I'd like to see some discussion of the border wall and what the objections to it are.

Trump himself has said its not going to be 2,000 miles long, that other measures make more sense in mountainous or remote areas.

I've seen people wading or swimming across the Rio Grande and then climbing over or under chain link border fences within 100 yards of an official border bridge. In other places you can wade across or, in my case, we paid a guy a buck to row us across. The southern border is very porous and is used by drug smugglers and terrorists in addition to illegal aliens. Border barriers have existed virtually everywhere in the world but on the US/Canadian border.

What are the objections?

Most people coming here now illegally are just overstaying their visas. If you want to spend 25 billion(that we don't really have to spend) to be the most effective, then use that 25 billion to track people on expiring visas. Border wall is just an inefficient way to spend 25 billion if your goal is to limit people being in this country unlawfully.

For me, it's a matter of bang for the buck. Would a wall keep some out? Sure, but it's not worth $20B imo when there are ways literally around or through it (e.g. tunnels) or figuratively (e.g. extended family chain migration, people staying after their visas expire). You remove the incentives to enter the US illegally and illegal immigration will dry up.

Internal controls in accounting are designed to make it difficult for people to steal. Yes, some people can get around them. If you have multiple people involved they can defeat any internal controls for a time. But the reality is that most people will steal at some point if you make it easy. They will justify it in their minds.

If we make it easy to cross the border illegally, lots more people will do it, whether they be workers, dealers or terrorists. If we make it more difficult we have to do less once they are across the border. Walls also limit where we have to focus our resources. With the San Diego wall, it pushed a lot of it over to Arizona where there wasn't a wall.

E-verify, like pretty much everything run by the government, has not been very reliable. And some employers will still ignore it. There are employers (and I'm not just talking about picking up workers off a corner) who still won't fill out I-9s.

I am a wall proponent, not because I think it's something we can build and it solves all our problems, but because it serves as a symbol to those wishing to crash our border that it is illegal to enter and we will try and keep it secure. As well, that we Americans have decided to slow illegal entry to our southern border to a trickle instead of a flood.

A wall is part of border security, not all of it. We can debate if the decreased costs where a wall is present offsets the costs of border patrol or electronic surveillance. What isn't really debatable is that illegal immigrants are costing us north of $50 billion PER YEAR just in government payments and the cost of building a wall is $20 billion one time. If it helps reduce more illegals from entering one could easily argue that in not too long a time frame - the wall will pay for itself.

Oh yeah, I didn't even mention the + of reducing the flow of hard drugs across the Mexican border which is another huge indirect, somewhat hidden cost.

$20 billion represents about .5% of current government expenditures and I think few would disagree that our bloated federal government wastes far more than that figure every year. At least a wall is a tangible thing we can see we spent money on as opposed to the hidden, being p!ssed down the proverbial drain.

The wall at El Paso proves it works in certain areas.

Also, we need to pass a law making it a felony to overstay a visa. That would allow the roundup of those illegals to occur much more quickly and with a lower cost.

Build the damn wall.

Make it easier to come through the designated portals than to sneak across. Then build the legal mechanisms to allow people to traverse the border SAFELY and LEGALLY. And guess what happens? You completely remove the human smuggler business from the southern border.

These people deserve to live their lives safely and with dignity. People living in the border areas deserve safety and security as well.

If we don't have enough pride in our country to clean up that mess, we won't survive as a country anyway.

Build the damn wall. Make the statement. We are a country. You can work with us, or you can stay out.

(01-27-2018 10:25 AM)Love and Honor Wrote:  For me, it's a matter of bang for the buck. Would a wall keep some out? Sure, but it's not worth $20B imo when there are ways literally around or through it (e.g. tunnels) or figuratively (e.g. extended family chain migration, people staying after their visas expire). You remove the incentives to enter the US illegally and illegal immigration will dry up.

Tunnels are expensive and are built by big drug runners. They are not for Pedro and his 40 kids. The wall will keep them out.

