01-30-2019, 01:01 PM
Here are a few issues with the Wall:
1. The land that the Wall would be built on is, for the most part, privately owned land. So the land would need to be purchased or seized from those private citizens before construction can begin. This will cost money and will likely create controversy among people who do not want to sell their land (or have it seized and "compensated" for it).
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/04/donald-trump-border-wall-eminent-domain/521958/
2. The Wall won't stop most of the immigration and drug problems that Trump claims it will. Almost all drugs come in through legal points of entry, hidden in other legitimate imported goods.
Many illegal immigrants are not those who crossed the border but, rather, people who came in via legal means, such as student visas, and then overstayed their visa.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/01/16/fact-check-mike-pence-donald-trump-drugs-crossing-southern-border-wall/2591279002/
3. There's no telling what impact it will have on the environment around the Wall. This could cause issues with migration routes for several indigenous animals and may cause water flow issues as well.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trumps-wall-could-cause-serious-environmental-damage/
4. 5 Billion dollars is not how much the Wall will cost. Non-partisan estimates have ranged anywhere from 22 billion to 31 billion dollars for the entire length of the border. Even Fox News has reported their estimate as 25 billion dollars. 5 billion dollars is a drop in the bucket for what will end up being needed for this wall. And that's before you even account for the maintenance required, which could be anywhere from 150 million per year to 750 million per year, depending on the style of wall, the weather the wall encounters and any possible damage done to the wall from people trying to cross it. And that's all assuming the construction of this wall goes smoothly. If problems are encountered, who knows how much that cost could balloon to.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/trumps-border-wall-how-much-it-will-actually-cost-according-to-a-statistician
5. A wall that doesn't have supervision can be scaled or burrowed under with little consequence. Border Patrol even had a meeting with Trump to show him evidence of tunnels burrowed under the existing sections of Wall on the border as proof that a Wall does not stop illegal immigration. More wall without more border patrol officers would mean very little. This further increases the theoretical cost of the wall over time. However, the reason they have not already hired more border patrol agents is that they simply do not need them right now. "In 1986, Border Patrol agents along the Southern border apprehended an average of 42 illegal immigrants every month. That number fell to 2 a month by 2016 – one apprehension for every couple of weeks on the job." So building a wall that would require more patrolling while we already don't need as many border patrol agents in the current state of things doesn't make all that much sense.
https://www.cato.org/blog/two-reasons-not-hire-more-border-patrol-agents
In short, this wall is not about border security. It is about a meaningless campaign promise Trump made in 2015 and 2016 and now he has to find some sort of justification for building a Wall that statistics show will either not work, will cause damage to the environment, will cause endless Eminent Domain issues, will cost way more than the President is claiming and is easily circumvented by illegal immigrants unless the work force is significantly increased along the border as well. Or all of the above.
It's just a bad idea. The better way to improve the illegal immigration issue is to hold employers who hire illegal immigrants accountable. If an illegal immigrant is unable to get a job, they have no reason to stay in America. Of course, the other problem with that is that a lot of the jobs that illegal immigrants do are jobs that their employers CAN'T find Americans willing to do, like migrant farm workers and fish and meat treatment/packing plants.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2017/08/24/do-immigrants-steal-jobs-from-american-workers/
1. The land that the Wall would be built on is, for the most part, privately owned land. So the land would need to be purchased or seized from those private citizens before construction can begin. This will cost money and will likely create controversy among people who do not want to sell their land (or have it seized and "compensated" for it).
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/04/donald-trump-border-wall-eminent-domain/521958/
2. The Wall won't stop most of the immigration and drug problems that Trump claims it will. Almost all drugs come in through legal points of entry, hidden in other legitimate imported goods.
Many illegal immigrants are not those who crossed the border but, rather, people who came in via legal means, such as student visas, and then overstayed their visa.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/01/16/fact-check-mike-pence-donald-trump-drugs-crossing-southern-border-wall/2591279002/
3. There's no telling what impact it will have on the environment around the Wall. This could cause issues with migration routes for several indigenous animals and may cause water flow issues as well.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trumps-wall-could-cause-serious-environmental-damage/
4. 5 Billion dollars is not how much the Wall will cost. Non-partisan estimates have ranged anywhere from 22 billion to 31 billion dollars for the entire length of the border. Even Fox News has reported their estimate as 25 billion dollars. 5 billion dollars is a drop in the bucket for what will end up being needed for this wall. And that's before you even account for the maintenance required, which could be anywhere from 150 million per year to 750 million per year, depending on the style of wall, the weather the wall encounters and any possible damage done to the wall from people trying to cross it. And that's all assuming the construction of this wall goes smoothly. If problems are encountered, who knows how much that cost could balloon to.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/trumps-border-wall-how-much-it-will-actually-cost-according-to-a-statistician
5. A wall that doesn't have supervision can be scaled or burrowed under with little consequence. Border Patrol even had a meeting with Trump to show him evidence of tunnels burrowed under the existing sections of Wall on the border as proof that a Wall does not stop illegal immigration. More wall without more border patrol officers would mean very little. This further increases the theoretical cost of the wall over time. However, the reason they have not already hired more border patrol agents is that they simply do not need them right now. "In 1986, Border Patrol agents along the Southern border apprehended an average of 42 illegal immigrants every month. That number fell to 2 a month by 2016 – one apprehension for every couple of weeks on the job." So building a wall that would require more patrolling while we already don't need as many border patrol agents in the current state of things doesn't make all that much sense.
https://www.cato.org/blog/two-reasons-not-hire-more-border-patrol-agents
In short, this wall is not about border security. It is about a meaningless campaign promise Trump made in 2015 and 2016 and now he has to find some sort of justification for building a Wall that statistics show will either not work, will cause damage to the environment, will cause endless Eminent Domain issues, will cost way more than the President is claiming and is easily circumvented by illegal immigrants unless the work force is significantly increased along the border as well. Or all of the above.
It's just a bad idea. The better way to improve the illegal immigration issue is to hold employers who hire illegal immigrants accountable. If an illegal immigrant is unable to get a job, they have no reason to stay in America. Of course, the other problem with that is that a lot of the jobs that illegal immigrants do are jobs that their employers CAN'T find Americans willing to do, like migrant farm workers and fish and meat treatment/packing plants.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2017/08/24/do-immigrants-steal-jobs-from-american-workers/
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