Janet Napolitano Says Keep Things Status Quo with Illegal Immigration than using Bush's Virtual Fence Program

Director of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano is scrapping George W. Bush "Virtual Fence" program. She is stating that $1 billion is a tough price to burden the American people. Instead, she want to continue the same status quo to detect illegal aliens. In other word, DHS is planning to turn a blind eye, which has been the standard norm.

(ABC News) The Department of Homeland Security today officially scrapped a Bush-era program designed to use radar technology to detect illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a DHS official and a congressional source.

The project, called "Virtual Fence," was rolled out under the Bush administration in 2006 with much fanfare about how technology could help secure the border. Illegal immigrants crossing the border would be detected by a radar and picked up by remote cameras, which were monitored by border patrol agents.

But numerous internal and Congressional reviews found consistent performance problems with the project's systems, which only spanned 53 miles of the vast U.S.-Mexico border.

DHS will utilize some of the existing technologies that were found to be useful in what the agency is calling a southwest border security technology plan.

....Janet Napalitano's plan.....


DHS will utilize some of the existing technologies that were found to be useful in what the agency is calling a southwest border security technology plan.

The new plan "will utilize existing, proven technology tailored to the distinct terrain and population density of each border region, including commercially available Mobile Surveillance Systems, Unmanned Aircraft Systems, thermal imaging devices, and tower-based Remote Video Surveillance Systems." Napolitano added.

The issues that the program encountered were wide ranging: cameras often provided blurry images, the radar system performed poorly in bad weather, and it often displayed false detections that were unable to distinguish between humans, cars and animals.

There were also cost overruns and the primary contractor, Boeing, repeatedly missed deadlines, officials said.

More Cost Effective to Deport these Illegal Aliens than to Pay to Keep them Here

Commonsense would say that it is more cost effective to do a one time permanent deportation of every illegal alien in this country than paying them to stay here.

(Examiner.com) On December 3, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs, Nelson Peacock, responding to request from several U.S. Senators, including Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), wrote: “Our conservative estimate suggests that ICE would require a budget of more than $135 billion to apprehend, detain and remove the nation’s entire illegal immigrant population.”

So, while it would cost a one-time fee of about $135 billion to deport every single illegal alien in the country, it is actually a bargain considering the fact that it already costs us $113 billion ANNUALLY to keep them here.

In other words, the mass deportation would pay for itself in a little over a year.

In-state tuition for illegal immigrants is preserved with California Supreme Court ruling

(L.A. Now) The California Supreme Court decided unanimously Monday that illegal immigrants may continue to be eligible for in-state tuition rates at the state's colleges and universities rather than pay the higher rates charged to those who live out of state.

In a ruling written by Justice Ming W. Chin, one of the panel's more conservative members, the state high court said a California law that guarantees the lower tuition for students who attend California high schools for at least three years and graduate does not conflict with a federal prohibition on giving illegal immigrants educational benefits based on residency.

College students who are in the country illegally are barred from government financial-aid programs. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected eventually to decide whether the lower tuition rates also violate federal law.

If the Federal law and State law have similiar positions, the court always side on the stricter policy. In this case representing Federal statute, illegal aliens are not priveldged to recieve financial-aid programs from the American tax-payers. But in California, it is a normal occurance to take care of any illegal alien wanting an education. In fact, about 25,000 illegal aliens are estimated to receive in-state tuition rates in California. No wonder California is going bankrupt.