Critiquing the boarder wall for ( Br John . )

Why a wall across the boarder is a good idea ( or at least a good starting point ) so Br john wanted me to explain why the boarder wall was such a good idea so here it is . The southern border brings immigrants illegal and legal , drugs , and human trafficking . If we was able to make a large enough fence/wall to cover the entire boarder then it would be possible to stop all this illegal activity . There would be no drugs coming across the southern border , no illegal immigration , no child sex trafficking ect . But they can still go through the gulf of Mexico or by water . Some cartels use tunnels but the boarder patrol uses ground penetrating radar and when they find the tunnels they collapse them . The small fence that was once there could be easily crossed but the large wall is difficult even almost impossible to cross .

I was born and raised Texan. Defiantly on the wrong side of the tracks. I grew up on the street with gangs and drugs and things like that as second nature. My dad told me one time a lock was made to keep the honest - honest. If a thief wants something - they will find a way.
To me : adding changes can change the game. I know the “cartel“ near the border mentality - they will find a way. You’ll have to figure out new methods in a few years. Sad but that’s the truth. There’s a road that exist that the world knows if you cross it you pay the toll and sneak into America. It’s been there for years. Fences won’t keep things like that out. Eventually something new will be needed. It’s a start - I never understood why we don’t get smarter. I guess this may be the smartest thing for now.

So Malicious, what's the problem as you see it and your return on investment analysis? Also what considerations have you made for social costs and other "incalculables"
What makes this certain border different from other borders? Get into specifics beyond the basic talking points

Well the cost would be for the entire boarder wall is about 10 billion . Mit and Yale did a study on the illegal immigration problem . With the help of the boarder patrol and a few other government agencies they figured out generally how many illegal immigrants Crossed illegally and how much they are costing us . There was over 1 million illegal immigrants that crossed in 2019 . The total amount of money used to house , feed , and transport these illegal immigrants and the other 30+ million illegal immigrants is around 260+ billion dollars . This money includes schooling for there children , healthcare and them not paying taxes . Now the question what to do with them , when we give them court date little to none show up . So do we export send them back to there original country ? Do we say screw it and make them citizens without consequence for breaking our laws , and them make the rest coming in go back or wait a few months in Mexico until there court dates and citizen test ? These are hard questions to answer but if we didn't have these illegal immigrants here that would free up nearly 300 billion dollars of tax payers money that the government can use to fight this problem . If an illegal immigrant kills someone most likely they will get away with it , they can flee back to Mexico or hide from the authority . No one knows there true names or where there from so they can't really be tracked like us the American people . They don't pay taxes , take jobs from us working for far less money and driving wages down . They , not all but some rape , kill , or sell drugs . Some come here for the American dream but the American dream is dying . They don't get the impact that they are having here because they are illegal immigrants and how much they are costing the tax payers as well as the government . America is getting shittier and shittier , the illegal immigrants are just making it worse . Now I'm not a racist my grandmother is from Mexico and she came here legally , I applaud legal immigration but illegal immigration is a ( cancer ) we must deal with . When I figure out the site ( a .org one ) I will post the findings from Yale and mit .

When we say "illegal immigrant" do we mean someone who entered the US illegally or do we mean anyone who is in the US illegally?

The first thing that comes to mind for many people is someone who illegally crossed a border. True, such an one is an illegal immigrant. That's not the definition of an illegal immigrant though.

illegal immigrant
noun [ C ]
UK /ɪˌliː.ɡəl ˈɪm.ɪ.ɡrənt/ US /ɪˌliː.ɡəl ˈɪm.ɪ.ɡrənt/
(US also illegal alien)

someone who lives or works in another country when they do not have the legal right to do this
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/illegal-immigrant

When's the last time you heard someone concerned with illegal immigration addressing this?

When it comes to people in the country without proper documentation, the majority of them didn't cross the Mexican border at all. Most of them came to the United States legally — but then don't leave.

