Illegal Immigration

How much security is needed? The answer is simple – as much as you can afford.

But what does that mean? If border security is your absolute number one priority, then you build an impenetrable laser-protected wall with motion-detecting infrared cameras, deep pilings with sensitive vibration detectors to prevent tunneling, and then employ, say, 10% of the country's population to guard, patrol, and monitor the Canadian and Mexican borders – and the sea coasts.

If you really don't care that much about border security, then you just put up the occasional sign that says "US Territory" which really has been our approach for centuries now.

There has to be a common sense happy medium somewhere between these two extremes. My personal view is that border security is very important but not to the degree that it bankrupts or uses more than just a tiny fraction of the nation's resources – which can still be a fairly large dollar number for a country with a $13-trillion GDP.

Border security has never before really been a major issue. Why is it now? Two factors drive the problem in my mind: uncontrolled illegal immigration where we have no idea who is here or why – coupled with terrorism.

Millions of people are migrating to other countries each year from the poorer to the richer world. This movement of so many peoples all at once all over the world is unprecedented in history and is driven, mostly, by the telecommunications revolution that started in the 1980's – people simply know, now, that better lives can be had "over there". The thousands of illegal immigrants that land in Italy each year from Albania are driving that country's new national ID card project. Massive numbers of people leave North Africa for France each year with well-publicized and devastating long-term societal results. Britain receives thousands each year from Asia through France. Mexico, believe it or not, has a similar problem with Central Americans that transit north on the way to the United States (10% of Guatemalans live, mostly illegally, here in the U.S. but some stay in Mexico). A major problem in South Africa is the thousands of illegals that come south over the border from the bankrupt Zimbabwe. Saudi Arabia (mostly Sunni) has the interesting problem of receiving millions of religious pilgrims (many Shiite) each year to visit Mecca with a not so small number that remain illegally. Never before in history have so many people been on the move. Countries are under enormous pressure to identify and track the new arrivals – both legal and illegal. It is not just a problem for the United States.

Millions of undocumented aliens live in this country. Well, so what? Many complex and emotional societal, economic, political, and cultural issues drive the debate. To argue against uncontrolled illegal immigration, one risks being branded a racist or "nativist" (which I strongly resent). But to me, the single most important argument is simple – security. We must, within reason and with common sense, do everything practical to prevent the death of thousands or potentially even millions of Americans in a next major WMD-based terrorist attack. That includes stopping or at least dramatically throttling back uncontrolled illegal immigration. We must know who is here and why.

9/11 changed everything. It is a cliché but it is also very true. On a single beautiful sunny fall morning, we lost more people – almost all civilians – than were killed at Pearl Harbor. This must never happen again.

In my view, after a lot of thought, there is only one politically and economically viable way to stop uncontrolled illegal immigration: Implement an affordable secure, counterfeit-proof "national ID card" that documents exactly who you are – your citizenship, pending citizenship, or your "right" to work in this country as a "guest worker" for some period of time along with an on-card fingerprint biometric. Such a card would, however, be useless unless it were also coupled to a very real requirement that employers electronically check the card before hiring.

A few important points: I used the words "on-card fingerprint biometric" in the above paragraph. I do not advocate building an Orwellian national database of names, fingerprints, etc of citizens. Almost all of that information should, for privacy and security from the government, be digitally stored only on the card itself – not in a national database. To prevent counterfeiting etc, an encrypted unreadable so-called digital signature of the card's contents should be in a national database. Employers would have a small device that would read the card; scan the fingerprint; compare the print to that stored on the card; and query the national database for a match of the card's digital signature (details, details). The fact that the employer did the check should itself be written to the card and should also be an electronic part of the usual IRS filings to assure compliance. Obviously, all of the information would be strongly encrypted (modern crypto methods exist to guarantee authenticity and uniqueness of each card). Such a card would also, for example, eliminate voter fraud if used for that.

I loathe the term "national ID card" but point out that such a thing already exists. It is called a state driver's license and almost everyone has one. The new card should, I believe, combine the present driver's license, social security card, and citizenship/"guest worker" information into a single secure card issued either by the federal or by the state governments or, most likely, by both in combination (a political question).

It is very interesting to me that the main problems with implementing such a card are not technical. The technology exists today (e.g., a variation of so-called optical cards) and would be affordable in such large quantities. The most difficult problem, other than the politics, is, rather, issuing the card in the first place – How do you know, really know, that a person is who they claim to be? Once the secure card is issued, then that person is, by definition, a Trusted Citizen forever. That is the central implementation question to be very carefully thought out. As usual, and to my delight, people remain far more complex than technology.

Jack Harper is a security systems expert with over thirty years experience in designing, building, and fielding secure and security-related systems. His past work involved technical details of the U.S. Green Card, nuclear war-gaming software for NATO in Germany during the Cold War, the design of variable-topology supercomputer systems for artificial intelligence and other applications, advanced biometrics/fingerprinting, security robots, and others. Harper has worked, consulted, or sold systems in 22 countries. He has three security/cryptography patents issued (or issuing) and 12 others pending. Harper has an MBA from the University of Denver (1992) and received a B.S. Electrical Engineering and B.A. Mathematics with a Minor in Russian Language and Studies from the University of Houston (1975). He has lived in Evergreen with his family for 27 years and can be reached at jharper@frobenius.com.