Here's a real plan.
Let's review what Palin has said:
PALIN ISN’T RUNNING!
The least she could do is jump in and join Bachmann in the ring.
bachmann has been taking all the right hooks while Sarah sits in the tower contemplating her navel.
I’ll just note that Palin doesn’t mean we should secure all our borders, just the Mexican one. There is no fence between Alaska and Canada.
And there is no fence between Alaska and Russia, separated by a distance small enough you can see Russia from Alaskan soil.
The reason for the first is that we don’t fear Canadians overrunning our country, because they have a solid economy. Until Mexico can develope a modern economy, we’ll spend billions on southern border security. If we could spend half of that and bring up their standard of living so they didn’t want to come to our country, that would be great, but we haven’t had much luck with such plans.
The reason for the second is because there are some borders where it is unlikely people will try to come in, so even though they are borders with our enemies, we don’t need to fence them.
Nobody calls for a fence along the gulf of Mexico, even though it would be a trivial thing for Mexicans to get into boats and take a 1-hour boat ride and come ashore. I note they don’t do this now, but that’s because it’s easier to cross the border, even through the desert.
But if you put up a wall that ends at the gulf of mexico, they are going to try to go around the edge of that wall. We’ll certainly need to defend that edge, and once they realise that boats work, and the rest is a wall, they’ll just use boats. And we’re back to having to patrol again.
Or, we could build a fence up the coast. Now, why wouldn’t we do that? Because we like our beaches, we like the access to the Gulf of Mexico. If you owned a beach house, would you want the government to put a wall in front of your house, cutting you off from the beach?
Well, that’s the problem in Texas. People own land that goes up to a lovely river. They like fishing the river, they like the view. The United States OWNS half of that river.
A border fence would cut off Americans from access to our own river. It would mean we couldn’t fish in the river, couldn’t boat in the river, we couldn’t swim in the river. Recreation areas built by the river would be closed down. We would essentially be ceding a national treasure to a foreign country.
It would also cut off wildlife from the river. There are many species who depend on river access for their livelyhood, and without water, their population could be decimated.
Anyway, my point is that nobody wants to fence in our entire border. So we understand and agree with the concept of strategic fencing. Nobody wants to fence off the beaches along the Gulf of Mexico, so again, we understand the idea that some borders can be secured without fences, and we understand that access to resources like a beach, or a river, trumps building a wall.
The real question isn’t “strategic” vs “full” fence, because nobody believes in a “full fence”. It’s just a question of how much strategic fence to we need. We are arguing over degrees, not principle.
It's much easier for Palin to say this because her state is as far removed from the problem as can be and still be in the United States.
Perry has to keep running for office in a state with a large Hispanic population where a "Let's build a Berlin Wall along the Rio Grande and deport every wetback we catch" declaration is a sure way to get voted out of office.
Further, the rhetoric is easy if nobody is examining the pricetag. I'm all for the most efficient cost-effective solution out there. I'm just not convinced that a sea-to-sea fence is the smartest way to go about it.
That's not what she was saying in 2008 and that's because it's a stupid idea. High traffic areas? Yes. Fence off the Rio Grande and cede it to Mexico? Moronic. She is advocating giving a natural border of the Rio Grande to the Mexicans? I don't think she's dumb, she's pandering and would never ever deport 12 million or build the fence from Brownsville to San Diego. Not only that but she was for path to citizenship and against deportation just a couple years ago.
"PALIN: Then let's keep it -- then we won't complicate it anymore. Let's keep it simple. And let's say no, if you are here illegally, and if you don't follow the steps that at some point through immigration reform we're going to be able to provide, and that is to somehow allow you to work. If you're not going to do that, then you will be deported. You will be gone."
I wish Palin (and now Bachmann) wouldn’t essentially advocate amnesty once the border is secured—but they’re 100x better on immigration than Perry is.