Parts of the wall that are manned and patroled will help. A wall in the middle of nowhere will not help and will be a waste. If you think understanding that requires mental gymnastics, I don't know what to say. So yes, Democrats have been consistent on the issue. Some of the natural terrains are a physical border. A wall in those places would be stupid.
I mean you say that, but you realize that the part of Arizona I was in could easily be called "the middle of nowhere" and suggesting that you put more boots on the ground "in the middle of nowhere" instead of a physical border is....well it's kind of ridiculous. If you put up a physical wall then it slows down the entry of people making it that much easier to pick them up on the other side meaning it requires fewer people, meaning it's cheaper in the long run. Also, suggesting that the same Democrats who supported building fences and physical borders in 2006 and 2013 who now oppose them are "consistent" on the issue is absolutely hilarious, you absolutely cannot believe that. You can't go from saying physical borders will help to saying that they are immoral and be consistent. Nope, the 700 miles of physical border that Obama supported cost a lot more than 5 billion dollars. The idea of building a physical border to help Border Patrol wasn't controversial at all until Trump ran on it. You still had some that were always against it, but they were considered fringe opinions back then.
I should have put manned and/or patroled. I'm sorry if it was not clear. I don't advocate putting large numbers of boots in the middle of nowhere. But a drone operator or few would be good. A physical wall would not really slow down illegal crossings in those places. It slows people down the length of time to put a ladder next to it and climb it. That isn't that long. And it certainly isn't effective. In areas that can have people watching the wall, it would help prevent crossings.
If you want to be able to do the job without a wall, it will require large numbers of boots on the ground. You can't have it both ways. Securing a completely open border requires a ton of people. A drone can't detain anyone. A physical wall would slow down those attempting to cross, giving border patrol more time to respond. Also, you don't need "drones", you can just mount ground surveillance equipment on blimps like they have now or have sensors at the wall. When you see people start to get close to the border wall "in the middle of nowhere", you can send out border patrol and while they are attempting to get over the wall or fence or shortly thereafter, you can have them there stopping them. The longer it takes people to cross, the easier they are to stop. On top of that, if there is a legit wall or fence system, those people aren't crossing it without equipment and they would have to clump together in a smaller spot to cross. All of those things make it easier for Border Patrol. As I said before, I've talked to the actual people tasked with the job of stopping them from entering, I've seen them cross the border first hand "in the middle of nowhere". You might not think that scaling a 15-20 foot ladder then setting up another 15-20 foot ladder on the other side to climb down would slow a group down much, but you'd be wrong. Your every day illegal immigrant is not some kind of ninja, they are normal men, women, and children. A wall would drastically slow them down even if they had the proper equipment and that buys valuable time for Border Patrol to respond. Hell just that alone would discourage a lot of people from even trying it. I mean, that's what Obama seemed to think back in 2006 anyway...
Sure, they actually do a lot of what I said, it's just considerably less effective and more expensive without a wall. I want to make clear that I'm not talking about the small portions of the border that are so mountainous as to make a wall or fence impractical, I am completely aware that not every single mile of the border needs to have a fence or wall, but if you have one pretty much everywhere else, it makes it so much easier to secure. Damn near everyone realized this until fairly recently when new talking points came out against the idea calling it "immoral"
Good question, it clearly should have happened decades ago and to be fair, we have a LOT more of the border secured today than in decades past, but we need to finish the job and do so properly. I mean, not doing so decades ago is how we ended up with 12+ million illegal immigrants in the country to begin with. If we had handled our business like we should have, the "problem" would be more in line with other developed countries instead of the worst in the world.
So you think what percentage of the 12+ million illegal immigrants would have been blocked by the wall? Just a guess is fine.
With a complete or fairly complete physical border, I think Border Patrol could have cut that number easily in half assuming they are also supplied with surveillance sensors and equipment. I mean, at what time in the past are we talking about having put it up? I mean the number jumped from 3.5 million to 12 million between 1990 and 2005, with a secure southern border we could have prevented most of that from happening. If we take it all the way back to 1970 then you'd do even better. The further you go back securing the border, the fewer that would even be trying today. If people knew they had a tiny chance of success they wouldn't be as willing to take the potential financial hit of trying and failing.
