How to secure the border, for real

You can tell a lot just by who others associate themselves with,

Too bad we can't send Obama to Mexico and leave him there!! While we're at it how about a bunch of Democrats also!

— Alan-375568

I was thinking along those lines too!

Landmines would solve the problem in a hurry alright.

General,

Massive overkill is exactly what we need. The problem is that you're thinking of it as a police matter and not as a war. The words "deter" and "arrest" tell me that clearly. If they are arrested, they go to court and simply bond out. Then, under the system we use now, they have achieved exactly what they wanted. They're in the country and out of custody. After that, a name change is easy. If you hold them in custody, you not only overcrowd the jails but you increase the expense. I would submit that a DMZ situation is precisely what we want and, if you remove the cost of holding and trying them, it's actually cheaper than your solution. Remember that war is only partly physical. The remainder is psychological and the deterrence that you like is best accomplished by a massive show of force. Given that employers will be strongly discouraged from hiring (jail sentences will accomplish that) so that you won't have a job waiting anyway, which would discourage you from trying to cross; a polite arrest, detention and being shipped home or coming up to the fence and seeing the bodies of the last group that tried to get through? As far as the Javelinas and Coyotes are concerned, neither are exactly endangered species down there. Just replace the mines that got them.

AND BECAUSE OF THAT A DMZ AT THE BORDER IS NEVER GONNA HAPPEN....

General, you know as well as I do that no system that works will ever be implemented by the people who are in Washington. The solution to that is to replace those who are now in Washington with some people who have a little backbone

Think of it as a form of "catch and release" fishing, but we aint catching fish...

That's the problem; I do identify it with catch and release fishing where you simply catch the same fish over and over. We're not in a game to catch them over and over.

However, a much less drastic approach that is just as effective at securing the border would have a MUCH better chance in Washington and with the people too, wouldn't you agree??

I would very much agree with the less drastic approach if it were just as effective but it's not even close. Neither system would have any chance in Washington until we clean house there.

One more thing, a few temporary jail systems could be made out there in the desert right there at the border with a fully stocked crime lab truck at each one using the latest technology to identify the prisoners...The "hold time" for the prisoners while they are being identified shouldn't be more than a few days...The "keepers" go straight to jail and the "rejects" get tossed back over the border to find their way back home....

I can just see that one happening. Fifteen minutes after your system was set up the ACLU would be all over you in a federal court. Not only would you be tied up in court for years at enormous expense but there would be no tent cities. They would be labeled concentration camps and the outcry would be bigger than the one about Gitmo. Really, the system you propose is no different in concept than the one that's been there for years. All you have really called for is that they actually carry it out with increased personnel and equipment. The only problem with that is that it hasn't worked yet and has no real prospect of working in the future. The system I'm proposing would work, it would be brutal but it would work. No prisoners or camps for the ACLU to get their hooks into in court, just a line of bodies along the fence to be buried. Nothing there for the protesters to focus on and fairly quick results.

because of the women and kids that cross the border,

What mother is going to be stupid enough to deliberately lead her kids into a minefield? The only reason they come across now is because they consider the risk to be acceptable. Once they understand that the risk they will face is 100% certain death, they won't try.

Not trying to be confrontational either guy. We both want the same thing, to have the border sealed and the invasion stopped. A tent city is a concentration camp when the "news" media says it is and they don't want the border sealed. By the way, I don't think that they need to die to be deterred; I know that they need to be under threat of death to be deterred (nothing else will stop them) and that the threat must be demonstrated to be real. Your method is excellent if what you want to do is recycle illegals across the border and back again. If you ship them home, they will be back trying again within a week. We know that because that's what happens now. Either way, I'm very interested in the result of the poll. It will tell me whether America (or at least this piece of it) is really interested in sealing the border or whether they're willing to surrender the border in order not to have to make the tough choices.

General,

After they get thrown out, they'll get back in the same way they did the first time. They'll simply slip through the cracks. You said yourself that they can't catch everyone. The ones that do get caught will simply keep trying over and over and over until they do get through since all you're going to do to them is ship them back. That's how the ones coming through to steal jobs will do it. The drug dealers will simply put people up close with grenades and "poof"; no more outpost. To man outposts like that with odds of 500 to 1 against you, it is essential to have something lethal between you and the 500. Otherwise, the soldiers you put there will either be useless or dead.

General,

I thought the same thing about interlocking fields of fire keeping them away without mines until four VC got within 20 yards of my position in broad daylight. If my spotter hadn't seen the guy moving to prep the grenade, I'd be dead right now. If you insist on going by cop rules and making arrests, your .50's are useless since the rules of engagement won't let you fire. What you're talking about is a defensive perimeter without mines or wire and without being allowed to fire unless fired upon. The best way to beat such a setup is simply to flood it. All your soldiers would be allowed to do would be to report what they've seen. Can you really imagine any politician giving permission to open fire on even a large group that is not firing on the soldiers? What they will see will be a very large number of people going through all at once. Once through the line, the people will scatter by prearrangement into many small groups. Once they've scattered, it would take 10,000 men to round them up. The trick there is waiting until you can push 500 to 1,000 people through all in a short period of time. They do not attack the posts at all, they simply pour between them and give them no excuse to open fire. On the other side there would be vehicles waiting at prearranged points at prearranged times to pick up those who made it through. Of a thousand people going through all at once, my estimate (depending, of course on terrain and alertness) would be that perhaps half would make it. There simply wouldn't be enough people there fast enough to stop them. If scouting showed that there were enough people in a particular place to stop them, they would just be sent somewhere else. Besides, those who didn't make it the first time would be back in Mexico ready to try again with the next group within a short time. Do you think that the coyotes who run the illegal traffic aren't capable of doing that?

By the way, the effective range of a .50 cal. M-2 heavy machine gun is 1250 yards. An M-60 is a general purpose .30 cal. machine gun. I completely see how three nests can repel an attack ONCE THEY HAVE DETECTED IT AND OBTAINED PERMISSION TO FIRE. From the time at which an infiltrating grenade attack is detected to the time it is complete is between five and ten seconds.

I really do think that your thinking is very good on this subject. You have a plan that would work very well if there were unlimited personnel and if the politicians would ever allow you to open fire. The minefield idea would also give politicians great pause but at least we know that it would work and work quickly before the protests could be organized.

Not a bad idea at all as a more permanent solution to the problem. One addendum though:

couldnt be eligible for any welfare, medicare, social security benefits, or any other U.S. government program for AT LEAST 20 years if they joined our country.

Add voting in national elections to that although voting within their state elections would be OK. That would let us know when the corruption had been eliminated.