Category: Uncategorized

Post #1969: Rainy-day this and that.

 

It has turned into a cool and rainy spring, here in Northern Virginia.

This post is a hodgepodge:

  • Microwave “energy saver” mode?
  • Ace hardware watering can.
  • Vegetative propagation:  still rootless at four weeks
  • Learning a new computer language.

Microwave energy saver mode?

Hey, my new microwave has an “energy saver” mode.  This turns off the display, and so reduces the electricity the microwave uses when sitting idle, the so-called “parasitic draw” or standby energy use.

Conspicuous by its absence, however, is any mention of how much energy this saves.  So I put a meter on it.  Without energy saver, the parasitic draw is two watts.  With energy saver, the parasitic draw is two watts.  In other words, energy save reduces standby electricity consumption by less than 1 watt (else the digits on my meter would have changed).

Observation 1:  I am old enough that, once upon a time, I thought it odd that every new appliance had a clock, and those clocks were constantly on.    Now, having lived with that for decades, my gut reaction to a microwave without a lit clock is “oh no, the microwave is broken”.  My brain no longer understands the concept of a working microwave without a clock.  No clock showing instantly registers as “oh crap, the microwave is dead”.

Perhaps my brain will adapt.  But the easier solution is to ignore the “energy saver” feature, and needlessly burn an additional 9 KWH per year in clock-lighting energy.

Observation 2:  There was a time when electronics used tubes, and electronic devices literally had to warm up before they would function.  As I recall, for a TV, this would typically take on-order-of 15 seconds or so.  The only way to avoid that delay was to use “instant-on” technology, which simply ran electricity through the tubes all the time, to keep the filaments hot.  Instant-on devices consumed so much energy in standby mode that this was banned, for new electronics, as part of the Carter administration’s grappling with the fallout from the Arab oil embargoes and the resulting 1970s energy crises.

Observation 3:  And yet, now that everything is solid-state (no tubes), you can still find electronics with pretty substantial parasitic draws.  Here, I think the worst offenders are computers (where “sleep” mode keeps all the chips hot, versus “hibernate” mode that writes the internal state of the computer to disk, then turns it off), and game consoles (same notion).

For some reason, the Crazy Right got bent out of shape when Microsoft updated its Xbox game console software to make (low-energy) hibernate the default temporary shutdown mode, rather than sleep mode, which consumed 15 watts, continuously, even when the game console appeared to be off (see Post #1696).  I have never figured out the logical reason why anything that reduces fuel use is deemed Evil by the nutso right, but that surely seems to be the case.

Observation 4:  This energy-saver feature is just one more instance of the all-hype, all-the-time society.  The reality is that this microwave has an energy-saver mode that does almost nothing.  So the manufacturer simply advertised that it had an energy-saver mode.  Full stop. Thus validating the rule-of-thumb that when a key bit of information is missing  — in this case, the actual energy savings — that was done on purpose.

Ace hardware watering can breaks the replacement-purchase rule.

The only interesting story here is that this breaks the replacement-purchase rule: Any time you go to replace an item that you really like, you will find that item is no longer being made. 

I bought two Ace hardware plastic watering cans somewhere around 15 years ago.  They have held up remarkably well (plus or minus one missing rosette, which is probably the result of operator error).

These function well, but are otherwise unremarkable.  The Jerrycan-like design is perfect for watering a vegetable garden.  (Even when full, you can hold them by the back handle, nozzle-down, for fast, intense watering.)

I had assumed that after all this time, Ace would have changed the can.  Just because the Gods of Eternal Change for Change’s Sake would demand it.  But no.  Ace still sells the exact same plastic 2-gallon watering can.  I just bought another one, above, from Ace Hardware.

Only when I got it home did I realize they’d redone the rosette to make it a much slower can, with a much finer, more delicate spray.   That’s the old rosette on the left, and the new one on the right, above.  This is easily fixed with about a minute of time and a drill/bit.

Vegetative propagation:  Alive but rootless.

Like a retiree living in a motor home.

Four weeks ago, I set out to try two different approaches to growing new plants by taking cuttings of old plants:  Air layering, and snip-dip-stick. With air layering, you girdle a branch, then pack wet potting soil around the injury, wrap in plastic, and hope that the branch will set new roots in that potting soil.  With snip-dip-stick, you snip off a green branch end, dip it in rooting hormone, and stick it in potting soil.  Again, in the hope that roots will form.

The good news is that four weeks into it, and almost all the cuttings are still alive.  That’s a surprise to me.

The bad news is that none of my cuttings has grown roots yet.