About 700,000 travelers to the United States overstayed their visas in fiscal 2017, the most recent year for which the Department of Homeland Security has published figures. DHS estimated that, as of Sept. 30, 2017, the end of that fiscal year, more than 600,000 of those travelers were still in the U.S.

During that same year, there were just 300,000 apprehensions along the Southern border, according to Customs and Border Protection — the lowest number since 1971.
https://www.npr.org/2019/01/10/683662691/where-does-illegal-immigration-mostly-occur-heres-what-the-data-tell-us

And see:

Most illegal immigration doesn’t come through the Mexican border where Trump wants to build his wall

In 2015 over 43,000 Cubans illegally immigrated to the U.S. - about 20% as many as from Mexico. The cost of a wall is rather dramatically high given the weighted number of illegal immigrants from other countries.

Illegal immigrants are not "stealing" more jobs every year. Since 2006, the number of illegal immigrants working in the U.S. has stabilized at about 8 million. All the new job growth over the last decade has gone to legitimate American workers or legal immigrants working with proper papers. Illegal immigration is not the reason some Americans do not have jobs, and blaming illegal immigrants is a ruse for people who simply don't want to work - or refuse to upgrade their skills to make themselves employable.

Most border crossing illegal immigrants today are minors from Central America simply trying to stay alive. They aren't Mexican criminals, stealing jobs, or creating a crime spree. They are mostly starving.


[T]he state with the longest Mexican border is Texas - and of its 38 congressional members (36 in Congress, 2 in the Senate and 25 Republican) not one (not one) supports building the wall. The district with the longest border (800 miles) is represented by Republican Will Hurd, who said "building a wall is the most expensive and least effective way to secure the border."

Why President Trump's Border Wall Is An Example Of Bad Leadership
https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2017/01/28/why-president-trumps-border-wall-is-an-example-of-bad-leadership/#64b11e9a26cf

In separate posts I'll address illegal drugs and sex trafficking.

Something that would be cheaper, faster, and probably more effective than a solid wall would be just a line of motion sensing and heat detecting cameras, every so many miles. We wouldnt even need anyone to watch the footage, an AlGorerhythm could be written to signal an alert when human movement is detected.

So let's break down your 30m+ illegal immigrants stat:
How many of them are traditional "border hoppers" vs not (who wouldn't be affected by a wall)?
How does a wall influence the influx of immigrants and the costs they incur?
How do those costs compare to other possible solutions?
What are the benefits of people currently living illegally in the US? How would those be impinged by a wall?

I think the situation isn't as black and white as you're making it out to be. What makes illegal immigrants from the south more damaging to the US, such that it requires a wall while the damn Canadians expats include Justin Bieber, Ted Cruz, and Tommy Chong.

No one's called you a racist, so whipping out the "I'm vaguely hispanic" card seems premature.

This is just my solder thinking - but why build a wall when you can dig a trench and monitor it - way more simple to look down than up and over. Strategically speaking

Carlos.Martinez3 wrote: This is just my solder thinking - but why build a wall when you can dig a trench and monitor it - way more simple to look down than up and over. Strategically speaking

Sweet Baby Jesus! (I should rightully be much more familiar with Texas after being here sixty years so I'm not insulting you ... it's just ... ). Look at a terrain map. We have a trench. It's called The Rio Grande River.

[T]he longest contiguous unfenced stretch of border — more than 600 miles total — is in the middle of Texas. There's no major city here on either side of the border.

Look at https://www.usatoday.com/border-wall/us-mexico-interactive-border-map/ (Interactive Border Map)

Almost nobody tries to cross there because they'd have to go hundreds of miles through the desert, and mountains, and cross The Rio Grande. That's why there's not even a simple fence there now.

And see https://www.usatoday.com/border-wall/

Before I address the drug smuggling and sex trafficking issues, how about the environment? I've tried to use as few reputable sources as possible on each issue but I have plenty more if anyone is interested.

