Well, that sucks.
So let's take a quick look at the wonderful risk analysis that everyone uses, whether they acknowledge it or not.
The basic risk analysis graph usually shown is a basic X/Y, however, there is a Z that many people don't realize they are also using. The usual drawing has the X axis as the severity of consequences and the Y axis is the likelihood that the event will occur. There is also a Z axis of how much in resources will preparations cost.
Case in point, during the Cold War, it was judged a high enough probability and severity and low enough resource expenditure that fall-out shelters were deemed a good use of money. Of course, the probability turned out to not be what was expected, but at the time...
Now another way to look at things by category is the classic balance, which we will use for our current analysis. Since the consequences of the crimes mentioned in the article (robbery, rape, and murder) are the same no matter where you are, we will concentrate on the likelihoods. As always, if you don't like my paintbrush drawings, then screw you.
The left side is the probability of it happening at home. The right side is the probability that it will happen on the train.
If you stay home, the cartels will rob you. If your daughter stays home, there is a very high probability that she will be kidnapped (at a very young age) for some drug lord to add to his harem. Murder's pretty high, although we'll discount the number of draftees who are killed fighting for the cartels.
So, short of increasing the amount of robberies, rapes, and murders until it's safer to live in South America, perhaps we need to address the Z axis. Currently, it looks a bit like this:
Where the left side is the resource expenditure to legally immigrate ($5000 and a couple years) and the right side is the $100 to hop La Bestia for a couple days.
Maybe we should change that.
A handful of Cartel members are standing at the station, waiting for La Bestia and shaking wannabe passengers down. Suddenly, instead of a cargo train, a pair of modified MRAPs hooked back to back appear. The front one has a minesweeping device. Both have an extremely hacked-off machine gunner on top who has been riding without air conditioning for the last 50 miles. Anyone toting a gun and gang colors is immediately shot. The vehicles disgorge a dozen US infantrymen who are only slightly less cranky than the gunners, because while the A/C works, it's still pretty cramped. They set up a perimeter and frisk people down before the train appears.
The train pulls up and opens it's doors. The passengers one by one get fingerprinted, entering them into the system that they will be using for the next several days. Once the car is full, the doors close.
This is horribly inefficient, so after the train pulls off, a smaller train appears that offloads 4 regular MRAP's, 1 Bradley Engineering Squad vehicle, and a few pallets of materials. They begin work on a small-but-hardened command post that will be used to pre-screen future passengers. Once the immigration outpost is built, the ESV gets loaded back up on the next train. The MRAP's stay because the cartels are gonna be pissed about losing their mule train, and because we have so many of the damn things we're giving them away to anyone who signs a 1033. The troops will be rotated each time the train pulls in.
The train starts off and the passengers go through the next car, a medical screening car where they get quick tests for IV/Hep/TB/R&R/Polio/lice/scabies/everything-else-communicable by all those Navy Corpsman who seem to end up getting all the cool humanitarian details. Those who pass get immunizations. Those who flunk are treated/decontaminated/quarantined.
Those who pass (and any who flunk but complete treatment by the end of the ride) go to the next station, a handy legal office that helps them get their paperwork started (which would, of course, be streamlined).
Next up, they go to the education cars. First, an English screening station. Those who flunk go to a comfy car where they start English lessons. If they pass, they get screened for trade training/education. If they know a trade (verified by a quick test), they go off to a comfy car for the rest of the trip. If they don't, off they go to the Career Fair car to watch a few ads from various companies to see what interests them.
Once they get to the border, people who know a trade meet representatives from firms that need them. Those who chose a career field get met by representatives from firms who are willing to train them. Those who can't speak English well enough to enter training go to dorms where they get a crash course in it. Those who are still quarantined go off to quarantined dorms to finish treatment before going to the English center or career center.
My inspiration here is a NatGeo article on Matvei Mudrov the Siberian hospital train. I mean, they put a hospital on a train, can we not put a screening station?
We're frikkin' America!
Our non-governmental charitable giving is $335 billion a year! If it costs $10 million a day to run these trains, we'd still only be scratching the surface of what Americans are willing to give. How much would this really cost to run? Heck, Warren Buffett, you already have the trains! Especially if you lose the fight to keep the Keystone from coming through my town.
The US Military sends medical people around the world to vaccinate goats! It's to build goodwill with those countries, apparently. Wouldn't vaccinating people be a better use of resources? Wouldn't giving people an alternative to having to give their daughters birth control so they won't get pregnant when (not if) they get raped build more goodwill?
Plenty of people talk about immigration reform, but until something is done to change the resource expenditure disparity between legal and illegal immigration, it will continue to be more cost-effective to risk the violence of illegal immigration.
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