This despite the fact that the internet swore I’d have a humongous root ball on these things after just four weeks.

Note the total absence of roots, above.  That said, I potted them up anyway.  When you get down to it, sitting in wet potting soil in your own pot is not very different from sitting in wet potting soil with a bunch of other cuttings.

In any case, “four weeks” to have a nicely-rooted cutting now seems wildly optimistic.  These things are still basically sticks with leaves on them.  But they are most definitely still alive.

So now they are sticks, in their own pots, with leaves on them.

We’ll see how it goes from here.  I still have one air-layered branch still attached to the mother plant.  I’m leaving that be, for the time being, and maybe at 8 weeks I’ll see some root development there.

Learning a new computer language.

I have no interest in learning a new computer language. My brain is full. Anything I learn now requires forgetting something I already know.

In fact, I’ve never had any interest in learning any computer language.  But that’s the price of admission if you intend to write computer programs to (e.g.) perform data analysis.  I’m an “applications programmer”, that is, a person who uses some sort of higher-level computer language, as opposed to a “systems programmer”, the sort of person who creates and writes a higher-level computer language.

I mean, there are nerds, and then there are nerds.  I’m just an applications-programming nerd, not a systems-programming nerd.

Actually, I have exactly $3400 worth of interest in learning a new computer language this year.  That’s what the annual license costs, for the program that I’m fluent in — SAS (Statistical Analysis System).

My continued use of SAS — and the annual fee — are holdovers from my years of running my own small business.  Back when custom data analysis using SAS was the core of my business, that expense was easily justified.  Now it’s just an expensive hobby.  I used SAS quite a bit during the pandemic, to track and analyze COVID-19 data.  But since that time, I rarely ever boot up the program.

And yet, I can’t quite let it go.  After spending most of my life doing data analysis, I just can’t go cold turkey.  I’m just not going to feel comfortable without something at my disposal that’s a step up from using Excel.

In terms of open-source freeware for statistical analysis, my options seem to be R or Python.  Having taken a brief peek at both, and seen way too many C-like curly brackets {{{  }}} in Python, I downloaded and installed R on my Windows 7 laptop.  Eventually, successfully, one Windows tweak required.

This did not preclude downloading Python as well.  The clincher is that, when asked, my daughter said R was the better choice if my intended use is statistical analysis.  The response was sufficiently terse and on-point that I’m pretty sure it was her genuine opinion, and not the product of an AI.

In any case, that, and running readily under Windows 7, clinched the deal for R.  It looked to me as if the latest versions of Python do not run (or run right) under Windows 7.  Or getting them to do so was beyond my skill level.

Now I just need to see if I can make R do what I used to make SAS do.

The oddity here is not that I’m learning a new higher-level computer language.  It’s that a) I’m 65 years old, b) I’m doing this for $3400 a year and some sense of connection with my professional past.

Old dog.  New trick.  We’ll see how well it works.

Post #1966: Friday/Saturday this-n-that. Part 2: The soothing sound of … water hammer?

 

This is a brief anecdote on how yesterday’s laundry morphed into today’s tense, once-a-decade plumbing maintenance task, replacing the water-hammer arresters installed with my clothes washer.

Listen to the rhythm of the gentle bossa nova

It all started out innocently enough.

In the prior post, I admitted to being a bit slow, at the moment, owing to my under-consumption of stimulants.  So, as I was not getting much done yesterday.  I decided to do some laundry.  That takes up some time and accomplishes something, without being mentally or physically taxing.

For maybe the first half-hour, I enjoyed the far-off sound of the laundry equipment chugging and ticking away.  Somehow I feel as if I personally was getting something done, even though the equipment was doing the work.

The catchy, staccato rhythms of the washing machine are so homey and soothing.  Put you feet up, cruise the internet, relax.  I can’t really start another task because, hey, I’ll have to go tend to the laundry soon.  Guilt-free-chill time.

… (Time passes)

It only took me a half an hour to realize that those washing-machine noises were a lot louder than I remembered.  And maybe just a bit too rhythmic.

It finally dawns on me that I’m listening to pipe knock from water hammer created by the clothes washer.  The rhythmic sound I’m hearing is the result of the cold water valve cycling on and off during the rinse cycle, followed by the cold-water pipes boinging back-and-forth, wherever.

Water hammer is an unambiguously bad thing.  A moving column of water (in a pipe, say), has kinetic energy.  By law, that energy must go somewhere when the column stops.  In a house, it goes into moving the pipes.  The more abrupt the stop — such as the closing of a solenoid-driven valve in a washer — the more abrupt the transfer of energy, and the bigger the “hammer” effect (all other things equal).  The moving pipes bang into stuff, which is not good in the long run.  And it induces wear-and-tear on the washing machine valves.