Trump officials exaggerate terrorist threat on southern border in tense briefing https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/policy/immigration/article223944055.html And... trump and his people lie.
yet another of trump's ridiculous lies shot down... Trump claims support from past presidents for the wall: Clinton, Bush and Obama beg to differ https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/04/trump-former-presidents-border-wall-1082562
Interesting Article. Rocket River What Happened When A Trump Supporter Challenged Me About the Wall Vicky Alvear Shecter Dec 27, 2018 Existing barriers in California. A conservative challenged liberal Facebook friends to “make a case, not based on emotion” against Trump’s wall. Conservative buddies flooded his post with snide remarks about how this would be impossible for “deluded libs.” “Okay, I’ll play,” I responded. And in order to avoid being accused of bias, I explained that I would use only conservative sources to prove my point. My primary source was a policy paper by the Cato Institute, a conservative, rightwing think tank, along with other conservative voices (listed at the end of the piece). Here’s why I’m against the wall, I wrote: 1. Walls don’t work. Illegal immigrants have tunneled underneath and/or erected ramps up and down walls to simply drive over them. People find a way. When East Germany erected its wall, it created a military zone, staffed by booted, machine-gun carrying guards ready to shoot to kill. Yet thousands managed to make it to West Germany anyway. More to the point, do we really want to model ourselves after communist East Germany? 2. Most illegal immigrants are “overstayers.” They come to the US legally — for vacations, business, to study, etc. — and then STAY past their visas. By 2012, overstayers accounted for 58% (THE MAJORITY!) of all unauthorized immigrants. A wall is meaningless here! 3. Walls have little impact on drugs being brought in to the US. According to the DEA, almost all drugs come in through legal points of entry, hidden in secret containers and/or among legit goods in tractor-trailers. A wall will have little to no impact on the influx of drugs into our country. 4. It’s environmentally impractical. Walls have a hard time making it through extreme weather. For example, in 2011, a flood in Arizona washed away 40 feet of STEEL fencing. Torrential rains and raging waters do serious damage. Also, conservative sources generally do not address the environmental harm that walls create, but there is plenty of documentation available that show its potential for irreparable damage to both plant and animal life. 5. A wall would forces the U.S. government to take land from private citizens in eminent domain battles. Private citizens own much of the land slated for the wall. The costs of the government snatching private land — and the legal battles that would ensue — are incalculable. 6. Border patrol agents don’t like concrete or steel walls because they block surveillance capabilities. In other words, they can’t mobilize correctly to meet challenges. So in many ways, a wall makes their job more difficult. 7. Border patrol agents say, “Walls are meaningless without agents and technology to back them up.” Are we prepared to pour countless billions annually — after the wall is built — to create a nearly 2,000 mile, militarized 24-hour surveillance border operation? Because according to patrol agents, that’s the only way a wall would work. Again, are we really, going to use East Germany, a brutal communist state, as our model here? Are we seriously going to model ourselves on East Germany and their wall? A 1979 celebration in E. Berlin. 8. Where walls have been built, there was “no discernable impact on the influx of unauthorized aliens.” In other words, they came in elsewhere, primarily where natural barriers such as water or mountainous regions precluded a wall. 9. An unintended consequence is that a wall blocks farmworkers from EXITING when their invaluable seasonal work is done. Farmers are against the wall because it makes getting cheap seasonal labor almost impossible as few American citizens want or can even do those jobs. And if seasonal worker do get in, a wall makes it harder for them to leave! A wall traps migrant farm laborers in our country. 10. Trump’s $5 billion is a laughable drop in the bucket for what would ACTUALLY be needed. For example, according to the Cato Institute: An estimate for a border wall area that only covered 700 miles was originally 1.2 billion. How much did it REALLY cost? SEVEN BILLION. And that’s only for 700 miles. Whatever we think it’s going to cost, experience shows us we have to multiply it by more than 500%. 11. According to MIT engineers, the wall would cost $31.2 billion. Homeland Security estimates it at $22 billion. Given the pattern of spending mentioned in number 10 (plus Murphy’s Law), that means we’re really talking about pouring endless billions into something that doesn’t even work. And, of course, we taxpayers will be footing the bill, not Mexico. Given all the drawbacks, is that REALLY the best use of our taxes? As the conservatives of the Cato Institute put it, “President Trump’s wall would be a mammoth expenditure that would have little impact on illegal immigration.” (Emphasis mine) Also it would create many “direct harms:” “the spending, the taxes, the eminent domain abuse, and the decrease in immigrant’s freedoms of movement.” And, we must add, since conservative sources do not — that the environmental harms are likely to be severe. In other words, the facts