Border calculus: contentious debate over border fences won't end soon.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: Homeland Security - Cover story

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AUSTIN, Texas -- Build a 20-foot high fence on the border and you will make the manufacturer of 21-foot high ladders rich--or so goes the maxim commonly repeated in Texas.

Dormant as a national issue until late 2005, securing the southern border suddenly became an intensely debated subject and a political hot potato. Later that year, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced the Secure Border Initiative--a multi-billion dollar program that would aim to stop the flow of illegal immigrants, criminals and narcotics through the expanses of land between legal ports of entry.

The effort includes hundreds of miles of physical--or tactical--fences to stop those on foot or in vehicles. Sensors, cameras, improved communications systems and unmanned aerial vehicles will constitute the so-called virtual fences, which will be employed in areas where traditional fences are not practical. Plans also call for doubling the number of Border Patrol agents.

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What type of fence goes where, and what will be the correct mix of technology, policy and manpower will be debated for the next several years as the Department of Homeland Security receives influxes of funding from Congress, as well as mandates that dictate how it is to be spent. Chertoff has called this mix "border calculus."

Where to put sensors and cameras instead of tactical fencing largely depends on the topography, he has said. Remote areas that require illegal crossers to traverse vast expanses before reaching a road or city can use sensors to identify and track interlopers for hours or days before the Border Patrol apprehends them. Areas near cities need high fences or double fences to slow border crossers down.

Chad Foster, mayor of Eagle Pass, Texas, and the president of the Texas Border Coalition, is an opponent of physical fences.

"We feel boots on the ground and technology [are the] solution to the security of the Texas border," he said at a border security conference.

Texas State Rep. Juan Manuel Escobar, D-43rd district, said of the efforts to reinforce the border with technology: "It's a waste of time and money."

Escobar, a former Border Patrol agent, is among those who believe that immigration reform is the answer to securing the border. "I mean effectively reform it. Not a patch up job. But big corporate America doesn't want to do that," he said in an interview.

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For many Americans--especially those who don't live near the...