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Comment by aey | Hacker News Reader

Then why aren’t they deploying this on the US/Canadian border? Or Alaska? I can see Russia from there.

This whole thing smacks of corruption.

It's not corruption, it's basic resource allocation. Why would we want to dedicate equal amounts of manpower to both borders, when only one of them accounts for the overwhelming majority of unlawful crossings?

Since when are unlawful crossings a defense issue? Is Mexico sending an invasion force ready to storm the capital?

Soviet Union used the army to police immigration as well.

It's not a defense issue, it's a law enforcement issue. Which is why law enforcement agencies (ICE, CBP) are the ones enforcing laws against illegal entry. The military is generally only mobilized at the border when large groups are poised to cross the border in numbers large enough that ICE and CBP don't have the manpower to stop it.

Because there is significantly less illegal immigration coming from those borders. Responsible resource allocation involves employing your assets where they will net the greatest utility.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_force

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_maximization_problem

Let's say 1 Anduril Widget would stop 10 border crossings/year on the southern border, but only 1/yr on the Canadian border. If I have 100 widgets, allocating them all to the southern border is the objectively superior employment of my assets. Only if my marginal utility per widget drops to preventing <1 crossing per year in the SOUTH should I even CONSIDER shifting resources to the northern border.

Why does DoD care about illegal immigration? Mexico is not about to invade. This is useless to their mission.

If they are going to build it and hand it of to border patrol, then Congress should fund it with the border patrols budget. Which they won’t, because this is as useless as a physical wall. So funding it with the money taxpayers allocated for the DoD is the definition of corruption.

That's right, because most illegal immigration comes in the form of visa overstays. They are coming in the sky!!

Those people are quite well accounted for, right (IIRC they take your photos and fingerprints when you cross the border, presumably also for visa application). Completely different from an illegal "new-immigrant" that crosses the border unnoticed.

Parent is not talking about illegal immigration as a whole, they are clearly talking about illegal immigration due to illegal border crossings.

Are you sure they aren't? Better check your facts.

It's a longer border, making it harder to man with...manpower.

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