Water hammer, in home plumbing, unchecked, will eventually break something.  If not your water pipe, then your washing machine.  That’s what they say, and I believe them.  In effect, I’ve been enjoying the pleasant sound of my washing machine beating my water pipes (and itself) to death.  Eventually.

Too bad the builder didn’t do a better job with the pipes.  I really hate having to pay for other people’s mistakes.

… (Time passes)

Another half-hour, and I realize the water hammer is my fault and needs to be fixed.  Plausibly, I’m hearing this now because my water-hammer arresters have finally worn out.  Those are more-or-less little shock absorbers for your pipes, and used a captive bit of air and a piston to soak up the force of the water hammer before it bangs your pipes around.   Those water hammer arresters have been in place since I had this washer installed about 15 years ago.  They are long overdue for replacement.

I need two of these gizmos.  One for the hot water hose, one for the cold water hose, feeding the clothes washer.

 

Source:  Home Depot, cited just above.

… (Time passes)

And it only takes another hour for me to figure out that I should replace the washing machine hoses as well.  Installed with the water hammer arresters, they are now pushing 15 years old, or about three times their rated safe lifetime.  Unlike your garden hose, say, these hoses are under house water pressure constantly.  You really don’t want one of those to burst.  Which they may do, when they get old.

The full fix.

So now it’s one of those should-be-easy-but-potentially-white-knuckle plumbing repairs.

All the required parts connect together without tools.  The hoses, arresters, and valves are put together with fittings similar to what you’d see on a garden hose.  But better quality.  They all use garden hose thread (GHT), either male (MHT) or female (FHT).  (At least they do here, YMMV.)

You tighten them hand-tight*.  Maybe give them a small fraction of a turn beyond hand-tight using a weakly-held set of water-pump pliers.  Never use a tool to tighten the fitting (the female exterior bit) all the way to tight, as in, can’t move.  That’s not how they work, and if you do, you’ll screw them up.  That’s what they say and I believe them.

* being careful not to cross thread them on (e.g.) the plastic MHT fittings on the back of the washer.   GHT is not like pipe thread.  It doesn’t get progressively harder to turn, like pipe thread.  Properly aligned, it should turn several full turns with just a light finger grip. It stops when male, gasket, and female meet, not when the threads dictate.

So, about $100 and two fun-filled hardware store trips later, and I have the parts I need.

These, I have laid atop my honored and increasingly venerable Speed Queen washer. Long may she live.

Because I have a non-standard setup, this fix depends on a) the water shutoffs for those pipes working, and b) about half-a-dozen GHT joints coming cleanly apart, after being connected for close to 15 years.

It’s old plumbing.  I expect something to go wrong.  Perhaps catastrophically wrong.  Perhaps not.  I just have no clue what, and how serious it will be.

I’m phobic about it, to be honest.  Plumbing disasters feature prominently in my literal nightmares.

But today, Cloacina, the Roman goddess of plumbing, smiles upon me.   All goes as well as I could hope.  Little water is on the floor.  Nothing obviously drips. A test load demonstrates that the pipes have gone quiet, at least for the time being.

Cloacina willing, I’ll revisit that no sooner than half-a-decade from now.

Post #1965: Friday/Saturday this-n-that. Part 1: A state of decaffeination

 

It’s a flannel shirt day for sure.  Overcast, cold, with occasional showers.  Perhaps even an un-tucked flannel shirt day.

So I’m off to a slow start.  And I need to get my thoughts together anyhow.

Let me blog my way through a few things.  Starting with:

Continue reading Post #1965: Friday/Saturday this-n-that. Part 1: A state of decaffeination

Post #1956: If he didn’t have (R) after his name, would you vote for him?

 

This is just a rambling discourse on the Presidential race.

Today I read that Trump verbally attacked the daughter of the Federal judge in his hush money trial.  Edit 4/1/2024:  And has now received yet another well-earned gag order for doing so.

Then I started to peel the layers off that, and became increasingly disoriented.  Just from trying to tell the story linearly.

First, having a Presidential candidate attacking the family of anyone who crosses him is now par for the course?  It hardly even merits mentioning, these days.  It’s now normal.

OK, so, as I recall this particular story:

Once upon a time, while Trump was married to his third wife, having been divorced for cause twice, he paid a porn star (or two) to be his whore(s).

(By that I mean, a person who exchanges sex for money.  Substitute a more polite term of you prefer.)

