I’ve been very impressed with Judd Slivka’s pieces on the Arizona-Mexico border in Slate. They paint a very good picture of what’s happening, illustrating the various problems that have arisen, and how they have affected the people in the area. It recognizes the realities of the situation and, to me, doesn’t feel like it has any heavy political bias. It just gives an accurate picture of what’s going on.

Upon reading Thursday’s entry, I had to pause when I came across this sentence: “There is the U.S.-Mexico border that you’ve heard about, where immigrants are coming through in droves, drugs are entering in increasing numbers, and two governors have declared a state of emergency because the southern thirds of their states are overrun.”

Two states being overrun? Does anyone in America realize the extent of this problem?

Slivka doesn’t stress this, however, and I applaud her for that because it would detract from what her pieces are trying to accomplish. They present an accurate portrait, a snapshot in time, of a certain area and lifestyle. Still, even without the alarmist tones, I can see that what is happening there is not good for America.

There are different factors contributing to this migration problem. The clamp-down on immigration going on right now has re-routed their paths through rural areas, “the numbers got huge after the Border Patrol started intensive enforcement in cities and pushed the immigration into the rural areas.” However, the Border Patrol is not wrong in stopping these holes. We don’t want illegal aliens easily flowing into our country and stopping the Border Patrol from doing its job won’t solve any problems. The intensification of enforcement is not the main cause of what’s happening. One big problem is that illegal immigration has increased in numbers beyond what the Border Patrol can handle. I’m not going to get into the causes of migration, suffice it to say, if you do the research, there has been an increase in migration. (It would do well if I linked to some source, eh? Well, I guess I’ll cite my sociology lecture.) There are other factors indeed, but this problem is mainly a numbers game, in my mind. There wasn’t this problem in the rural areas where the ranchers came across very few border crossers. The attitudes change with the numbers, and I think there is a direct cause. The missing link in my numbers game framework is: Did Border Patrol intensify their work in cities due to an increase in illegal immigration within cities? That, I don’t know. However, I infer that it may be the case because numbers have increased, and I don’t blame an increase in xenophobia alone. (The causes of the increase in numbers, I won’t go into.)

Even if you don’t accept what I’m saying, it’s evident that Border Patrol, at its current capacities, cannot handle the influx of illegal immigrants. The border is too porous. The question I’m trying to answer is: How can we close the border? Not, Should we close the border. If immigration is such a problem that two governors have declared states of emergency, then something needs to be done. You can’t solve it through eradicating global poverty, by merely attacking the root causes of this migration. You don’t solve the crime problem by attempting to eradicate poverty and not putting anyone in jail. Both measures need to be attended to. Security along our borders needs to be increased.

Critics will say that what I propose is impossible. We’ll never close the border, so we need other solutions. Again, I appeal to the crime analogy. We’ll never build enough prisons so we need to think of other solutions. Yes, we can think of other solutions to the immigration problem, but at the same time, we need to close our border. Carrots and sticks. Perhaps “close” is too heavy a word. I believe we can radically reduce illegal immigration with radical solutions to border patrol.

Here’s one: We institute mandatory military service, perhaps two years long, for all young males. We use our military to patrol our borders.

God, after typing that out, it really shocks me how insane a proposition that is. Yet, it’s also insane that two governors have declared states of emergency. I feel insane; I definitely do. Does anyone else get the feeling that the influx is a veritable invasion? I do feel like perhaps I’m overreacting, but then I think about history. Let’s put it this way: How do you think Texas became a state? I’m not letting Mexico steal any stars from our flag.