Driving west on Interstate 8 can give a person perspective: The vast suburbs of San Diego County give way to mountains and farther still to the deserts that line the southwestern border of the country.

The rusty, steel fence that seems so comforting to some along the San Diego-Tijuana divide disappears into the mountains and canyons that lie just beyond the manicured suburbs. The border becomes a line in the sand.

Each night, thousands of desperate people and their smugglers exploit the false sense of security that the rusty border gives. They cross illegally into the United States seeking work, hope, a better life or whatever is missing in their motherland.

Last week, several local congressmen stood before media cameras to urge the U.S. Senate to pass a bill that the House approved earlier this year. The bill would suspend environmental laws in order to finish a segment of the fence.

The congressmen repeated again and again that completing the project, which involves a triple layer of fence in some parts, was a matter of national security. But it's not. It's about stopping people from coming —— those people. Not even people —— "aliens."

But completing a segment of the fence will not make the country safer. And it will not stop people from coming.

If a fence were the answer to a terrorist threat, then the congressmen should not settle for a small piece, but should propose to fence the entire expanse of the U.S. border with Mexico.

Perhaps they should propose something along the lines of what some members of the Minuteman Project in Arizona suggested: to line the border —— all 2,000 miles of it —— with people and stop anyone who threatens to come through.

But why? Because they steal jobs from American workers? Because they drive down wages? Because they use valuable state benefits? Because they drive drunk on our freeways? Because they crowd our schools? Because they are illegal? No.

It's because they are different. Not because they are Irish, Chinese, African or even Mexican. It's because they are "other."

They speak another language and refuse to learn English. Because they have different customs and they refuse to act American. Because they stand up for another country's national anthem and they don't understand our laws.

It's because they are willing to take low-paying jobs with no benefits.

Bottom line is that they make us insecure about who we are and what we stand for.

What's the evidence of this charge? Listen to the ones who are most annoyed by these new immigrants. They will object to the label of immigrant without the "illegal" adjective before the term. The most fervent will object to the term "immigrant" altogether and favor "illegal alien."

Why? Because it denies them their humanity. Illegal aliens are by definition criminals, illegals —— and nonhuman, aliens. Some supporters of the Minuteman Project objected to human rights groups monitoring the border-watch group for possible legal rights violations.

What rights? they asked. "Illegal aliens have no rights in this country," one reasoned.

Human rights. The rights afforded to all human beings without concern for their nationality.

Fences are not going to stop those people from coming. Not when their labor here is rewarded 10 times over. Not when their way of life is so miserable that enduring desert heat and hatred makes no difference. Not when their children's well-being depends on it.

So we should just open the border? No. No one wants people living on the margins of society. No one should make heroes of people who risk their lives crossing mountains and deserts to get a job. Nor should governments be unburdened of their complicity in creating countries whose chief export is cheap labor.

And congressmen should not be allowed to dehumanize the poor for political gain.

As Americans, we should question who we are and what we stand for. We should be unsettled when such feeble facades are allowed to mask a hatred of the "other."

Edward Sifuentes covered immigration, Indian gaming and politics for the North County Times for five years. This is his final column.