Yuma’s Security Moat

Digby at Hullabaloo wisely points out the absurdity of a plan to build a security moat (Yes, a medieval water channel) around the city of Yuma, Arizona.

I’ve witnessed border crossings by water personally. The photograph above pretty much captures the experience. The men are clinging to black Hefty bags which likely carry the clothes they were wearing before they stripped down and made the plunge.

Immigrants I’ve seen crossing the border came over with the help of inner tubes which were left on the U.S. side. I was fishing either at the Colorado River or an adjacent irrigation canal when a cluster of men on the Mexican side came down the bank, disrobed, bagged their personal possessions, and floated over.

From the Associated Press:

‘The moats that I’ve seen circled the castle and allowed you to protect yourself, and that’s kind of what we’re looking at here,’ Yuma county sheriff Ralph Ogden told the Associated Press. The scheme would see engineers dig out a two-mile stretch of a 180-hectare (440-acre) wetland known as Hunters Hole.”

A moat will do nothing for security purposes unless it’s a flaming moat. The wetland project may not be a bad idea though for the raccoon, jack rabbit, snake, gila monster, and coyote populations.