Trumpers, please tell me why you guys think a wall will work.

[NYTimes] Smugglers in West Bank Open Door to Jobs in Israel, and Violence

There are a number of reasons that that wall is easier to guard than one running a straight line across the US-Mexico border would be, and it is still a sieve.

 

Trump will be out of office by the time the feasibility study is even paid for. If the project even makes it that far.

 

Obama deported more illegal immigrants here than any President in history. He did exactly what you wanted.

 

Why will the wall work?

I will tell you why, Mexicans... Mexicans should be punished for not being Anglo. Let's make Mexico pay for the wall, and let's take back the $1.25 an hour jobs they stole from us through that NAFTA deal. Those $1.25 an hour jobs are ours. God Bless!

 

Stopping aid to Mexico would only cover a tiny fraction of the at least $10-20+ billion dollars it would take to build. That doesn't even include the cost of maintaining the wall once it's built which again would be astronomical in costs for the purpose it would serve.

 

Why would you treat an ally on your border like this? The wall isn't happening and if Trump pushes it, it will be his downfall. I feel bad for the true conservatives, they have won all three branches of government and Trump will be wasting the political capital that they have this 4 years. That Wall will be the end of Trump.

I suggest he back tracks ASAP on that.

 

The problem with this is the wall is such a huge project (can we said bigger than hoover dam?) that it will spurs huge employment over at least 4-8 years at decent pay. Will be a huge economic boom for those states bordering Mexico. Of course Mexico can contribute a few billions indirectly. But don't worry about about the debt increasing another 1 Trillion or so just for this wall - that's not important.

warning: numbers are guesstimate, but they are much likely more accurate than the official numbers provided for the wall.

 

also the astronomical cost of staffing the wall with large number of law enforcement personnel, sometimes in extremely desolate & isolated locations.

As for levying some kind of hefty tax toward remittances, seems like there are plenty of ways to easily get around that (bitcoin, using a friend that's in the US legally, using some kind system similar to hawala etc)

 

That seems right......... about 25 years behind the times for The Donald.

 

I don't see a problem with this, it can be America's own version of The Great Wall of China.

We will call it The Great Wall of The Great Merciful Leader Trump.

Maybe build an Alamo cut out on The Wall so that tourists can shoot at Mexicans on the other side of The Wall while wearing coon skin hats and Davy Crockett fringe.

 

So the narrative has changed from "robots" to "$1.25"?
Told you.

 

It's good coz all u have to do is aim your gun over the wall and fire: u know u def will not hit any Americans.

 

Expand on this.

 

He's not going to build a wall. It was only fantasy. The wall was too high, as you can see.

No matter how he tried, he could not break free. And the worms ate into his brain.

 

I'm gathering a consensus on people's opinions as to where "job loss" has come from. "Robots" seem to be the winner on this message board, so far. So you are certain these are not Mexican "robots" working for $1.25?

 

you are thinking of removals not deportations. deportations are removals plus returns. hes actually the worst since jimmy carter for deportations (as the chart shows).so how does someone be the worst in deportations but best in removals you say? they dont ****ing block the border. This is what everyone is pissed about.

 

why would a wall be so much more difficult to build than an interstate highway?

 

I'd be down for more interstate highways.

Also increasing funding to border patrol and reforming legal immigration is probably more effective than literally building a wall. I bet you we save more money too, because Mexico is not going to pay for a wall.

 

It's not difficult.

It's expensive - A GAO report from a decade ago (Google "gao border fence" if you want to read it) put cost for one of the existing segments at $3.8 mil per mile (border is 1898 miles long).

Also, it won't keep people out, just add difficulty to the process and suppress the numbers asome.

But it should be fairly straightforward to construct - probably a lot like building a highway, as you suggested.

Personally, I'd rather spend that money on all the old infrastructure from 1950's that is about to collapse. There are 65k bridges in the US classified as "structurally defecient".

If you've been to the valley or laredo or any other part of the border recently, the current scheme could be called "defense in depth". The "border" basically extends about 50 miles away from the actual line where Mexico and the US meet, with inspection checkpoints and patrols. It might make more sense to beef up that strategy of catching people after they've crossed, but I don't know for sure.

 

Long term there will be massive job loss to robots. We have already seen it happen in manufacturing and it is only getting worse with advancements in technology.

In some ways cheap third world labor is competing with the cost of technology.

Regardless, those jobs are never coming back to America and eventually won't be in Mexico, Thailand, India or Vietnam.

It is like people at the turn of the century arguing that horses will remain the primary mode of transportation and not the car.