Colon 1
Vanessa Colon
Instructor Jeff Sturges
English 101
29 September 2004
SGWA #1 Should U.S. put troops on the Mexican and Canadian borders?
“Other Options”
Approximately 250,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen are currently deployed in support of combat, peacekeeping, and deterrence operations around the world not including the 100,000 troops in Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom or Japan (MPS). The question of whether the United States should put troops on the Mexican and Canadian border is very controversial. The military is spread far too thin, with too many other deployments to take on this huge task. The economy would also suffer from the jobs lost by the civilian Border Patrol agents. The U.S. would benefit more by increasing the number of civilians at its borders. The U.S. should also reinforce the borders using more Unmanned Ariel Vehicles (UAV), and automating all border crossings with the United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) program.
With only 1.4 million service members, 200,000 less than 10 years ago, the United States cannot spare the 20,000 or more troops that some say would be needed to militarize the Mexican and Canadian borders (MPS). Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said he didn’t want to “put further demands on the defense establishment and the uniformed men and women that we need
Colon 2
for lots of other tasks"(Bustos). Secretary Rumsfeld is right. Projected to lose 100,000 more troops within the next two years, that would be asking too much of the military (MPS).
Secretary Rumsfeld also said that he wanted “to see other federal agencies do the job”(Bustos). Today, there are approximately 10,000 Border Patrol agents (D'Agostino). Thousands of jobs would be lost in border towns, which already have a dwindling economy, like Nogales or even Sierra Vista if the military took over the borders. The Bush administration has proposed large increases for the budget of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to boost border security (D'Agostino). Hopefully, if this increase is approved, more civilian agents will be hired which will stimulate the economy and give the borders the attention they need.
In addition to increasing the number of Border Patrol agents on the ground Unmanned Ariel Vehicles (UAV) can be used to patrol the more remote sections of the borders. The northern border, separating the U.S. from Canada is 4121 miles long with 430 ports of entry. The southern border, separating the U.S. from Mexico is 2,062 miles long with 30 ports of entry and “innumerable unofficial crossings”(SPQR). The UAVs are capable of operating over hundreds of miles for days at a time. They not only provide useful information, but they can gather it much more quickly, efficiently, and cheaply than previously possible using manned platforms. The United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) program currently requires only 24 of the 500 million annual visitors to the U.S. to submit fingerprint scans and have a photograph taken upon entering(CNN). Inkless fingerprints are taken and checked against a database for criminal backgrounds and any terrorist lists. This
Colon 3
process is repeated when visitors leave the U.S. as an extra security measure and to ensure they complied with visa limitations. Ideally, all 500 million visitors would be scanned.
Repositioning troops on the borders of the U.S. is not the only answer; it is not an answer at all. As a Veteran, I can account for the personnel shortages in the ranks within the past 8 years. As a military spouse, I would support my husband on any deployment, but I don’t think that I could support a mission that can be accomplished in so many other ways. Increasing the civilian Border Patrol agents, utilizing UAVs, and implementing the US-VISITS program across the board are all workable options for the United States to increase security and decrease illegal immigration on its borders.
Colon 4
Works Cited
Bustos, Sergio: Gannett News Service. “Lawmakers call for more troops along U.S. borders.”18 June 2002, AZCentral.com. 28 September 2004
http://www.azcentral.com/specials/special03/articles/0618border-troops-ON.html
CNN.com, “U.S. Starts Fingerprint Program” 2 January 2004. 28 September 2004.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/01/05/fingerprint.program/
D'Agostino, Joseph. “Put U.S. Troops on U.S. Borders”, 21 June 2002. Freerepublic.com
28 September 2004
<http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/704066/posts>