3 to produce, making this policy much more cost effective than the $1.9 billion required to fund 6,000 troops for a limited time, not to mention the cost of fencing" said Tony Snow, White House press secretary. "In addition, mines last longer. Mines from WWII are still brutally maiming and killing civilians today."
"We don't think you mine the entire border," said Snow, but he added, "there are places where mines are appropriate."
Cost is key for many previous opponents of Bush's plan to grant legal status to some immigrants. Representative James Sensenbrenner, who drafted HR 4437, a bill that would turn illegal immigrants into felons along with welfare and church workers who would attempt to aid them, is fully behind the new plan.
"I'm even willing to grant legal status to those immigrants that do get through once the mines are in place," he said. "If that isn't paying for the right to be an American, I don't know what is. Except perhaps being born here."
Businesses such as Halliburton are already using cheap Iraqi laborers to locate and transport some of the 117,634 landmines placed in Iraq and Kuwait during the 1991 Gulf War.
C. Stewart Verdery Jr., an adjunct fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, agrees that landmines will also solve other problems. "The landmines will save costs on detention beds for the many apprehended illegal immigrants along the border, which are already seeing overpopulation," he said.
Early reports are rumored in Washington to add a second line of border protection behind the landmines - nuclear waste.
"By lacing the border with nuclear waste, we solve both storage problems and problems identifying illegal immigrants that may get through the minefield unscathed," Snow said.
Employers will be able to spot illegal immigrants by their lack of body hair, fatigue, vomiting and uncontrollable bleeding in the mouth. Sensenbrenner said the sterility caused by radiation poisoning will also be a boon in saving on costs associated with large immigrant populations.