Then, during the campaign, he had that particular whore paid off so that she wouldn’t make their relationship public.

(I guess, back in that naïve era, there must have been some notion that mainstream Republicans might not vote for a twice-divorced married man who keep a whore or two on the side.  The good old days.  Little did he know at the time that nothing is too extreme, any more, and that he needn’t have bothered.)

Anyway, the jarring thing to me is that apparently none of that matters to Republicans, in the least.  In fact, today I see that the same guy is now the spokesmodel for Bible sales.  And while “Whore of Babylon” does appear in some versions of that book, that seems to be more of a metaphor than an actual  business enterprise in that context.

In any case, Trump-as-Bible salesman whups me upside the head twice.  Once, for the fact that it’s now considered completely normal for the President of the United States (former) to pitch products for personal profit.  Second, that somebody saw fit to use this guy to market, of all things, the Holy Bible.  If that’s considered righteous and just, look no further for proof that there is no God.

Back to the story.

His personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, actually did the payoff.  There ain’t no doubt that money changed hands, as he was convicted and sent to prison for making what was, in effect, an undeclared campaign contribution.  Plus tax evasion.  He spent about a year in prison, and two under house arrest.

But in addition, Trump recorded the payment as a business expense, writing it off as a payment for legal services from Cohen.  Which, as if it matters these days, is tax evasion.

But it seems like Republicans are OK with cheating on your taxes, if you’re a Republican.  So, again, that’s just normal now.

Which brings up the fact that, despite assurances to the contrary while campaigning, Trump refuses to release his tax returns.

And that’s now apparently OK, as well.  But in his defense, Bush Jr. did the same, for one year, presumably to hide the repatriation of funds the he had offshored … to dodge U.S. taxes.

And so I am reminded of a comment made by Rachel Maddow this past week.  She researched the history of fascism in America, and found many, many prior examples of anti-democracy, dictator-loving candidates like Trump.  But they all ran as third-party candidates, and they all collected miniscule votes.

The difference with Trump is that he’s taken over the Republican party.

Which then reminds me that he just installed his daughter-in-law as chairman of the Republican party.  Co-chair.  Whatever.  So the Republican party is now run by Trump’s daughter-in-law.  Who has absolutely no experience or credentials.  Whose only qualification for the job is being related to Trump.

But Republicans are OK with nepotism, too. They are, in effect, the Party of Nepotism.  In fact, nepotism is the new normal, after Trump hired his … what was it, son-in-law? … to play a key policy role in his administration.  Despite the fact that the guy couldn’t qualify for security clearance.

I guess.  What else could I possibly infer, given that campaign donations didn’t dry up over that.

But then, contrast that with the fact Trump’s own Vice-President, Mike Pence, finally came out and said he can’t support Trump for President.

And Republicans yawned.

Because, apparently, it’s now normal for people who were chosen by, and worked closely with, a Presidential candidate to repudiate him publicly.  Vice President.  Attorney General.  Chair of the Joint Chiefs.  Those were all people that Trump picked.  All life-long Republicans.   All of whom now say, please don’t put this guy back in office.

Bottom line is that if Trump had to run as a third-party candidate, I don’t think he’d get a lot of votes.  He’s only in the race because the U.S. Republican party wholeheartedly endorsed this guy.  And now the Republican Party is, in effect, owned by that guy, for use in (e.g.) paying legal bills and such.

If, as, and when his daughter-in-law directs the Party to do so.

And Republicans are perfectly fine with this, as their Party.  Along with having no party platform, that is, no formal statement of what Republicans aim to accomplish if elected.

Sometimes, when I step back from something like this, I wonder whether I am losing my mind.  Or just too old to get with the program.

But in this case, I think it’s the Republican Party that’s gone insane. I always thought that, at the minimum, Republicans were savvy about private wealth.  But now they’ve given the keys to the cash register to the daughter-in-law of a serial bankrupt.  A man famous for expropriating everything he can, and not paying his bills.

You might as well just rake all your money into a big pile and set fire to it.  Something I might expect Democrats to do, accidentally, from time to time, but never thought I’d see Republicans do on purpose.

In any case, I get the feeling that as long as there is (R) after his name, almost all Republicans will vote for Trump, full stop.

And my guess is, if not for the (R) after his name, Trump would rightfully be nowhere as a political candidate.

Post #1940: Dark Groundhog Day.

 

With this latest round of our retaliation, for their retaliation, against our ships, in response to the war, in a completely different country, that resulted from the terrorist action, that arose from pre-existing treatment, that is the residual of long-standing conflict … I’m just having a hard time keeping the basic details straight.

