Quote:Of course the fence and vehicle barriers don't stop anyone from crossing.  They are barriers meant to buy Border Patrol Agents time and they are more effective the closer they get to cities.  It's merely a tool in the arsenal of Border Patrol Agents.  If it takes an alien 30 seconds to run into housing from Mexico, the agents are going to have a harder time as opposed to adding an extra minute or two.

 

In regards to your re-entry into the United States, I don't know the area where you were, but its very likely that you were detected, but the BPA figured out it was a tourist.  It's fairly simple to figure out what's good to chase and what's not for a Border Patrol Agent who works the area regularly.  You may have even been spotted on camera.

I think you and I are going to have to agree to disagree on the fence. Over 50% of it is, imo, completely ineffective, and it does an equal disservice by creating the illusion that it's somehow a great help to the effort and precluding the need for more agents on the border itself.

 

It's entirely possible that I was identified and ignored, but the fact that I wasn't contacted or followed out of town struck me as odd. My first and second trips down there, I had some kind of contact with Border Patrol agents while hiking and/or driving back out of the area. On the third trip, when I actually crossed the border, spent several minutes on the Mexican side and returned, no one contacted me at all, no trucks followed me out of town or pulled me over, and when I got to the idiotic interior checkpoint before arriving home in San Diego, I wasn't even asked my citizenship, just waved through. The trips to the border were spaced out by a month or more (let's be honest, if I have to choose between walking along the Mexican border and walking up Mt. Soledad, I'm probably taking Mt. Soledad), so I doubt that agents recognized or remembered me. It just struck me as very odd that I was approached (or pulled over while leaving town) on my first two trips, and on my third trip, when I probably committed a federal offense, nobody was around to care.

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