Building A Better Border

THE BORDER between the U.S. and Mexico, nineteen hundred miles long, is equipped with a barrier, sporadically, for seven hundred miles, Along much of the border, the terrain is so rugged as to be impassable, thus making a man made barrier unnecessary. The adjacent land is a wildlife habitat of marvelous bio diversity. Species large and small cross and recross the invisible line predictably, of necessity, seeking food and mates in their feeding and breeding grounds. To construct a monolithic, impassable wall along the entire length would bring about a disaster of massive proportions, properly called a "crime against nature". The result would be mass extinctions. Species become extinct when their population is fragmented, isolating members from food and mates. Those who support such a wall are either unaware of this, or unconcerned by it. Why worry about mass extinctions when confronted with the dreadful reality of human beings from a foreign culture seeking their own survival? There are other practical considerations. An eighteen foot wall can be crossed with a nineteen foot ladder, or a tunnel. As General Patton said: "Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man." With considerable opposition from the sane segment of the American people, the Trump administration has thus far managed nothing more than a few miles of reinforcement and and construction, and there is no indication that a great wall will ever exist. The great wall of china was successful for a single reason: it was from the beginning manned and monitored by a vast military presence perched atop it. The question looms: since any continuous unbroken barrier nineteen hundred miles long would require constant monitoring along its entire length, why not simply deploy the manpower and forego the steel and concrete, save money, and face?