I guess what finally set me off is that I have no clue who the Houthis are, why they hate us, and so on.  And after reading up on it, and honestly trying to grasp what the deal was, all I could think was, it just doesn’t matter.  You could basically do the entire Middle East as a Mad Libs, and it would make just as much sense.  And, apparently, even serious scholars sometimes despair that US Middle East policy is just one big, long Mad Libs (e.g., reference).

The current situation is unexceptional.  It’s just the way the world works.

Source:  Vox, 600 Year of War and Peace, by Zack Beauchamp.  Note that deaths is on a log scale on this chart, which flattens the peaks quite a bit.

Source:  Our World in Data, War and Peace, by Bastian Herre, Lucas Rodés-Guirao, Max Roser, Joe Hasell and Bobbie Macdonald

Source:  Our World in Data.

Post #1933: A short, simple explanation of U.S. immigration law

 

/s.  The title is sarcasm.  This post isn’t about explaining U.S. immigration policy.  It’s about giving up trying to understand it, let alone explain it.

U.S. immigration policy is a stew cooked from ancient and modern quotas, agribusiness needs, humanitarian concerns, special exceptions, vestigial ethnic, racial, and religious bias, aftermath-of-war, left-over anti-communism, workforce shortages, national security issues …you name it.

It’s a dish where everybody gets to toss in an ingredient.  Or maybe everybody who can pay to play gets to.  It’s hard to tell.

Policy consists of turning a blind eye to the results, until it’s politically expedient to do otherwise.

 

And by “blind eye”, I don’t mean merely pretending that those folks don’t exist.  Although there’s plenty of that.

It’s knowing they are there, and dismissing it with a shrug.  Ever wonder why they don’t just impose stiff fines on the businesses who hire illegal aliens?  I mean, putting all the right-wing nonsense aside, if nobody would hire you, there wouldn’t be much incentive to immigrate here illegally, would there?

Ponder this:  About 44% of paid U.S. crop workers are illegal aliens.

Who says so, and how do they know?  Who says that so many agribusinesses engage in such a gross violation of Federal law?  The Federal government does.  That’s straight out of the U.S. Department of Labor, National Agricultural Workers Survey.  (From their 2019-2020 survey results summary, available as a .pdf at this link.)  And that’s the percent of folks who were willing to be interviewed, and willing to admit that they lacked legal status to work in the U.S.   But that’s after excluding all workers under H-2A temporary agricultural worker visas, from the sampling frame, to begin with.)

So it’s not as if this is some unknown, unquantifiable practice.  It’s an integral part of the U.S. food supply.  It continues because in normal times, nobody is quite crazy enough to try to disrupt that without having something else ready to take its place.

Which, needless to say, we ain’t got.

For the past few decades, the “politically expedient to do otherwise” periods seem to occur just after peaks in immigration.

And since we’re having a peak now, you’d expect another round of doing something about it. Beyond the billion or two we’ve been spending each year,  now, to fix the worst holes in the Mexican border.

And so, I finally arrive at the cause of this particular screed.

By report, a large majority of U.S. Senators are on board with beefing up security at the Mexican border.  Among other things.

But it sure looks like nothing will happen, because the Republican candidate for President sees it as too good a political issue to allow it to be solved on somebody else’s watch (reference).  And as an added bonus, we can make Putin happy by hanging Ukraine out to dry.  As part of our non-action on this issue.  And the Governor of Texas can defy the U.S. Supreme Court, with impunity.  Ah, that’s an overstatement, but it’s close enough.  Narrowlly construed, I think the Court ruling merely means that the Border Patrol can continue to remove the razor wire that gets in the way of them doing their jobs,  even as the Texas National Guard continues to lay more razor wire.  Not because it makes sense, or is effective.  But because that’s unbeatable political theater.

This is U.S. immigration policy?  Yep, it’s what passes for it, in the current situation.

Define U.S. immigration policy?  Apparently, it’s whatever the Republican executives want it to be.  Nothing more and nothing less.

Maybe I see the past through rose-colored glasses.  Maybe it’s because I spent a decade working for a U.S. legislative-branch agency, and ended up with a lot of respect for then- members of Congress.  But I swear that the U.S. Congress didn’t used to be anywhere near this screwed up.

Post #1929: The caveman wants his fire, or, better to light one candle.

 

I just bought a candle-powered electric light, on Amazon.  The Luminiser, for $20.

What attracted me to this device, aside from the low price, is that it seems like such an irredeemably stupid concept.  Perfect for the headlights on your horse-drawn EV.  Or perhaps to replace the light bulb inside your ice-powered electric fridge.

