Bear in mind that the premise is to build a wall and have Mexico pay for it. While it is a fascinating diversion to explore whether both goals could be accomplished while at the same time doing it in a moral and ethical way, that is adding extra goals to the premise. We are simply looking for ways to get the wall built and having Mexico take financial responsibility for its construction. It doesn’t have to be moral or ethical to satisfy the premise.
At the very least, Mexico should be willing to invest 50% of the costs involved in building a border wall as such a wall would benefit both nations.
I’m not sure I can reduce the moral and ethical impact on my proposals any further than I already have.
Wow, that’s a claim. I’ve heard literally nothing to support the idea that it would benefit even one country. Well, okay, Russia, who would benefit from the massive waste of western resources no matter whose are being wasted. But not the US or Mexico.
No, we cannot do that. There is no method that allows us to send a bill to Mexico telling them they have to pay us for something.
We cannot sue Mexico. We cannot take Mexico to small claims court. And if that was possible, the judge would rule in Mexico’s favor. We have no case against Mexico. Mexico does not owe us money. Mexico has no obligation to pay for our wall.
How would it benefit Mexico (or the US, for that matter)? Further, again, no Mexican leader would ever agree to contributing to a US border wall, since it would be catastrophic politically.
You know what I think something like this could work, but its going to be expensive. Fortunately I have some ideas that might help it be more efficient and may eventually result in Mexicans paying for the entire cost.
The first expense you are going to have to deal with is the price of guarding the inmates and what to do with those inmates who refuse to work, or just plain aren’t good at it. It doesn’t make sense to house and feed inmates who are not being productive. You might as well kick them off site. Of course most inmate will probably fall into this category so you probably do have to pay them something to make it worth their while. Meanwhile in the US it cost an average of $39,000 to keep an inmate in prison, with more than 2/3 of that cost being guard personnel. Given that this work camp has no walls (except the one they are woking on) guarding is going to be harder so $23,000 per year per inmate is probably going to be a low ball. It might be better just give them a stipend of say 8 bucks an for a 40 hour week of labor and pocket the extra $7,000 in savings per inmate.
Unfortunately this is still a fair amount of change and it would be better if we could get some one else to pay this wage. One way to do this would be to send the word to some red blooded American salt of the earth entrepreneurs and see if they would be will to support this patriotic effort. Of course we couldn’t expect them to do this without expecting something in return, that would be socialism. To in return we will have the inmates do some odd jobs for them like picking vegetables, cleaning rooms, washing dishes etc. Still even with some of the inmates being paid for by the best and brightest, there is still a fair amount of costs that are going into the wall, the price of materials, training of workers, buying of land, transportation, food, housing, fighting litigation etc. But here is where we get clever. We garnish the stipend of the inmates who are working off site to pay for it. We could give it a snappy name like “income tax” We also make the off site workers pay for all their own food, lodging and healthcare, and further take out a little extra graft to account for those whose stipend fails to meet their needs (call it social security). Now we plow all of this receipts into the wall project, and if by chance there happens to be anything left over we can pocket it on the sly and use it to buy fun things like F16 fighers. So now not only are Mexicans paying for the wall they are also paying for the military hardware we are going to use against Mexico when we come after those bad Hombres.
Now here arises a curious thing. The more workers we keep for the wall the income we have coming in, and the more we are going to have to spend on materials land, etc. Also the more wall that gets built the fewer illegal immigrants we get which again starts turning off the income spigot. So to really optimize the cash influx we need to build the wall as slowly as possible. So lets leave it to one guy, call him Juan, give him a wheel barrow a pile of bricks, and a bag of cement, while we take everyone else and put them to work making money for Uncle Sam the American way.
I will say this. If we start enslaving Mexican men and holding their women and children hostage, it won’t get the wall built. But it would keep Mexicans from entering this country.
“El gobierno Mexicano no negocia con terroristas.”
