immigration

Thursday 4th December

Now everyone can monitor the Mexican border

big think, 4 December 2008

Texans are taking their cues from Londoners these days with the establishment of a CCTV-based surveillance program for monitoring the US-Mexico border. A public-private initiative between the Texas Border Sheriff’s Coalition and the digital surveillance program Blue Servo, the program has erected cameras in areas along the Rio Grande known for drug smuggling and human trafficking. Explaining the need for the cameras to France 24, Donald L. Reay, the executive director of the Texas Virtual Border Watch Program, noted, “We have a pretty open border with our neighbors to the south and bad people could take advantage of that.” Internet users are the eyes of the program. When a user logs on Blue Servo as a “Virtual Texas Deputy” they may select from 11 cameras at various stations along the Rio Grande. At this point they may sit back and let their civic duty take over. When they notice bad people, they can file a report at Blue Servo which will alert the local authorities.

Friday 10th October

Dogs that didn't bark

Thomas Ash, 10 October 2008

Ben Smith makes the very good point that immigration is one of the dogs that didn't bark in this election: it was expected to be one of the central issues, working to the Republicans' advantage, but instead has hardly featured. In part this is because other issues have made the headlines, but at least before the financial crisis struck McCain could have changed that with a concerted push for tough border control.

Three different factors probably contributed to his decision not to do so. First, he is not the most credible messenger for this position: he has long been on the other side of the issue, even sponsoring a liberal immigration reform bill which conservatives pilloried as offering amnesty to illegal aliens. Second, though he officially converted to the conservative position while seeking the Republican nomination, he rarely seems able to muster much passion for it, suggesting that his conversion was not truly sincere. Third, his strategists may have calculated that running hard against immigration risked driving Hispanics further into the Democratic camp.

If so, that looks like a tactical mistake - despite some early problems in the primaries, Barack Obama has done just fine locking up Hispanic support. McCain had a better chance of gaining support among the wide swathe of voters concerned about illegal immigration.