First, let’s tell the truth: The 3,140-kilometer border that legally separates Mexico from the United States does not, in reality, form a border. Every day, more than a million people cross it legally, and others, though not as many, do the same illegally. Billions of dollars in merchandise make their way in trucks and trailers from one country to the other in a matter of hours. And drugs coming from Colombia, which pass through Mexico and Central America, make it across with minimal problems for the world’s main narcotics consumers. This is why the border is more of a line drawn on a map than some kind of unbreakable barrier separating two different worlds.
What happens in Mexico is inevitably felt on the U.S. side and vice versa. So, the 800 murders due to drug-related violence that have occurred so far this year on the Mexican side of the border have also left their bullet wounds in the United States. Precisely for that reason, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson declared a state of emergency in several counties and towns bordering Mexico, citing threats to the police force. However, the extra $1,750,000 that Richardson can receive from the federal government will not change a thing, absolutely nothing. The violence resulting from drug trafficking cannot be stopped just with money.
Arizona is different. There, the problem is not drug trafficking and violence filtering in from Mexico. Rather, it is the undocumented immigrants who take advantage of the state’s mountains and deserts to enter the United States. More than half of the 3,000 daily arrests that are made by the border patrol happen in Arizona. However, the state of emergency that Governor Janet Napolitano declared is more than anything a cry for attention. The $1,500,000 that Arizona is to receive will have no affect whatsoever on the will of hungry and thirsty immigrants fleeing poverty in Mexico.
The state of emergency declared by New Mexico is and Arizona’s governors is simply symbolic. Even if they are sent 10 to 100 times more money, the border crisis cannot be solved by throwing money at it, and even less so by sheer force. The most pathetic case is a state legislator from Arizona who proposed building a giant fence on the border with Mexico. The state’s voters will decide next year if they are willing to pay a special tax or make some type of contribution in order to build it. The border between Arizona and Mexico is 548 kilometers (341 miles) long. And, what do you propose to do, Mr. Congressman, with the rest of Mexico’s border with Texas, New Mexico and California? This multi-million-dollar expenditure would be like burying coins in the desert. That is, it’s completely useless.
The problem with the border is not a question of law, walls or police. It is simply a problem of supply and demand. As long as there are unemployed workers in Mexico and the rest of Latin America or people earning less than five dollars a day and there are jobs in the United States that pay the same amount in an hour or less, there will be undocumented immigration. And as long as there are drug-users in the United States willing to pay the same amount for a bag of marijuana or for a hit of cocaine that a Bolivian or Peruvian farmer makes in a year, there will be drug trafficking and violence among rival gangs looking to benefit from their addictions. These two problems will not be solved through declared states of emergency.
A good first step towards a solution would be an immigration agreement and a program that allows a legal status to 11 million undocumented immigrants who live in the United States. However, neither of these things is going to happen in the short or medium term.
So what? So, people are desperate. A recent Pew Hispanic Center poll reflected the terrible frustrations of those living in Mexico. Forty-six percent of the respondents stated that they would live and work in the United States if they could. Because of all of this, the border is nothing more than a faint line drawn in pencil, which anyone possessing the slightest bit of talent could erase.
