Flashback – Build a Wall?

[Believe it or not, at the end of 2011, long before Donald Trump rode this issue to the White House, I wrote a piece with the title “Build a Fence.” Back then; when a Trump presidency was less than a minor consideration, many other people were talking about the need to control the southern border. Some of them later opposed the idea merely because of who was promoting it.

I also opposed a fence or wall because the issue could not be solved without changing the incentives that drive behavior. As long as illegal action yields positive consequences, it will continue. It called for better policies, and we are still waiting. Here are my thoughts from New Years Eve 2011.]

You are pushing your cart to check out at the grocery store and see ahead of you a man with his young son. The man is unloading his cart onto the conveyor and the toddler is sitting in the child seat. Suddenly the boy notices the candy along the side of the lane, lets out a scream and starts reaching. His father, distracted with the groceries and embarrassed, tries shushing the kid. Well, that just leads to more screaming and reaching. The father is at his wits end, trying to get control of two demands on his attention, the groceries and his son, while glancing around with an apologetic look to everyone in earshot. Finally, he relents and hands the child a candy bar so that he can pay for his groceries and get out of there.

What you are probably thinking at this time is: “Quiet, at last!” but also “That father is in for a real challenge because he has just reinforced a negative behavior." He rewarded the screaming and fussing and can surely expect more of the same in the future. You are also hoping you do not end up in the store at the same time as this family in the future. Don’t feel guilty. That’s exactly how most people would feel. Any right-thinking adult with an iota of life experience knows that for children, as well as for adults, behavior rewarded is behavior repeated. Behavior discouraged is behavior modified.

Now let’s look at the problem that some people refer to as illegal immigration. People sneak into the United States. They get free public education for their children. They are given jobs by employers who look the other way, just grateful to be able to get someone to do the work “that Americans refuse to do.” They get free medical care at emergency rooms. If that medical care is the delivery of a baby, their new family member automatically becomes an American citizen eligible for government benefits.

Some people who want to discourage this behavior think that the answer is to build a wall or a fence instead of recognizing what we all know: behavior rewarded is behavior repeated. Others think that the solution is to confer citizenship on those who have gotten away with it for a given number of years instead of recognizing what we all know: behavior rewarded is behavior repeated.

For some reason, logical thoughts like this can get a person branded as a racist because most of the people in that category are from one country. This is not about race or country of origin; it’s about behavior. If you don’t want a person, any person of any age, to sneak into your country (or have a temper tantrum in the grocery store), you set up a system or react in a way that discourages such behavior. You get more of what you reward and less of what you repress. 

There are already significant barriers, the hurdles of the immigration laws, that hundreds of thousands negotiate every year to come into this country legally from Mexico, India, China, Canada, Russia and all over to study, work and live free. Most proposals from all sides for dealing with this problem, if it really is a problem, don’t seem to recognize what we already know about human behavior.

[Eight years later the government is still trying to figure this out.]