The holes in Thomas Shattuck's article "Border security is counterproductive" are about as gaping as those in our southern border.

To begin with, Shattuck assumes that the sole reason for cracking down on employers who hire illegal aliens is to prevent worker abuse and that "Firing well over 1,000 skilled [illegal immigrant] workers does not help anyone…"

In fact, the enforcement of employer-sanctions laws helps American workers, particularly those who are most needy.

In a report published in 2008, Harvard economist George Borjas found that illegal immigrants cost Arizonans at least $1.4 billion in lower wages in 2005. His analysis confirmed that cracking down on employers who hire illegals would help protect and even increase wages in Arizona, especially among low-income workers.

Next, Shattuck states,"Immigration law exists to prevent worker abuse, the dissemination of restricted substances across national borders, and help stabilize communities."  …AND, Shattuck forgot to mention, to reduce the extraordinary crime rates that come with illegal immigration.

In 2005, the Government Accountability Office conducted a study of 55,322 (of the estimated 270,000) illegal aliens who were incarcerated in 2003. In total, they were arrested 459,614 times, averaging 8 arrests per illegal for a sum of about 700,000 criminal offenses, averaging 13 offenses per illegal. How does this happen? Due to the lack of border security, even if illegal alien criminals are deported, they are easily able to cross back. Some are even arrested with their federal prison ID still in their pockets.

Shattuck also dismisses the threat of terrorists crossing the border as somehow mitigated by "open stretches of desert" that are difficult to cross. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, however, approximately 850,000 illegal aliens crossed the border annually between 2000 and 2006.  One would assume that if they could traverse the desert, terrorists, most of who come from desert regions, could too.
Shattuck does address the drug cartels briefly, stating that the "crackdown on immigration and drugs has hardly affected the cartels…" If this is the case, why decrease border security? It seems this claim would dictate the opposite, especially given the increasing amount of crime associated with these cartels. A report released last year by the Congressional Quarterly Researcher states, "The cartels already effectively control significant stretches on the Mexican side of the border, and now they're expanding activities on the U.S. side, including kidnapping Americans. More than 5,300 people — gangsters, soldiers, police, journalists and other civilians — have been killed this year [2008], more than double last year's toll. Some victims have been beheaded."
 
Given that this is the case, why give these thugs free reign? Rather than enabling crime and harming Americans' wages, I suggest we do what it takes to gain control of the border. This could include bringing home some of the National Guard (which seems more like the inter-National Guard these days) from the Middle East and having them assist with border security, as was done with the immensely successful Operation Jump Start from 2006 to 2008. Also, we could extend the current border fence and perhaps add a second layer.
 
If there are indeed labor shortages (which I find hard to believe given that our unemployment rate is at a 26-year high), as the thrust of Shattuck's argument seems to suggest, why not simply increase the legal immigration rate? This way, we would know who is in our country, while ensuring that workers aren't abused. Additionally, we could target immigrants who are actually needed, rather than allowing non-citizens to compete for jobs and effectively decrease the wages of those Americans most in need.

I agree with Shattuck that "Traditional border policy can no longer be considered efficacious," but believe we should respond by increasing border security in order to prevent crime, thwart the drug cartels, and protect American citizens' wages and jobs.
 
—Devin Saucier is a junior in the College of Arts and Science. He can be reached at devin.r.saucier@vanderbilt.edu.