One can become very amused at the constant droning of America hating folks that say “walls do not work” and “walls are immoral.” The counter to walls, according to them, is drones, technology & more border patrol.
The problem with using technology to notify us when someone has illegally crossed our border is the damage is already done. As soon as someone crosses it starts costing Americans money and lots of it.
According to USA Today, it costs $4,800 just to apprehend an individual. It costs another $180 per day to detain them. The average length of detention is 30 days or $5,480. ICE then spends another $10,854 to deport an individual. In the end, everyone who crosses the border illegally costs $21,134.00!
In November alone there were 51,856 apprehensions at the Mexico border. That just cost taxpayers $1,095,924,704, if and only if we can deport them all, and we won’t! The actual costs will be much higher. You are not reading that wrong. It costs us over a billion dollars per month at the November 2018 levels!
Which is more immoral, to make American taxpayers foot the bill or build a wall that would cut the number of illegal immigrants in half?
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How effective are the walls that are standing? Do they keep everyone from crossing in the areas where the physical barriers exist? Showing how effective current barriers are will help to convince the undecided people. Nothing will convince all just like nothing will dissuade all.
Questions I have been asked are:
Where will the barrier actually be? Will it run along the border, parallel but away from the border, straight line across parts? How will it cross natural barriers like rivers?
How much is the wall actually going to cost? $5 billion is nowhere near enough money for the wall material alone. The lowest guestimate I have seen in the media is $25B, most were $250B and up.
How much money will be saved? You state that it cost upward of $21k per person and $1B for Nov. Great! How much is the actual “estimated” cost? (Gawd that sounds funny)
How much will Imminent Domain have to be used? Most of the landowners are not going to want to sell. Land ownership is very important to people who have been on it for generations. How much will have to be “stolen”, their word, from the owners? How far in from the border?
Plus, what are we going to do about the illegal immigration that does comes, but does not come from the southern border. Most illegal immigration comes from Visa over stays, most estimates I’ve seen are near 66% of the total illegal immigration. The few foreign terrorist that we have caught came over on Visas, and not ones from the banned countries. Almost all were Saudis.
Appealing to people’s fear does not seem to be working. You need to try facts and figures.
How much will it cost?
How much will it save?
Where/ How will it run?
How effective are the current physical barriers?
How effective will the new one be?
What technology will be incorporated?
How will the barrier cross the rivers and other impediments?
How will the land be obtained?
What will be done about the rest of the illegal immigration?
I personally oppose the physical wall for most of the border. I prefer technological solutions for those areas. I don’t believe that extending the physical barrier into remote areas will be effective. The new walls will be in much more isolated areas than the current walls. How often will this impassable barrier be patrolled. Listing to some supporters, it will be %100 effective! If only.
Above all, I will support the one that is shown to be the best. Best being partially determined based on the criteria above.
Jon B.
This article puts it into perspective. It doesn’t cover all the details that you want to know but even if we can accomplish 10% reduction we will save thousands of lives and billions of dollars.
https://vets-for-trump.com/index.php/2018/12/11/military-to-build-the-wall-vetsfortrump/
It’s not just Trump that says we need the wall. It is Department of Homeland Security and Border Patrol, as well as other law enforcement agencies. Even if we can’t secure it 100% we can sure make it a lot harder. Isn’t the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?
Call me old-fashioned but I remember when there used to be signs that said trespassers will be shot on sight when it came to private property. If private citizens that border Mexico don’t want to secure their own property that’d be fine with me. We can just build a wall around their property. Make them part of Mexico.
The wall is akin to a speed bump that will cost the American taxpayer many many billions of dollars…you will still have all of the costs of apprehending them etc etc…just now they will hurdle a wall first 🙂 Unless of course you will have people patrol the entire wall ..in which case…you …DONT…need… THE WALL!
The better option is to give them a viable pathway to legalization so that they can contribute to the government..that pathway should include vetting to remove as much of the criminal element out of the equation as possible. Once you have done that and you have essentially gotten “non combatants” out of the way ..i am for a much more aggressive attack on border crossing. But preventing the people that are just looking for a better/safer life from coming here is not only unAmerican it’s inhumane. We need SMARTER immigration policies..not a big dumbass wall. Trump is like a 10 year old both intellectually and emotionally..he is not equipped to solve this problem …and since anyone remotely capable of adult decision making is summarily fired or attacked on twitter…I think we will have to wait for a sane solution.