It’s almost as if some nerds took steampunk literally, glommed up a bunch of money via Kickstarter, and created this pseudo-retro-techno-thing.  Which is, in fact, how this was developed.

But all that aside, a) it works like a charm, b) the underlying tech is pretty interesting and mostly, c) it’s a vastly more efficient light source than the candle that drives it.  And d), I’ve been wanting to own a device of this type for quite some time.

In fact, in terms of in-the-home, fossil-fuel-fired lighting — oil lamps, candles, Coleman lanterns, Aladdin lamps, gas-mantle lamps, and all of that — this is by far the most efficient one you can buy.

So chalk one up for steampunk, as I sit here typing by the light of that lantern, warmed ever-so-slightly by the candle flame in its heart.

In any case, I’m going to use this new toy as my excuse for running the numbers on the entire range of lighting — from candles to LED lights — that I have in my home.

But I’m leaving the deeper moral question for another day.  Would the Amish accept this?  At root, this two-step light generation process is no different from a mantle-type oil lamp, which is a technology generally acceptable to the Amish.

Continue reading Post #1929: The caveman wants his fire, or, better to light one candle.

Post #1928: Will those who succeeded in immigrating illegally please raise your hands, part II

 

In the prior post I established some basic facts.

1:  We’re still running somewhere around 2M unsuccessful attempts at illegal immigration, per year, at the Mexican border.  This is about a third higher than the previous peaks in FY 1986 (1.6M, Reagan) and FY 2000 (1.6M, Clinton).

Source:  Ultimately, the data are from US DHS, but read the prior post to see what I had to do to generate a consistent timeseries, including COVID-based expulsions,.

2: There are no hard numbers on the count of successful attempts at illegal immigration, per year, at the Mexican border.  That’s the subject of this post.  How do they estimate the number of illegal immigrants successfully crossing the Mexican border?

3:  The Congress has been funding increased personnel, barriers, and tracking technology at this border for decades, and continues to do so today.  That includes 1986 legislation that doubled the size of border patrol staff, and 2006 legislation that authorized 700 miles of walls/fences.  In recent years, the Congress has been funding “border barrier construction” at the rate of about $1.5B/year.  I believe this funding is what Biden administration is using to patch a few of the worst known holes in the Mexican border, in Arizona.

Source:  DHS Border Barrier Funding, Updated January 29, 2020, Congressional Research Service
https://crsreports.congress.gov, R45888   NOTE that there’s a large pot of money not under the control of DHHS that is not accounted for in the recent-year data.  As of this writing, I don’t know what that’s being used for.

I recommend that CRS report, cited just above, because you can see how rational the border control strategy was, at least historically.  To nobody’s surprise, they called in experts from the DoD, and they focused the resources on the easiest/busiest illegal entry routes first (CRS report, op cit, page 2).

That $1.5B a year is in addition to the roughly $6B one-time transfer within the Department of Defense budget, attempted by then-President Trump, to various border security projects.  Of which, only about $2.1B in total is available to be spent, the rest being tied up due to the (ahem) unorthodox way in which the funds were allocated, in part, via a declaration of a National Emergency. (This, as of the 2019 CRS report cited below.)

If you want to know what the DoD has been up to, with the monies re-allocated via declaration of National Emergency, there’s a corresponding CRS report on that, as of 2019, but I couldn’t quite make out what has actually taken place under that funding (reference available on this web page).  Near as I can tell, at the time that report was written, seven sections of border fence/wall were were agreed-upon to be built under DoD funding authority. But it’s clear that funding it this way created a lot of legal and other messes, some of which have resulted in the majority of funds not being spendable for border security.

Efforts by DHS to Estimate Southwest Border Security between Ports of Entry

Rather than re-invent the wheel and do my own research, I’m just going to summarize a 2017 report by the US DHS, with the title shown above (reference).  This is, in effect, a report by the Government, on the performance of the Government, so it’s not clear whether there are any explicit or implicit biases in the analysis.   If nothing else, it’s probably about as good a summary of the technical problem as you are likely to find.

This is a report done at the behest of the Congress, given the attention that then-President Trump was focusing on the Mexican border.  As described in the Report:

Congress has directed the Department to provide more detailed reporting on southwest border security. The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017 directs the Department to publish “metrics developed to measure the effectiveness of security between the ports of entry, including the methodology and data supporting the resulting measures."

To paraphrase, how good a job are you doing now, at preventing illegal immigration across that border, and how do you estimate that?

So this report is exactly what I’m looking for.

Total interdiction rate, including those who turn back after crossing the border:  Implied successful illegal immigration rate of about 30% per attempt.

