You can146;t wall off immigrants

Both the senate and House versions of an immigration bill to keep unauthorised migrants out of the US rely on the construction of hundreds of miles of new physical barriers, high-tech gadgetry and more manpower along the Southwestern border. But from Western Europe to the Far East, the evidence shows that anything short of complete militarisation of borders will not deter illegal entry by determined, economically motivated migrants8230;

The latest case is Spain. Since the mid-1980s, the country has become a major destination and transit country for Third World migrants, especially from Africa and Latin America. But illegal immigration only became a crisis last fall, when waves of sub-Saharan Africans began jumping the fences that separate Ceuta and Melilla, Spain8217;s small territorial enclaves on the North African coast, from Morocco8230;The assaults on the border fortifications in Ceuta and Melilla followed Spain8217;s installation of advanced radar-detection equipment and stepped-up maritime patrols in the Strait of Gibraltar. African migrants were crossing the nine-mile strait in small, grossly overloaded rubber rafts that often capsized in the rough waters, drowning their passengers. Spanish officials boasted that the new technology and added patrols made the country8217;s southern borders 8220;watertight8221;.

But almost immediately, prospective migrants and the smugglers who assist them shifted their efforts toward the Atlantic. Spain8217;s Canary Islands became their new destination. This was a much longer and more dangerous passage 8212; a voyage of 100 miles from the Moroccan coast in often heavy seas. When the Moroccan government moved to shut down this route, migrant departure points shifted south to Mauritania, a journey of 600 miles to the Canary Islands8230;

Spain is losing the battle for immigration control for two reasons. First, the real-income gap between Spain and sub-Saharan Africa is huge and growing, not so much because the migrant-sending countries are economically stagnant but because Spain8217;s economy continues to outperform all other European Union countries. Unemployment has dropped dramatically since 1996, and native-born Spaniards overwhelmingly spurn the jobs done by foreign workers. Second, Spain is aging so rapidly that by 2030 its population will be the second oldest, after Japan8217;s, and replacement workers are urgently needed.

The problem with fortifying borders is that it doesn8217;t reduce the forces of supply and demand that drive illegal immigration8230;

Excerpted from Wayne A. Cornelius8217;s article, 8216;Los Angeles Times8217;, May 28