Why Not Just Build a Real Fence?

The President's virtual fence is failing:

The Bush administration has scaled back plans to quickly build a "virtual fence" along the U.S.-Mexico border, delaying completion of the first phase of the project by at least three years and shifting away from a network of tower-mounted sensors and surveillance gear, federal officials said yesterday.

Technical problems discovered in a 28-mile pilot project south of Tucson prompted the change in plans, Department of Homeland Security officials and congressional auditors told a House subcommittee.

Though the department took over that initial stretch Friday from Boeing, authorities confirmed that Project 28, the initial deployment of the Secure Border Initiative network, did not work as planned or meet the needs of the U.S. Border Patrol.

The announcement marked a major setback for what President Bush in May 2006 called "the most technologically advanced border security initiative in American history." The virtual fence was to be a key component of his proposed overhaul of U.S. immigration policies, which died last year in the Senate.

The problem is they've decided to build a virtual electronic fence, and the resulting technical difficulties are causing all the problems. If they'd just skip the "virtual" part and build a real fence with a couple of layers of security, they'd be done and it wouldn't take any exotic software or expensive electronics.

The problem is the people promoting the "virtual" fence don't actually want to build a fence at all, they want to appear to be building a fence. Building a real fence might offend the Mexican government and the people and drug smugglers who support their economy. Until we get some leadership in the country that no longer cares that the Mexicans think the border will continue to be useless.