 

The report spends a of time talking about deterrence.  That is, the people who don’t even try to cross illegally, because we’ve made it tough for them to do so.  Or who turn back, once they see US DHS personnel.  And similar.

For example, US Border Patrol (USBP) personnel count “turn-backs”, that is, estimates of the number of persons who cross the border into the U.S., but turn back and return to Mexico once they spot USBP personnel there.

The USBP also counts “got aways”, that is, individuals observed to have made it past border security.  Essentially, these are reported either by direct observation, or by noticing signs of passage and inferring the number of people involved.

From such counts, plus apprehensions, US DHS calculates a couple of “interdiction rates”, that is, the fraction of all persons attempting to cross, who get successfully turned back.  One of those rates relies solely on data that U.S. DHS personnel observe, and so excludes most of the successful illegal immigrants.  A second estimate of the interdiction rate includes some estimate of illegal immigrants who managed to evade US DHS.

In round numbers, by the end of the period, the US DHS estimate for the success rate at crossing the Mexican border is 30%.  The other 70% either turned back voluntarily when they spotted USBP, or they were caught.

(Note that you CANNOT multiply 30%, times the roughly 2 million illegal immigrants caught at the border each year, to estimate the number of illegal immigrants at about 600K per year.  That’s because the TIR above also includes a count of “turn backs”, who are persons who were NOT apprehended crossing the border.  Based on the above, the estimated number of illegal immigrants has to be higher than that.)

But that depends critically on the very last factor above — the estimated (successful) illegal entries.

How do they estimate that?

Survey data, including only apprehensions (not turn-backs), implied successful crossing rate 50% to 70% per attempt.

There are several long-running surveys of migrants where they ask how often they’ve tried to cross into the U.S., and how frequently they’ve gotten caught.  I cannot even imagine what the potential sampling bias issues are for such surveys.  All I can say is that this DHS report summarizes the results of three long-running academically-sponsored surveys as shown above:  Roughly a 30% to 50% chance of being apprehended on any on attempt at border crossing.

So those who were willing to be surveyed — on either side of the border — report getting caught a lot less frequently than the US DHS “TIR” methodology would suggest.

near-border Repeat offenders, the partial apprehension rate:  Implied successful illegal crossing rate of perhaps 50%.

A final method used by US DHS is to track people who were caught and released into Mexico. Guess how many are likely to try it again.  Then see how many they catch a second time.

Once caught, they record “biometric” information, which I guess is fingerprints, face scans, and similar.  (So that they know if they catch them again.)

They restrict their analysis solely to individuals who live near the border.

Using a survey-based estimate, they take a guess at the fraction of those folks who are likely to try to enter illegally again.

And then they count the number that they catch a second time.

That yields the Partial Apprehension Rate shown above.  Admittedly, these are folks who by definition have had some practice at crossing.  But also, by definition, weren’t particularly good at it.  So, FWIW, they estimate that about half of that population successfully immigrates illegally across the Mexican border, on their second attempt.  And they take that estimate — roughly 50% — as a reasonable guess for the overall rate of successful illegal immigration.

Conclusion

I could go on.  This report presents its own complex estimate of likely count of illegal immigrants, but I honestly didn’t follow the logic or the resulting numbers.

The only real bottom line is that the Mexican border is quite porous, and that successful illegal immigration occurs routinely.  You could quibble over just how large a fraction, but as a good working estimate, you’d be justified in guessing that about half the people who try it succeed.

Moreover, there’s no strong trend there.  The is maybe a little harder to cross now, compared to (say) 20 years ago.  But only a little.

We’re currently targeting a billion or two a year at building and reconstructing walls and fences along the border, adding other security measures, and so on.  I’m hardly an expert, but I’m not seeing anything on the plate right now that hasn’t been there for the past couple of decades.

In any case, given the history of this, I think the notion that we’re somehow going to seal that border air-tight strikes me as somewhat far-fetched. Or expensive beyond our willingness to pay, take your pick.

My prediction is that the current Congress — if it can be prodded into action — will do what prior Congresses have done.  Address the worst known points for illegal entry.  Place a few more patches on the existing system.  And wait for the problem to go away for another decade or so.

No matter how you slice it, the influx of a million destitute people a year, in those border states, has to be putting a strain on something.