show that walls don’t work and they create even bigger, more expensive problems. So what happened after I posted this conservative-sourced, fact-based list of why the wall is a bad idea? Silence. I waited for someone to respond, to engage with me. Where were the angry defenses or rebuttals? But when I searched for the post after a few days, I couldn’t find it. My FB friend had deleted it. You could say, like Trump with the government, he shut me down rather than deal with the facts. The ugly genius of Trump is his ability to manipulate deep, primal emotions — namely fear and hate. He, along with Fox News, have convinced his base that they are in “extreme danger” from immigrants and only a wall will make them “safe.” Unfortunately, the need to “feel” safe is much stronger than the will to grapple with a complex, multi-faceted problem. And so, here we are, paralyzed by shutdowns at every turn. Conservative Sources Outlining the Uselessness of Trump’s Wall: The Cato Institute: https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/why-wall-wont-work Former Reagan staffer and Tea-Party liaison: https://www.usnews.com/opinion/arti...ly-big-fence-would-be-a-futile-waste-of-money Chicago Tribune (conservative paper): https://www.chicagotribune.com/news...p-wall-mexico-immigration-20180314-story.html The National Review (conservative magazine): https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/04/donald-trump-border-wall-plan-ridiculous-guaranteed-failure/ Nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute (MPI) think tank: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/borders-and-walls-do-barriers-deter-unauthorized-migration
Her first mistake was going on facebook... where people's strongest argument is "rich people's houses have walls, why shouldn't America?"
Illegal immigration costs taxpayers a staggering $134.9 billion a year while contributing only $19 billion in state, federal, and local taxes not to mention the burden to the criminal system.
Yes they do, that's why humans continue to build them across the world when they want to control access to a place. This was common knowledge even among the left just a decade ago....wonder what changed? Arguing that a wall won't prevent all illegal immigrants from getting into the country isn't an argument against a wall. I hope everyone can see for themselves why this is a logical fallacy and not a legitimate argument against a wall. This is also not an argument against a wall. This would be similar to arguing against speed limits by suggesting that having speed limits has little affect on DUI arrests. This is a greatly exaggerated point and it only applies to certain areas along the border, it's not an argument against the wall in general. If there were a few areas where the wall would be impractical, fine, wall up the rest. See how easily that argument falls apart? Building roads, freeways, and railroads forces the US government to do exactly the same....does that mean that the US shouldn't build roads, freeways, and railroads? Yeah, that argument falls apart really quickly too doesn't it? Now consider that the land along the border is some of the most worthless and cheapest land in the entire country and it falls apart further. This is straight up foolish, Border Patrol agents overwhelmingly support a border wall or fence because it is vital to them being able to do their job properly. On top of that, this hot take assumes that ground surveillance is literally the only way they'd have of seeing what is going on over the border.....and that hasn't been true for decades. Also, it assumes that there wouldn't be built in surveillance equipment in the wall system. Basically this is a garbage take. This is another really stupid take. I mean sure, the quote is accurate, you need agents and technology backing up the wall, but that's not a reason to not build the wall.....I mean with a wall you need FEWER agents patrolling the border than you would with no physical barrier not more. This "point" shows a fundamental lack of understanding when it comes to the situation at the border or what it would take to secure the border. I'm not certain what the intention of this "point" was, but it's really just an argument to complete the job, not an argument against doing so. No it doesn't, that's incredibly stupid. There will still be official border crossings....why wouldn't those people be able to use them? If they were illegal immigrants, it would prevent them from RETURNING, but not from leaving. These are stated as 2 points, but they only attempt to make one, the first "point" is talking about how the 5 billion currently requested wouldn't build the entire wall....well no kidding. It was just one installment. Funny enough, the numbers she talks about was the 700 mile wall supported by Democrats before the days of "orange man bad" when their opinion about border security changed from it being a good thing to it being racist. As to the possible cost of 31 billion or whatever....again, the US government pisses away more money than that every single year on nonsense that does no good, why not give this a chance? You have Democrats suggesting the US light 300 billion a year on fire in a foolish effort to fight income inequality that would have no chance of working, why not spend 10% of one year of that on securing the border instead? Honestly if her FB friends weren't able to tear her weak ass response apart then she needs better friends.
Instead of putting a ton of high tech crap on any wall they build, just put a ton of razor sharp barbed wire atop it...