Trump’s Border Wall Is an Environmental Disaster ~ https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/trump-border-wall-climate/

I'm just curious...

Of anyone and everyone holding an opinion one way or the other about immigration (which usually doesn't turn out to cost as much as some "studies" suggest - one always has to consider who funded the study and to what conclusion their investment leans toward), how many have actually opened a volume of political philosophy (say, John Rawls, for example, but a 500 year old edition of Michel de Montaigne would work just as well -- or Adam Smith, or John Locke, or ...) ? Or, is the opinion based on CNN or just common-stock, popularist notions about the supremacy of America and who should or shouldn't get to live there.

I lived there for 14 years and found it abysmal. Came back to Europe where we have other un-managable problems, including immigration. But here, it is a social problem with a forward-seeking perspective. America cannot go back to the pre-Wilson isolationist mindset. That is a century-old, backward-wishing (Earth has about 5 times the population as it did then) nightmare worse than the "American Dream" has become. I was actually born in Illinois but didn't have too much of a problem getting out. I do find it interesting though that in order to renounce US citizenship (I burnt my American passport, not having a flag handy...), there is a cost of about $ 2 500 just to submit the forms.

Maybe that wall is really designed to keep you all in, rather than the others out ? A little reminiscent of the Soviet bloc, don't you think ?

Another interesting question (which I don't have an answer to, I just feel the question worth posing) would be : just because one is born in the United States, what gives that person more of a right to its benefits (sic) than someone not born in the United States who may need those benefits even more ? What are we talking about when we are talking about "rights" anyway ? Human beings are born with a lot of evolutionary and cultural heritage which most people do not give very much thought to. Before deciding on what someone else deserves, it is a good idea to decide what one actually deserves oneself. By the way, no surgeon in the galaxy can go in and take out your "rights" - they are not a part of you.

Locke wrote of inalienable rights (an accord of things which human beings ought to protect for and by one another for us to have a civilised (or reasonably so anyway) society. These were "Life, Liberty & the pursuit of Property" (not "Happiness"). By this, it was meant that each human being born on Earth ought to have the right to a set of conditions that does not jeapordise the vital experience itself. In simpler terms, we ought not kill one another (neither by guns nor by starvation). One ought to have the liberty to engage in meaningful endeavours unimpeded by the notion of merit (social class, caste or any other arbitrary filtre). Naturally, my liberty is bounded by at what point it starts interfering with the liberty of someone else. This is where we start getting into the messy muck of accepted inequalities.

The pursuit of Property was not a call to the ambition of acquiring a lot of possessions. What Locke meant by that was merely that by the labour of one's hands, one ought have a share in the ownership - or at least the benefit - of the production. It was Thomas Jefferson who changed it to "the pursuit of Happiness", and though Jefferson was a clever fellow, he got that one quite wrong. Happiness cannot be pursued, it can only occur in momentary, conditional instances.

So, what's the wall all about ? Keeping people from the inalienable "rights" of Life, Liberty and pursuit of Property (usually illegal immigrants DO indeed work with their hands -- sometimes a lot harder and longer than US citizens) ? That seems pretty ignoble. Or is it to keep US citizens "in" -- if only psychologically mesmerised to believe they live in a realised Utopia where everyone would want to live (prosperity notwithstanding) ?

Just a few thoughts to ponder...

Just another quick question :

Why all the talk about "illegal immigrants" instead of calling these people "refugees" ? Why would they go to the United States where they are treated as criminals almost in as much of a stead as what they are fleeing from ?

Perhaps the inscription on the Statue of Liberty is a bit misleading ? Maybe ... ?

Alexandre Orion wrote: Just another quick question :

Why all the talk about "illegal immigrants" instead of calling these people "refugees" ? Why would they go to the United States where they are treated as criminals almost in as much of a stead as what they are fleeing from ?