Despite the rhetoric, some Federal money goes to support whatever-it-is that communities in border states have to spend more money on, in response.  And while illegal (undocumented) immigrants (migrants) are not eligible for (e.g.) Medicaid, the Feds do, in fact, give communities money to deal with the basic humanitarian issues of food and shelter.  (E.g., $290M, per this press release).  Allocated like so, to local charities in those states, showing just the first few listed alphabetically:

But if you read the fine print, none of that applies to successful illegal immigrants, those who got across the border without being apprehended.  Or are not claiming asylum.  And so on.  Those grants to local charities only apply to those who have been “processed” in some form, by immigration authorities.

So at present, there’s a large influx of very poor people, who are almost by definition outside of “the system” and are categorically ineligible for any type of direct Federal assistance.  For example, they can’t get food stamps (reference).  They are, effectively, un-people.

The only major exception is for children.  Even if their parents crossed the border illegally, in theory, the U.S. won’t allow them to starve.  I think.  And schools that take Federal funds have to enroll them.  I think.  Including free and reduced price lunches, if they are not too scared to apply for that.

And so, we have this weird situation in those border states.  Everybody with any sense realizes they’re getting a million or so people a year, currently mostly refugees from bad conditions in South and Central America.  Or just looking for a better life.  Who crossed the border illegally.  And it’s a fantasy to expect that to stop any time soon.  If ever.  But the Feds can’t do anything to ease the resulting strain on state and local governments, because that large population falls entirely outside of the law.

Everybody knows they’re there, somewhere.  Everybody can see that more are coming.  But nobody can help state and local governments deal with the bulk of the problem.  Because that million-a-year influx consists of people who have no legal standing.  And so we carry on, with policy-by-fantasy, or policy-by-turning-a-blind-eye.  Or no policy at all.

Addendum:  Gross versus net, or missing the reverse flow.

Source:  Immigrationpolicy.org

Notice anything odd about the graph above?  If there’s this huge ongoing influx of illegal immigrants … why are all the curves flat?  Why isn’t the estimate of illegal alien U.S. residents rising?

What I’ve looked at so far is the gross inflow of illegal immigrants across the border.   The graph above looks at the net number of illegal aliens living here.  Assuming both estimates are reasonably close to correct, there has to be a pretty big outflow of illegal immigrants, back out of the U.S.

So, as a matter of logic, I’m missing a potentially large flow of people in my overall analysis of illegal immigration.  Some fraction of successful illegal immigrants — those who cross the border illegally, and end up settled somewhere away from the border — eventually cross back.  To get at net illegal immigration, I should, in theory, subtract out that flow.

(And there’s also some fraction of that population lost to illegal immigrants who are granted some form of amnesty, and so convert to legal status.  But there hasn’t been a large-scale amnesty program since Reagan, I think.  Maybe there was one under Clinton?  And then there are attempts to convert the ambiguous legal status of individuals who came here illegally as children but are now grown-up Americans — without legal residency status.)

Historically, there seems to have been a reasonably large reciprocal flow of Mexicans returning to Mexico, from the U.S.  In fact, since 2008, more Mexican nationals have left the U.S. than have entered, by some estimates.  (Or this NY Times article, if you prefer a human interest story to mere statistics.).

To that you’d have to add anybody deported from the interior of the U.S., as only those captured near the border are counted in apprehensions.  (And even there, I’m not sure of the status of long-term illegal residents of communities near the border, who end up being deported as illegal aliens).

By all accounts, if you followed the graph above for another couple of years, there would have likely been an uptick.  But not nearly as much as you might guess, purely from the estimated gross flow of illegal aliens across the border.

Thus, the final lesson for today is that the net growth in the illegal immigrant population in the U.S. is far less than the gross influx of illegal immigrants in any year.

It’s a slight mis-statement to put it this way, but our porous border is porous in both directions.

Addendum 2:  Overstays

Prior to (say) 2017 or so, the single largest source of new illegal U.S. residents every year was individuals who overstayed their visas.  They entered the U.S. legally as tourists, students, or workers, with a visa specifying a defined period of residence, or perhaps legal residence when accomplishing some defined task (e.g., a course of graduate study).  And then the U.S. has no record of their departure, prior to the expiration of that visa.

In the FY 2022 Overstay report, by US DHS, 3.67 percent of persons with such visas overstated their visa, resulting in about 850,000 persons who were, for some period of time, illegal residents of the U.S., because they overstayed their visas.

Aside from that one factoid, I gleaned nothing else useful from that overstay report.  It’s not clear to me how much of that is bookkeeping errors, how much is persons who overstayed by a few days, and so on.  How many eventually left.  And so on.

So it’s hard to make much out of that, except to say that prior to the latest increase in likely illegal immigration at the Mexican border, that was consistently the single largest category of annual “illegal immigration”.  Take that for what it’s worth.