# Why Not Build That Wall? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 9, 2019, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-build-that-wall/829210 "2019-02-09T00:11:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2019, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-build-that-wall/829210/41 "2019-02-11T23:09:43Z")
If someone who actually cares and has a heart and demonstrates it you consider their requests for monuments (and the wall is a monument, as well as other things. But when a hateful cold hearted egotistical bigot (leaving out other trump qualities here for the sake of space) wants to build a monument you might think it’s not the right person for the message you want that to stand for. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2019, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-build-that-wall/829210/42 "2019-02-11T23:51:43Z")
You have to admit that Trump is not being self serving on this issue. After all, if we cut off illegal aliens, he would have problems getting groundskeepers for his [golf courses](https://www.nj.com/news/2019/02/this-golf-course-was-built-by-illegals-trumps-nj-course-hired-undocumented-workers-for-years-report-says.html). Some of them recently got fired at one course, but perhaps he’s planning on hiring furloughed government workers during the next shutdown. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-build-that-wall/829210/43 "2019-02-12T06:10:36Z")
Didn’t anybody pay attention to that movie? _“Build it, and they will come.”_ ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-build-that-wall/829210/44 "2019-02-12T12:12:05Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > Very easily, and more cheaply than dealing with the homeless the way we currently are, according to multiple studies. > > Cite: [Giving homes to the homeless is cheaper than leaving them on the streets - Vox](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2014/5/30/5764096/its-three-times-cheaper-to-give-housing-to-the-homeless-than-to-keep) > > Next question? Yeah, answer mine. Going clickbait to some video does NOT address the issue. Fine. Build homeless homes. But eventually you are going to run out of space. Build 100 homes, you help 100 homeless. But then there are 10,000 more! AND you want to bring in 1,000 more illegals. My point is we need to take care of the needs of our own people first before bringing in millions more mouths to feed and bodies to house. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-build-that-wall/829210/45 "2019-02-12T12:22:22Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Thing is if we ever want to have free healthcare and education for all we HAVE to get a better handle on our immigration issue both legal and illegal. In european countries with vast welfare systems like say Denmark they have found this out and stopped illegal immigration. We just dont have the resources to house, feed, and educate more people when we cant do it with those already here. One of the biggest ways in which Denmark or Sweden “stop illegal immigration” is by being countries which don’t pop to the top of anybody’s list of “countries where I want to live”, but a much greater one is by having paths to legal migration which are a lot more clear than in the US. My own experience in Sweden was pretty shitty on account of not falling into any of their predefined mental boxes, but it certainly didn’t include being treated as a criminal; I know of another woman who had problems having her Dentistry degree recognized due to a difference between her country’s Dentistry system and the Swedish one, but she had no problems working as a Dentist’s Assistant. Asylum seekers, refugees and economic immigrants aren’t treated as criminals. Come back when the US can say the same. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-build-that-wall/829210/46 "2019-02-12T12:25:58Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > I mean look at the homeless problems in California. How can they solve that while still providing housing for a thousand new people who just show up every day? We can barely find enough teachers and build enough schools for the kids here now. How can we provide for the thousands who also want an education? Through good policy. The people coming in get jobs and pay taxes; it’s not like they’re free riders. If California can’t find enough teachers, that is rather clearly a problem hat would exist whether or not there were immigrants. [It takes but a few moments of research to find California’s teacher shortage has nothing to do with hordes of immigrants demanding schooling;](https://edsource.org/2018/californias-persistent-teacher-shortage-fueled-by-attrition-high-demand-say-newly-released-studies/602654) California has reduced class sizes, increased summer school, brought back arts programs, and the like, and needs teachers to accommodate those things. At the same time, people simply aren’t signing up to be teachers; enrollment at teaching programs at California universities has dropped to less than half of what it used to be. Maybe they should find some immigrants who want to teach? The problem with homelessness, by the way, isn’t that there aren’t buildings for people to sleep in. The vacancy rate is low, but it’s not that low. ---