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(01-28-2018 10:56 PM)EverRespect Wrote:  

(01-27-2018 10:25 AM)Love and Honor Wrote:  For me, it's a matter of bang for the buck. Would a wall keep some out? Sure, but it's not worth $20B imo when there are ways literally around or through it (e.g. tunnels) or figuratively (e.g. extended family chain migration, people staying after their visas expire). You remove the incentives to enter the US illegally and illegal immigration will dry up.

Tunnels are expensive and are built by big drug runners. They are not for Pedro and his 40 kids. The wall will keep them out.

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Drug runners are capitalists.

If you can maximize your investment in a tunnel by using it to extract money from people wanting to enter the country illegally, you will maximize your revenue.

(01-27-2018 10:01 AM)bullet Wrote:  I'd like to see some discussion of the border wall and what the objections to it are.

Trump himself has said its not going to be 2,000 miles long, that other measures make more sense in mountainous or remote areas.

I've seen people wading or swimming across the Rio Grande and then climbing over or under chain link border fences within 100 yards of an official border bridge. In other places you can wade across or, in my case, we paid a guy a buck to row us across. The southern border is very porous and is used by drug smugglers and terrorists in addition to illegal aliens. Border barriers have existed virtually everywhere in the world but on the US/Canadian border.

What are the objections?

I'm neither for nor against.

There are places along the border where it is unlikely to ever be built either because the geography makes it impractical (which makes those places impractical crossing points) there are going to be environmental issues that will preclude it at some points, and then there are going to places where the politics of it all will be sticky because there are going to be people whose families have lived on that land for 100 or more years who are not going to willingly sell an easement to the Federal government and will fight for years in the courts to not lose the land on the wrong side of the fence and not want to lose the land for the fence and deal with easements to the government to drive across their land for upkeep and monitoring.

As a practical matter it won't stop much because that's not the bulk of your illegal entry.

It will shift more entry to container ships and trucks meaning it becomes much more of an organized crime business than it currently is.

But it holds symbolic value and if the bulk of the nation is willing to pay for that symbolism, I really don't care.

(01-27-2018 10:20 AM)aTxTIGER Wrote:  Most people coming here now illegally are just overstaying their visas. If you want to spend 25 billion(that we don't really have to spend) to be the most effective, then use that 25 billion to track people on expiring visas. Border wall is just an inefficient way to spend 25 billion if your goal is to limit people being in this country unlawfully.

I'd rather spend twice as much to prevent people from crossing illegally than "track" individuals. You start "tracking" aliens, pretty soon it starts sounding like a good idea to track citizens.

Of course, I realize that they do that now with smart phone usage, etc. But one can still choose to be anonymous if one wishes.

just curious if it matters what type of illegals enter the country, i.e. drug runners or families looking for a better life, or an illegal is an illegal is an illegal? i'm an open borders guy philosophically but realistically we do need some sort of immigration enforcement if the war on drugs is to persist. don't know why people like to side step that

(01-29-2018 02:12 PM)Lush Wrote:  just curious if it matters what type of illegals enter the country, i.e. drug runners or families looking for a better life, or an illegal is an illegal is an illegal? i'm an open borders guy philosophically but realistically we do need some sort of immigration enforcement if the war on drugs is to persist. don't know why people like to side step that

I don't want a rapist or murderer to enter my house. I also don't want a house painter (who might be really good at his job, and be a really nice person) to enter my house either. Not unless I ask him or her to enter. It's a matter being polite and going where you are allowed and wanted, and have received permission to go. Another thing... to enter my house, you have to knock. Appearing at the US Customs entrances (as opposed to hiking across the border in the middle of nowhere) is the equivalent of knocking on our door.