Remember that it’s a two way street. Mexico profits from US trade, some US factories are located there and so on. Sure. The US also has 128 million clients, buying american cars, electronics and all sort of products, they could lose. Not to mention possibly losing access to the whole of South America.
I don’t know who’s got more leverage here.
The thing about illegal immigrants is that they tend to be, well, poor. And they don’t really want to work, they want money- you get that, I hope.
In fact, the legal and constitutional changes required for that to happen would mean transforming the US into such an insane dystopia that at the end Mexico would be forced to build their own wall to prevent freedom-seeking US refugees from flooding them and… Ooooooooohhh…
First, human beings cannot become the property of the State. You guys fought a war about that very point. It’s been in the papers recently.
Second, prisoners who want to do work programs have to be approved by the corrections officials; they typically have to show some desire to be rehabilitated to qualify.
That’s not the case with people enslaved by a foreign country. Why should they cooperate with their slave-masters?
An anecdote: Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch woman who ended up in the Nazi work camps because she helped to shelter Jews and others on the run from the Nazis. At one point, she was doing slave labour, working in an assembly line to make radios that were going to be used in Luftwaffe planes. Being a hard worker, she did a good job and was quick.
Then her supervisor, also a slave labourer, came by. He was curious about this new person who was working so hard and so efficiently. He quietly pointed out that the faster she built the radios, the faster the new Messerschmidts could fly. “Perhaps, not so quick, Fraulein?” Then he criticized her workmanship, saying that she was making the wire connections too tight. He reached over and loosened one of the wires in the radio she was working on; a tight enough connection that the radio would pass the quality control test and be installed in a plane, but loose enough that it would jar loose fairly quickly, making the radio useless; perhaps just at the point that the pilot was doing hard evasive measures to save his life…
So, why do you assume that Mexican slaves wouldn’t try to do similar measures to make the wall fall down?
Yeah, you’re talking about changing the bill of rights in order to fulfill a campaign promise–a promise that never mentioned changing the bill of rights.
True, some people such as yourself might try to reinstitute slavery, but I expect that there are enough decent people in the USA to block your most vile proposal.
Okay, with a stroke of the crayon, The Great Orange Menace has changed the laws.
The US now:
Has created a huge new penal system for detaining illegal immigrants.
Instituted a forced labour program for minimum wage.
Is holding hostages (families of forced laborers) to ensure compliance (Millions of people in total).
Is involved in building huge infrastructure (roads, bridges, services) to allow equipment and material access to remote locations - access that will not be needed again once the wall is built.
Has spent billions and billions of it’s own tax dollars on a wall, and far more on the infrastructure required to support the forced labour workforce and detained families (security, detention centers, food, medical services, education)
Finally the wall is erected in all its glory.
Meanwhile, there are UN sanctions against America for human rights abuses and America is no longer the ‘shining city on the hill’. By comparison, Russia, China, Iran… virtually every country cited with human rights abuses is looking like paradise compared to the US. Not only that, trade embargoes have been instituted against the US in order to punish it for human rights abuses and the economy is in the toilet because nobody wants US goods and services.
We are not talking about slavery. That is a strawman’s argument. We are talking about penalties for breaking immigration laws. It may in fact be true that the need for the wall will decrease as word spreads that illegal immigrants will be arrested and the punishment will be years of hard work on building the wall. Making life in the US so unattractive that no one cares to cross over illegally because the cost will be so unpleasant will stop the flow.
I realize that it bothers some to cause suffering, but this is the price paid for breaking the law. Don’t want to suffer - don’t enter the country illegally.
Uh, yes, we are talking about slavery–slavery as a penalty for breaking immigration laws. You seem not to be clear on what “slavery” means: it means the state of being held captive and forced to perform work.
Your proposal doesn’t violate the thirteenth amendment, since that amendment allows slavery as a punishment for a crime. However, that’s also not part of the bill of rights: it’s the latter that your proposal violates.