Secure Our Border Initiative Poll

CBP does create jobs. Average salary $63K with full benefits. Sit around for hours watching the St. Clair River. Nothing coming across but justification for a full salary. Down South there are real problems but we ignore them because Mexico holds an enormous amount of U.S. debt that is affecting our foreign policy. We won't address the real issues of illegal immigration/ drug wars. Let's go after the Canadian border where those on the "North side" are only interested in coming down "south" for a concert or a night out. Or you can be a US citizen in your boat/slip answering questions from a CBP agent, who has nothing better to do than ask about your recent activities. The "authority" is almost limitless.

Pump some iron, shave your head, get some thin leather gloves and become a member of the latest US welfare program.........the CBP. You get to drive around in a green and white Dodge Durango while you do nothing. Meanwhile real CBP agents get shot just south of Texas. Trying to make sense of it all is pointless......but we all get to pick up the tab.

QUOTE(canaller @ Aug 6 2009, 10:50 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>CBP does create jobs. Average salary $63K with full benefits. Sit around for hours watching the St. Clair River. Nothing coming across but justification for a full salary. Down South there are real problems but we ignore them because Mexico holds an enormous amount of U.S. debt that is affecting our foreign policy. We won't address the real issues of illegal immigration/ drug wars. Let's go after the Canadian border where those on the "North side" are only interested in coming down "south" for a concert or a night out. Or you can be a US citizen in your boat/slip answering questions from a CBP agent, who has nothing better to do than ask about your recent activities. The "authority" is almost limitless.

Pump some iron, shave your head, get some thin leather gloves and become a member of the latest US welfare program.........the CBP. You get to drive around in a green and white Dodge Durango while you do nothing. Meanwhile real CBP agents get shot just south of Texas. Trying to make sense of it all is pointless......but we all get to pick up the tab.
The U.S. Border Patrol made 761 arrests last year in Michigan, primarily along the St. Clair and Detroit Rivers, according to the Detroit Free Press.

761 arrests does not sound like doing nothing.

I live in the area and am glad to have them patrolling the the area.

Matt

I think this is a lousy use of tax funds and promotes exactly the kind of government that freedom loving Americans who also want a 'small' government most dislike.

Sure, we could spend a nearly infinite amount of money to 'secure' our borders. In the end, however, we'd end up with a prison. I believe that those people who would most like the US to be a police state have used the fear of another terrorist attack on the US to make it significantly harder to exercise OUR freedom to travel as we please.

The plan to build surveillance towers along the St. Clair-Detroit river system will not deter ANY illegal activities, it will simply push those activities elsewhere along the border ... leading to further wasteful expenditures to secure those areas, ad infinitum.

Where does it end?

And don't even get me started about the current crop of CBP agents and their AWFUL attitudes about boater citizens that are trying to comply with CBP's onerous and time & $$$ consuming requirements to simply go to Canada for the weekend.

If it were up to me, I'd replicate Canada's CANPASS system here and leave it at that. No damn I-68's, annual decals, contradictory call-in timing requirements, or buzz-cut semi-literates who seem to know even less about the system they're supposed to 'enforce' than those of us trying to comply.

761 arrests in a year. Just less than 2 a day. Were all these arrests immigration related or other situations that could be handled by existing jurisdiction?. How does the arrest rate compare to other border regions? What is the cost to us forgotten taxpayers for those arrests? Who are the "dangerous people coming to the U.S. through Canada? It was reported that the 9/11 terrorists came through Canada but later proven to be false. The 9/11 terrorists came to the U.S. directly. Check the facts.

The question posed was are tax dollars worth the stepped up CBP efforts in this region. I see CBP officers constantly. CBP helicopters patrol the skies regularly. Coast Guard UTB's sport .50 cals. The cost for all this is enormous. I am not against keeping our borders secure but common sense should come into play at some point. All these resources directed here when the Southern border is a war zone as known drug lords vie for control. How many arrests are made on the Southern border in a year?

A guy in the slip next to me was questioned by 2 CBP officers about where he had been when tying up in his slip. He had just motored over to the pump out but had to explain what he was doing. A U.S. citizen in a U.S. registered vessel in U.S. waters. In February the St. Clair river is clogged with huge chunks of ice and the CBP sits in the State Park north of Algonac guarding an impenetrable border.

Assets should be deployed based on need not politics. If not it is just another social program. Let's just throw a few hundred million $ more on a federal debt that is beyond control. Of course why should our politicians care. It is us peons that are paying for it all.

Costwise,it really doesn't matter to us, we cross over from Canada on a regular basis. Always play by the rules, report in, got nothing to hide.We're people of good character, just having fun with our many American friends. We have always appreciated the hospitality offered, and return the favour with respect. We have never had any problem with Border Patrol as we make ourselves easily available as we pass by them. That being said, the cameras & other "equipment" , I have always assumed were already in place in some form. I am old enough to remember the missles that were visible from Canada, on Bele Isle in and around the time of the Cuban Missle Crisis. Compared to that, a few cameras are pretty tame & certainly more cost effective.
As for the TSA, I hope & pray everytime I get on an airplane, that they have done a really good job. As tedious and time consuming as it is, security is for everyones benefit.

QUOTE(Caliban @ Aug 7 2009, 07:44 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>I think this is a lousy use of tax funds and promotes exactly the kind of government that freedom loving Americans who also want a 'small' government most dislike.

Sure, we could spend a nearly infinite amount of money to 'secure' our borders. In the end, however, we'd end up with a prison. I believe that those people who would most like the US to be a police state have used the fear of another terrorist attack on the US to make it significantly harder to exercise OUR freedom to travel as we please.

The plan to build surveillance towers along the St. Clair-Detroit river system will not deter ANY illegal activities, it will simply push those activities elsewhere along the border ... leading to further wasteful expenditures to secure those areas, ad infinitum.

Where does it end?
Couldn't agree more. Secure the waterways on the great lakes and people wanting to come in will simply come through the 1000 miles of woods from wisconsin to washington. Or simply aquire a travel or student visa and fly straight to New York. Pot sumggling from canada is the least of our worrys when you can grow it in your basement. The war on drugs is another giant waste we could all do without. In the end it's just more Gov't employees with gov't pensions and gov't salaries on the payroll at the federal level. CBP? Just the latest new lettered agancy. DEA, ATF, FBI, NSA, FDA, FAA, FCC, CIA, The list goes on and on. Not to mention the numerous cabnet level agencies. Let's not forget the army of contractors living off the gov't teet. Want to talk communism? Seems like everybody and their brother is going to working for the federal gov't sooner or later.

Bottom line. Another giant waste of resources at the hands or our fearless leaders.