(01-29-2018 05:05 PM)geosnooker2000 Wrote:  

(01-29-2018 02:12 PM)Lush Wrote:  just curious if it matters what type of illegals enter the country, i.e. drug runners or families looking for a better life, or an illegal is an illegal is an illegal? i'm an open borders guy philosophically but realistically we do need some sort of immigration enforcement if the war on drugs is to persist. don't know why people like to side step that

I don't want a rapist or murderer to enter my house. I also don't want a house painter (who might be really good at his job, and be a really nice person) to enter my house either. Not unless I ask him or her to enter. It's a matter being polite and going where you are allowed and wanted, and have received permission to go. Another thing... to enter my house, you have to knock. Appearing at the US Customs entrances (as opposed to hiking across the border in the middle of nowhere) is the equivalent of knocking on our door.

We need to chose who enters our country, not let others chose for us.

To borrow a theme from the conference realignment board, you admit new members who are better than the average and provide benefit to your current citizens. You don't add at the bottom of the group.

I absolutely favor merit based immigration, except for legitimate refugees fleeing persecution. I absolutely oppose any racial or religious profiling. i would rather have a doctor for engineer from Haiti rather than a bum from Norway, just as I would prefer a doctor or lawyer from Norway to a bum from Haiti. I would also severely restrict family chain migration. And I would favor increasing the number of legal immigrants and reducing or eliminating illegal immigration.

It is absurd for Microsoft to have a campus across the border in BC because the US won't give work visas to people who are at the top of their class at MIT on student visas.

(01-29-2018 09:23 PM)bullet Wrote:  To borrow a theme from the conference realignment board, you admit new members who are better than the average and provide benefit to your current citizens. You don't add at the bottom of the group.

The owners of fruit and vegetable farms and chicken processing plants would disagree.


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(01-30-2018 01:08 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(01-29-2018 09:23 PM)bullet Wrote:  To borrow a theme from the conference realignment board, you admit new members who are better than the average and provide benefit to your current citizens. You don't add at the bottom of the group.

The owners of fruit and vegetable farms and chicken processing plants would disagree.


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Well, I agree that we need farm workers, but according to the link, only about 4 percent of illegals are doing farm work....

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/43...s-debunked

From the article:

Most illegals do not work in agriculture — only about 4 percent of the illegal-immigrant population is employed in farming. In no state is farming the predominant occupation of illegal immigrants; even in places such as California, where labor-intensive fruit-and-vegetable farming attracts a relatively large illegal workforce, the main occupations of illegals are in hospitality (restaurants and hotels), services, and transportation.

(01-30-2018 11:25 AM)Crebman Wrote:  

(01-30-2018 01:08 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(01-29-2018 09:23 PM)bullet Wrote:  To borrow a theme from the conference realignment board, you admit new members who are better than the average and provide benefit to your current citizens. You don't add at the bottom of the group.

The owners of fruit and vegetable farms and chicken processing plants would disagree.


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Well, I agree that we need farm workers, but according to the link, only about 4 percent of illegals are doing farm work....

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/43...s-debunked

From the article:

Most illegals do not work in agriculture — only about 4 percent of the illegal-immigrant population is employed in farming. In no state is farming the predominant occupation of illegal immigrants; even in places such as California, where labor-intensive fruit-and-vegetable farming attracts a relatively large illegal workforce, the main occupations of illegals are in hospitality (restaurants and hotels), services, and transportation.

Those people provide benefit to US citizens as that is about the only job illegals do that is impossible to get enough Americans to do. And that can be handled through seasonal programs.

(01-29-2018 09:23 PM)bullet Wrote:  To borrow a theme from the conference realignment board, you admit new members who are better than the average and provide benefit to your current citizens. You don't add at the bottom of the group.

who the hell's to say that you're picking from the bottom? all of the illegals i've personally encountered have been no less lazy or prudent than any average american. and there's only an average because the sh!t at the bottom helps equalize it. i think for the most part illegals are harder working than most of our similar occupation folks, take more pride in their children, don't use heroin, and won't complain really if they don't got sh!t. man, i've seen ten hispanics live in a two bedroom house. they bought us beer when we were underage.

but i understand where y'all are coming from. i f*cking love this country but it doesn't mean i got to like it all. i really don't care if a wall comes up. just the way it is.

you can pick holes in my ideas, but you can't pick holes in my heart.