**Author:** ![ebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c57346/32.png) [@ebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ebb)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-build-that-wall/829210/47 "2019-02-12T17:30:49Z")
My main objection to building the wall isn’t really about the cost (which would be gigantic) or the effectiveness (which would be minimal) or even about the environmental and legal challenges. My objection is that this simply isn’t the way to run a government. Politics is always going to intervene, of course, but at some level there should be a basic process: - Identify a potential problem - Study the problem to characterize how much of an issue it really is - If it’s worth tackling, do the analysis required to figure out the best solution, where “best” includes cost/benefit analysis, among other things - Have a debate, supported by facts, about what to do - When the dust settles, allocate funds and execute the solution You can still have a rigorous argument about what to do, about what the priorities are, about how much it’s worth to tackle the problem in this particular way. That’s what the legislature does, and the executive branch is welcome to weigh in. Ultimately all sides play to the people through the media to try to influence the popular opinion, which can help sway the argument toward their side through the indirect mechanisms of future votes and money. That’s not what has happened here. Here you have Trump with a simplistic idea – build a “big, beautiful wall” – that he used as a rallying cry during his campaign. There’s nothing that points to this being a real problem, much less an emergency. There’s nothing to justify this particular solution to the problem even if it did exist. There’s no debate about the priority of doing this versus the thousand other things you could do with the money. It’s just short-circuiting the whole process. “This is a problem because I say so, and this is the only solution that will fix it.” Then he’s tied the issue to the entirely unrelated process of approving the debt ceiling – which is its own kettle of idiocy. The main issue here is that if this goes through, it will normalize this process as the way to get things done. Chief Executive picks what he wants to have happen, digs in his heels, his party falls in line, and then we have a name-calling fight about it. No numbers, no analysis, no rational thought; it all comes down to which team you’re on, which hat you wear, who you cheer for, who you’d like to have a beer with. That’s what scares me about all of this. If we abandon facts, figures and expertise then disaster will inevitably follow. It’s not the fact that Trump wants a wall. It’s the fact that Trump wants his personal ill-informed ideas to be carried out by fiat, and something just under half the country seems happy to go along with it. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-build-that-wall/829210/48 "2019-02-12T18:41:45Z")
> [@Batano](#): > > Seems to me the solution is: > > Expand use of E-Verify and increase penalties for employers flouting the law. > > Provide more work visas so that people can enter legally. > > Build fences in areas with large population and frequent border crossings. > > Use smart technology on the vast, mostly empty areas of the border. > > Provide path to citizenship for those who have lived here for a long time and not committed crimes. > > Stop pretending that people coming here for economic reasons need asylum, and expedite true asylum seekers status The solution is: jail terms for people who hire illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants fill a sizable economic niche in this country. We will continue to have illegal immigrants until we close that niche. Jailing the immigrants won’t make a difference. Walls and kidnapping children is just busy work from people who don’t want to solve the problem (because they profit on the backs of those immigrants.) Of course, collapsing that economic niche would have negative repercussions for American business owners & consumers. But that’s how you would get the job done, if you’re being honest about wanting to end the illegal immigrant influx. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-build-that-wall/829210/49 "2019-02-12T22:08:07Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > The solution is: jail terms for people who hire illegal immigrants… Especially this [golf course owner](http://fortune.com/2019/01/28/trump-national-golf-club-fires-dozens-of-undocumented-immigrants/). Lock him up! ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2019, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-build-that-wall/829210/50 "2019-02-12T23:07:46Z")
> [@Barack\_Obama](#): > > I’m just going by what I remember when this was all going on. I don’t have any specific citations for this but if you have any refuting what I recall please share. I wouldn’t say obama had child prisons, but he def detained children and separated some families but only under somewhat reasonable conditions. Obama’s administration did not separate any families. The families had already been separated by virtue of those children arriving unaccompanied. ---
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2019, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-build-that-wall/829210/51 "2019-02-13T00:14:16Z")
There is commotion because there’s a lot of $$$ involved… If it was only meant to help/hurt the working-class, you wouldn’t hear about it. ---
**Author:** ![Pithily\_Effusive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pithily_effusive/32/252_2.png) [@Pithily\_Effusive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pithily_Effusive)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2019, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-build-that-wall/829210/52 "2019-02-18T08:27:05Z")
How the wall would pay for itself…I wish I had time to hear that fantasy. A wall of that size would be an ecological disaster. _This isn’t theory_. What they’re trying to interdict travels on roads. Mexicans aren’t swarming across the border like locust. You could take the same resources being wasted on this as a topic, and those theoretically it would take to actually build the thing and invest them in Central America and get rid of any cataclysmic incentive to come here in the first place. God will be mad if we do it. 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-build-that-wall/829210.md?page=2)