Technological And Innovative Creation That Can Help With The Immigration Problem

Immigration is the idea where a group of individuals is purposely traveling to a specific foreign country to try and settle there as a permanent resident. The two types of immigration that exist are illegal and legal. Although immigration isn’t something people think about on a consistent daily basis, illegal immigration has always been an issue to the United States since the 1900s. Specifically for Texas, the state itself has been experiencing a vast number of illegal immigrants from Mexico through the Rio Grande River. As time progresses, illegal immigration becomes a bigger problem by the day which causes the Texas Government to create and enforce greater restrictions. The specific current event that I chose to focus on for my current event reaction paper is about a technological and innovative creation that can help with the immigration problem.

The article, Parts of a ‘Virtual’ Border Wall, Built with the Tech Behind Driverless Cars by Cade Metz states that “lidar sensor technology is being tested as a way to spot illegal intruders from Mexico (Metz)”. To summarize up the article, surveillance companies are testing out a laser-based sensor which was used to give vision for self-driving cars to help capture sight of immigrants in certain areas. The way it works is that it provides a three-dimensional virtual structure of what is being caught in sight whether it would be during the day or at night.

The goal of the surveillance company is to try and persuade the policymakers and our President that this virtual wall would be more cheap, effective and maintainable than an actual physical wall. It turns out that Quanergy isn’t the only company that is trying to offer their technological advancement. Anduril and Cogniac are other start-up security technology companies that are also offering their technology. The only difference is that these companies are using digital cameras rather than a virtual sensor. The only complication with these new technologies is that they can be vandalized if left unprotected and unattended. Not only that, but they would always require a power source from an electrical and network connection. Many believed that this should be implemented immediately and that it would make a drastic impact, while others believe that it would be completely pointless and a waste of money.

I believe that the new innovative technologies that are being tested and proposed in this article are not completely pointless, but at the same time, I don’t think that they would make such a great impact. I think that any sort of surveillance products that helps capture certain subjects in a specific area can help border patrols find immigrants in an easier way, but I don’t think that it holds a purpose in stopping individuals from crossing the border. I believe that it is better to invest the money into multiple checkpoints throughout the border while surrounded with a blockade. I feel like this way, immigrants from across the country would only have one narrow way to get to the United States and in order to do that, they would have to go through the checkpoints. Not only that but since the sensor is being tested for the very first time as a security system, it isn’t assured that there wouldn’t be any sort of defects. The existence of illegal immigration has created an immense controversy between the political parties in the state of Texas.

A negative outcome that was caused by illegal immigrants was that U.S. workers were losing their jobs because of the competition from low-paying businesses in Mexico or because plans had been relocated to Mexico which is specified in Chapter 1 of the textbook. Not only that but large numbers of undocumented workers staying in Texas were viewed during the primary campaign and the general election by Donald Trump and other leading Republicans as a burden upon the state’s social services. Because of illegal immigration, Americans have debates such as we did in class on whether if the federal government or the state government should make the decisions and take the legal actions on the problem.

As multiple debates are configured, citizens and politicians of the United States have concluded that immigration is a national rather than a state issue and that numerous Texas politicians have called for a more rigorous policing of the border by state authorities. In conclusion, illegal immigration has always been problematic to the United States, and it will continue to be troublesome unless our government takes some serious actions.