Dennis:
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the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain
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I fully agree that such is not what you advocate. However, in that case, the Soviets and Warsaw Pact "helped out" with the other side of the border, didn't they? They didn't exactly allow the mass of humanity to rush the borders from their side (well, until the "Fall") without trying the patience of the Pact machine gunners, did they? That's not the kind of cooperation that we are going to get from Mexico, is it?
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Let’s say four troops can secure at least 528 feet of the border (on average), or about 10 groups of four per mile. That’s 40 troops per mile x 4 shifts x 2013 miles = 322,080 troops.
(That’s a warm body, 24/7, for every 132 feet of border.)
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Even assuming that your assumption of 4 troops per 528 feet of border is correct, you left out the following factors:
1. 322,080 "shooting" troops require command and supporting personnel - add x2 to x5 manpower depending on conditions.
2. 322,080 "shooting" troops require infrastructure (housing, depots, etc.), which further increases manpower requirements and costs - particularly for those poor souls "guarding" the desert and other harsh areas.
3. A linear defense of 1 person thick is inevitably going to have holes - a defense in depth would require yet more infrastructure and manpower (again to a depth of 5-25 KM in my experience).
4. The US-Mexican (or for that matter, US-Canadian border) is not a flat, straight 2013 mile-long area. Changes in elevation and other physical varieties would increase the needs further.
5. At least double the number to include the US-Canadian border.
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Oh, and as far as "militaristic" goes, I agree. But I consider that preferable to INS raids in restaurants during lunch and the crime we facilitate and create with our current hypocritical approach to border security. All in all, both honest Americans and honest Mexicans would be safer with no loss in freedom or Liberty and little increase in expense (by re-allocation of our current resources).
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Uh, how do our society becoming more "militaristic" and "no loss in freedom or Liberty" coincide?
BTW, to reiterate, you assume that we can close the border with a single line of troops (1 soldier for every 132 feet). That is simply not so. Factoring in the above and other things I didn't think of immediately, the actual total can be ten times as high (over 6 million soldiers, to include the US-Canada border) and it still wouldn't be "airtight," not to mention the havoc having that kind of military presence along the borders is going to have on our force-projection capability and on the state of our society.
Closed borders are for the likes of Soviet Union, former East Germany and North Korea. It's not for a free society like ours.
Skorzeny