Yes, my point is exactly that you need tech (drones, cameras, sensors,..) and border patrol. In fact, if you want to catch illegal crossings, I believe your investment should be focused on detection and capture rather than a wall. With AI cameras that can operate without human labor, it would be very smart for the government to contract out to a company that works with large-scale far-distance cameras equipped with detection software, backed up by patrols to catch illegal crossings.
Those other walls also hard armies. Gotta keep people accountable. Can't just be, "WoW loOk At AlL TheSe BiG WAlLs ThAt FaiLed" - while ignoring the big walls that have worked.
Obviously, the U.S. border has/had hundreds of miles of wall before Trump ever came around, this notion that it's "stupid" or "ineffective" is nonsense. Why do we have that wall on the beach in San Diego then and why have we had it there for decades?
From the pro wall crowd. I always hear "THE Border." We need a wall on "THE Border. Umm, what about the other one? More and more illegals are crossing through the Canadian/US border and the numbers are going to increase. They have already done so 10 fold. Mexican migrants can travel to Canada without Visas on a 350.00 plane ticket. I guess we need to start building that wall as well? That would be quite the undertaking. That is, after we complete the southern one. So, for the pro-wall crowd, what is your solution for this? https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/im...nada-new-york-vermont-nh-up-tenfold-rcna75087
Defensive response? Not intended as defensive as much as explanatory. You responded to my post saying that it isn't different in the rest of the world concerning immigration - and that wasn't really relevant to the point I was trying to make. The point being that there have always been people in the USA that haven't been welcoming of immigrants, and there have always been tensions - this is nothing new - and even with that, immigration has been a net positive for the USA.
The Korean DMZ is effective because it is heavily monitored, the two nations are extremely combative with war always close. If the USA was in a state of near war with Mexico, and had a heavily moitored wall, where people were shot trying to enter - then a wall would be effective too.... but that isn't the situation with the USA. The Berlin Wall was effective as well for the same reason. A wall in itself has very little utility.
If the wall worked so well - we would have completed it 50 years ago. The wall at the US border HAS been largely ineffective. Short of the US building a complete wall - constantly having it patrolled and aggressively turn people away - it isn't going to work, as it hasn't worked. Is it worth the resources needed? Not IMO.
I don't think we should or need a DMZ Like wall, I'm pushing back against the cherry picked examples of only "failed" military walls by pointing out successful military walls exist that have had few people breach them. Walls obviously are useful and important. There's a reason we had 700 miles of border wall before Trump ever showed up. If you wanted to, you could strengthen and improve the border walls we already have. It's a matter of will. The notion "they don't work" is asinine. Humans have used walls for thousands of years to keep people in/out of places, including on borders.
Both sides do not want nuance, or better put, compromise. Neither side will pick up support (ie: power) if there are solutions. Government is designed to run as inefficient as possible. We have Trump and supporters who say we need a complete continuous (and completely impractical) wall from Gulf to Pacific. Then you have the other side taking the exact opposite stance and claim walls are useless and ineffective. So therefore, lets just be ineffective and do absolutely nothing (which is what the government is great at and people are stupid for blindly following their respective parties). The fact is strategically placed physical barriers are highly effective and alternative measures such as surveillance works for others. This is pretty much the same conversation in every political debate. From one extreme idea to the other counter extreme idea with no nuance allowed.
It is all circumstantial. Just building a wall doesn't work. There needs to be monitoring, boots on the ground and enforcement. The issue is that I have heard a number of people that believe simply building a wall will solve the problem - because it will not. Ultimately the USA has to decide if they want to extend the long term financial cost of building a wall, maintaining the wall, monitoring it, having soldiers and drones out non stop. That doesn't even get into people using airplanes to get into the USA. There is a reason that the USA is not harder on border enforcement and it is because the cost is massive.
Walls backed by the military absolutely work, but that's pretty irrelevant concerning the US/Mexico border. We are neighbors that work cooperatively together and aren't in need of a wall monitored by our military. So, I'm not arguing about the wall per se, other than the fact that it's only as effective as its enforcement. A wall without enforcement is a poor ROI (return on investment). I'm also saying that a better ROI can be achieved through advanced technology for detection and manual labor for apprehension. A basic fence might be all you need to show where the boundary is if the technology is available to monitor the border. Furthermore, I suggest that the US government should be working with the private sector to develop that technology. The $5 Billion or whatever amount we are throwing at the wall can be much more effective in developing state-of-the-art surveillance technology. I'm sure the private sector would jump at the opportunity of receiving such significant funding.
Wait. I thought we were being overrun with illegals. On one hand you say the wall works and on the other you say we are being overrun. Which is it?
160 mile DMZ compared to the example of the 280 mile Maginot line posited by someone else? Ah, but we only go after the example we don't like.
Obviously "just building a wall" without proper support and maintenance won't be highly effective but I think that's a straw man you've created. Who is saying specifically that? Walls make sense in highly populated areas, we already had those, we could improve and strengthen them. I imagine there was a good reason those walls went up long before Trump ever came around. People can take a bus to Tijuana and easily access this part of the border. We, likely, don't need a wall in the middle of the most rugged and inhospitable parts of the border, where migrants would have to exert a lot more effort to get to and successfully get across and back to civilization. I think that's obvious. It's a matter of scale. The more difficult you make it, the less people will be successful and the less people will try. Border walls make a lot of sense in a lot of ways. If you try and twist situation around like you have to fit a narrative, yea, obviously building a wall in the middle of the desert and abandoning it doesn't make a lot of sense.
@Commodore @Astrodome Wow....bidens new immigration policies are working exactly like I said huh? Bidens border policies are working *BETTER* than trumps. I'm sure you folks will be thanking biden right ? Trumps title 42 was a shitty policy. Biden cleaned it up and now we're seeing record drop. Don't let right wing trolls and facists distort facts
