Why Not Build That Wall?

Great Debates
21

It’s defense vs offense. Defense is much, much harder. You defend against one scenario but the attackers have a dozen scenarios up their sleeve.

I like the Dems idea about a “smart” wall. Use technology for a fraction of the cost. They should push that and embarrass Drumpf as trying to build archaic walls that won’t do the job.

22

Well, off the top of my head: (1) Most long term illegal residents did not sneak across the border in dead of night, (2) the existing sections of fence have barely made a scratch in the number of Mexican citizens living in America (a Dartmouth study showed a decrease of 0.6% according to the issue of the Economist in front of me), (3) the staggering costs of building and maintaining a giant wall would be completely disproportionate to the problem it pretends to solve, (4) building a giant wall would be ecologically catastrophic, (5) of all the various wall designs tested, the only ones actually deemed suitable were similar to the 500 miles of fence we already have, (6) the existing fence is estimated to have reduced American GDP, rather than grown it.

My question for OP is: Why are we still talking about this? Could you not be bothered to read one of the many other threads on the topic? Or just do a Google? All of these problems have been publicized in detail, so there is nothing you are learning from me that has not already been said elsewhere. At this point, the problem of the wall has already been studied so thoroughly that I’m astonished we still have to have this discussion at all.

23

I found this reason quite compelling (from one of the many other threads about this):

Bolding mine.

24

Why Not Build That Wall?

Because if you can build a wall, I can dig a tunnel.

25

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

26

For the record, this is entirely false. Find better sources.

27

So no cite then?

28
  1. Yes, especially on the penalties which are weak or completely non-existent now. The current crop of millionaires in Washington doesn’t want to stop the supply of cheap labor.
  2. Yes to the temporary visas, but it will never happen as it makes the labor more expensive. It is much cheaper if they are illegal and you can hold that fact over their heads.
  3. Done.
  4. Pretty much done, but more funding would always help.
  5. I agree, but this is controversial.
  6. Agreed, including those who helped us in Iraq and Syria and that we are now hanging out to dry. Truly shameful.
29

Let’s put aside the problems with the wall itself and just look at the political aspects.

First, letting the President hold the country hostage is a really bad idea. If we let Trump do it successfully, why won’t he do it again the next time he wants something and Congress won’t give it to him? Why won’t future Presidents follow his example when they want something Congress won’t agree to?

Second, why give Trump a win? It doesn’t matter if he only won because the Democrats handed it to him. He’ll still take all the credit. And that will help him when he’s running for re-election. Trump is doing a terrible job and is harming the country. We should be working on getting him out of office not helping him stay in it. I don’t think we should go as far as sabotaging the country in order to get rid of Trump. But we certainly shouldn’t do him any favors. The Republicans have coddled him for the last two years every time he screwed up and he learned nothing. Now the Democrats should start holding him accountable when he screws up.

30

This guy’s videos raised the issue of it being too much of a political game to be resolved, and could potentially result in another shutdown.

31

I said there was no argument for building this absurd wall I could support. I was wrong… this feels right.

32

I’m glad to see most of OP’s silliness was shot down. Left unasked: OP, why is your user name Barack Obama? How would you rank yourself as a fan of the 44th President?

I don’t know where to start. Building a wall would eventually pay for itself? Would burning down forests or polluting rivers eventually pay for themselves? If we’d let Obama build his “child concentration camps” would they have eventually paid for themselves?

In the past, the U.S. Government has done much harm to governance in Latin America. But is it the culprit in Honduras’ political problems today? (Sincere question: I can’t keep track of all the weird politics around the world.)

Let me refer OP to some other posts which may help him reconsider his views:

33

I know the image of the illegal immigrants is wetbacks, but the reality is that, for the US, most enter the country legally and either:

  • overstay tourist visas,
  • take jobs they’re not authorized to take (a lot of situations which allow a person to live in the US are limited for employment, for example being a student, in a cultural exchange, or in one of those temporal asylum-like programs),
  • or take jobs they’re at that point authorized to take and then run out of work permit. This is often done with the complicity or even under the pressure of the employers. If you’re found out and deported, it hurts them a lot less than it hurts you.

Behind the immigration issues there are some structural characteristics of the US legal system which complicate things:

  • which things are the responsibility of which level of government isn’t clear
  • whether they are from the same government or from different levels of government, laws aren’t required to fit with each other either at the time they’re created or later; the US system is antagonistic at all levels, including this one. You’re not just fond of suing (“I’ll sue you!” is the stereotypical American line in much of the world), you view all legal structures as Combat By Lawyer. The lack of this requirement means that the government can order that something be done without providing funding or the necessary logistics, or without checking whether the Laws of Physics allow for it (who approved those, anyway? :p).

Whether those characteristics are good or bad depends on who looks at them. From the point of view of someone trying to run the immigration maze it’s a nightmare. It’s possible to find yourself indocumented without meaning to be because at some point the machinery failed: requisites were impossible for the government itself to fulfill (the same government which had created them in the first place), quotas are irrisory, or your lawyer wrote the date in the wrong format. Any of those happen, you’re supposed to drop what may at that point in time be years or decades of living in the US and go back home, sometimes to a country where you’re seen as a weirdo or which you barely remember.

34

Trump wants to shutdown the government, but I doubt it has anything to do with keeping illegals out of the country; it’s just an excuse to destroy the civil service and replace them with private contractors. Donald Trump and the Republican party are kleptocrats, and they’re taking their directions from the world’s kleptocrats, which isn’t an accident. Our banking system is among the most kleptocrat-friendly in the world.

35

A dome is the way to go.

36

This is, of course, a ridiculous falsehood.

37

It would be a massive property rights infringement.

38

Also massive environmental damage

39

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.

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?

40

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

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