Perhaps the inscription on the Statue of Liberty is a bit misleading ? Maybe ... ?

I'm using a precise legal term. I pointed out that most border crossing illegal immigrants today are minors from Central America simply trying to stay alive. They are mostly starving (refugees). There are plenty of illegal immigrants who are certainly not refugees though. This is not a debate about immigration policy and law.

Assuming the goal is to keep people from illegally crossing the border from Mexico into the US, a wall either is or is not the best way to do it.

After a LOT of research into this topic for a college paper, I’m of the opinion this project has more merit than the Physical Wall proposed by Trump:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/US/wireStory/government-delays-border-barrier-construction-arizona-64978546

The way its defined here is a refugee is one seeking political asylum (legitimately). Its not an assessment of wealth, health or hardship at their point of departure but danger from their own country, ie forced displacement.

Why illegal... here it's considered illegal to cross international borders without permission unless one us a refugee. Asylum seekers are processed to determine legitimacy as refugees. So illegitimate refugees seek to avoid the system by paying criminal enterprise known as people smugglers, which is the same activity as drug and slave trades, and also theoretically it's a security risk for terrorism etc.

Dealing with people already in country is another issue. There is no need to conflate them unless considering budgetary appropriations IMO. But why illegal if in country, other then breaking immigration law about entry or residence limits, someone is also breaking the law for tax avoidance I'd imagine, at a minimum? Another issue is the extent of illegal activity by someone out of system, and unknown risks freak those responsible for the system and its dependants out a bit.

So why limit refugees to political asylum, because that is what a nation is, a system of laws to build prosperity to its lawful citizens.. not the world's population.

I duuno if a wall will work, but the current system appears not to be either.

Br. John wrote:

Alexandre Orion wrote: Just another quick question :

Why all the talk about "illegal immigrants" instead of calling these people "refugees" ? Why would they go to the United States where they are treated as criminals almost in as much of a stead as what they are fleeing from ?

Perhaps the inscription on the Statue of Liberty is a bit misleading ? Maybe ... ?

I'm using a precise legal term. I pointed out that most border crossing illegal immigrants today are minors from Central America simply trying to stay alive. They are mostly starving (refugees). There are plenty of illegal immigrants who are certainly not refugees though. This is not a debate about immigration policy and law.

Assuming the goal is to keep people from illegally crossing the border from Mexico into the US, a wall either is or is not the best way to do it.

Yes, I appreciate the precision of the legal term, although I would hesitate to make much of a distinction between "refugee" and "illegal immigrant" since - even if they are not seeking refuge from political/legislative oppression in their home state - they are probably (in most cases) trying to generate income which they couldn't by staying home. In short - and not a precise legal term at all -, I would suggest that they would only take such a risk if they were seeking refuge from extreme poverty.

It is also very doubtful that people can legally and from their home states apply for visas and work-entry status. I'm sorry if it looks like I'm playing with semantics here - I'm not - but trying to employ semantics in its proper linguistic function.

The Berlin Wall didn't work out so very well and it was a much less elaborate structure. Not only would the measure be grossly ineffective (as Carlos has suggested), but indeed, a construction of such envergure would be an environmentally catastrophic enterprise.

I mean what's the threshold in your opinion (bracketing out the legal determination of refugee status) which one must meet to be considered a refugee rather than an opportunist?

Also at what point does a nation need to balance the interests of its constituents (read: money and convenience) versus humanitarian ideals? Is it justifiable to go to war over refugees?

Some general glaring issues with the wall:

TheDude wrote: Some general glaring issues with the wall:

Warning: Spoiler!

Not to mention a VAST majority of illegal immigrants come legally via airplane and just... overstay their visa. Can't build a wall tall enough to keep out airplanes.

I never really understand the wall idea. Seems to me it will be built so no one has to watch it. Just me but walls arnt for security... that’s what the people do. Just my 2 cents.