Why is common sense in such short supply?

I've been thinking about "the wall" lately. It's hard to avoid doing so when the federal government is shut down because the Toddler in the White House is throwing a hissy fit over not getting his way. I view this obsession with a medieval technology as yet another sign that the man is not the sharpest tool in the shed. Then again, considering that his most ardent supporters are equally obsessed with putting up a humongous wall to keep the close to nonexistent hordes of desperate women and children out, maybe he's just got an even lower opinion of his supporters than I do. If the only thing that will keep his deplorables happy is doing something stupid, then he'll do something stupid.

The whole emphasis on "securing the borders" by putting up a physical barrier to keep undesirables out has always baffled me. Walls have never worked. You can scale them with ladders, break through them, tunnel under, or walk around it blowing a trumpet (Joshua 6:1-21) but sooner or later the wall fails.

In fact, the wall, such as it currently exists along the southern border, is already failing. It's not keeping out undocumented immigrants. Most of them arrive by airplane clutching tourist visas in their hands and simply don't leave when the visa expires. It's not keeping out drugs. The absolute most devastating drug on the market in the U.S. today is fentanyl. It's coming in cargo containers from China, not being carried in backpacks through through the New Mexican desert. It's not keeping out foreign terrorists -- according to the FBI, the bad guys have figured out it's a lot less hassle to come down from Canada than it is to try to come up from Mexico. Among other things, quite a bit of the border between the U.S. and Canada can be crossed in a bass boat.

So if a physical barrier is a dumb idea, what would be a smart one? Well, if most of the people coming across the southern border claim to be refugees fleeing violence of various sorts, how about increasing the staffing levels for the federal workers who process those claims? People complain about the "catch and release" aspects, such as the fact there are long delays between the initial application for asylum and when the hearings are held. Right now asylum seekers arrive knowing there's going to be a long gap between when they get here and when the U.S. government decides their fate. They also know that if they manage to avoid being summarily targeted for expedited removal they'll be released on parole to await the hearing.

Here's a common sense notion: speed that process up. We don't need a wall to slow people down or more border patrol agents to arrest people. We need paper shufflers to speed up the pace of the bureaucracy. Hire more lawyers, more judges, and let the word get out that the time frame is shorter. It's a pretty sure thing that the number of asylum seekers will drop. It's one thing to make the trek to the U.S. knowing that after you turn yourself in you're going to have one or two or even three years to work here and send money back to the family in whatever poverty-stricken village you'e from and quite another to contemplate doing it when the turnaround time drops to a couple months. After all, Jeff Sessions claimed that close to 80 percent of the asylum seekers' claims are denied. That isn't exactly true but it's a handy talking point for this argument. If that many are denied in the end, then the common sense thing to do would be to speed the process up to get the ineligible applicants on to airplanes or buses faster.

Granted, it's not quite as manly, doesn't lend itself to a lot of posturing and macho bullshit about how tough someone is to say "I hired more lawyers" instead of "I ordered the troops to lay down concertina wire."

Actually, a truly common sense idea would be to stop freaking out over "illegals" and go for open borders. Sure, maintain border security in the form of customs enforcement at established border crossings but get a system set up where anyone coming in to the U.S. could work if they wanted to. Foreign nationals can be issued tax ID numbers now and pay income taxes while they're here; that part of the system is already in place. If everyone was working legally there'd be no incentive for employers to hire undocumented workers for less than legal wages and it would be harder to get workers willing to tolerate unsafe working conditions. If you can't hold the threat of La Migra over people's heads, they'll put up with a lot less crap. It would eliminate a lot of human trafficking -- who's going to bother paying a coyote thousands of dollars to sneak them across the desert or smuggle them in a cargo container when all you need is a bus ticket?

Yes, I know there are people who go ballistic at the idea of open borders. They're the same people who are convinced every Spanish speaker they encounter is here illegally and desperate to steal their jobs or sponge off welfare, usually simultaneously. My own thought has always been is that if you're so incompetent or unskilled that the only jobs you can find are ones that will hire people who do not read, write, or speak English and where the major work requirements are a strong back and a willingness to put in long hours for less than legal wages, you've got bigger problems than fear of competition from foreigners.