A border fence is useless

That article was very interesting. It seems to prove your point, but I think it might be different in 5 years. Obviously, in this argument, we will be focusing mostly on Mexico. We don't get too many people hopping the border from Canada. Now, why is it that we seem to get so many illegals from Mexico? A very simple answer. Mexico is much less developed than other North American countries. Its economy is in shambles, its on the verge of collapse because of the drug wars. It is not a good place to live. I'll get back to that later. For the sake of formality, I will elaborate on my arguments in chronological order (I love writing so formally here! I promise, that isn't usually how I talk). 1) The border fence, while working now, pretty soon, people will find a way to get over it. Even looking at the picture in the article that you posted, you can see the one border patrol guard, and once he gets far enough away, it would not be hard for the people to cross and run, with no report. And your comment about them being suspicious of a 51 foot ladder, what if the ladder is in 5, 10 foot pieces. If they find a 10 foot ladder next to a 50 foot border fence, and another a ways away, maybe they wouldn't be so suspicious. Now, I guess when I first made this argument, I overreacted just a little bit. I don't think a wall is so "useless" as it is not worth it. Yes, it will keep out a few illegal immigrants, but the sheer amount of money it costs, you'd be better off with no fence and the illegals in. 2) Well, now I'm getting back to my first point on here. The reason we have so many Mexican illegals is that things are HORRIBLE there. America is obviously a better place to live. The best way to attack illegal immigration from Mexico is to attack the root. I don't mean attack Mexico. I mean make Mexico a better place to live (we could also make America worse, but that isn't worth it, of course). We can put foreign aid there, and it's beneficial to us because it should correlate well with the number of illegal immigrants. It's a win-win situation. I understand that it isn't cheap, but neither is a border fence. We also need more national guardsmen at the border. In the picture in that article you posted, there was one guy in the whole picture. If there were more, maybe they would catch the illegals more easily. The last thing we could do is mandatory citizenship/green card checks before you are hired at any job. At least they could get a job back home. 3) Once again, in almost every case, people immigrate illegally because things aren't good in their home country. I can't impress enough that the best deterrent for illegal immigration is to attack the root. It's just like what scientists are trying to do with AIDS. It isn't AIDS that kills you, it's complications from another disease that your body could usually fight off. However, the only way to make the people live a normal life it to cure AIDS. Mexico is AIDS. The illegals are the complications. It doesn't make much sense to cure the complications when you should be working on curing AIDS. I heard an interesting viewpoint a while ago. I was listening to Lars Larson (who I very rarely agree with, and I think is not a terribly nice person anyway), and he was starting to get mad (as he often does) at a fellow Republican, Allen Alley (don't be fooled, not all Oregon Republicans have double names like that), because Allen Alley thought that illegal immigration wasn't much of a problem (well, it is Oregon, we're bordered by the Pacific, Washington, California, and we have our "buffer zone" to the east, OreIdo). But I couldn't help thinking about Lars's idea. He analogised it to a line at even a very informal instance (I believe he used a line at the movies). He basically said that it was like cutting in line at the movies, and they would get mad at you even then. I don't entirely agree, but it is one of the few things he has said that makes good sense. The problem is, that line is 14 years long. I wouldn't wait in a line for two and a half hours to see Barack Obama speak (true story). The problem is, the movie is really full (it's the premiere of a really well advertised movie on a popular book), but there is only one ticket counter open, and Fandango wasn't working. Doesn't make much sense, does it. They should have as many lines as they can open. Right now there is one 14 year line into the U.S. from Mexico. You could have 2, 7 year lines. Think, One figurative line more than there is now, and it cuts the wait time in half. Yes, I know that is the basic multiplication property of equality. That is why it confounds me that nobody has done that yet. I look forward to your rebuttal, as I'm sure it will be very good. I'm always up for a challenge, and I can tell you can deliver.