Posted on 08/25/2015 2:39:59 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
If we somehow build Trump’s silly ‘great wall’ with Mexico, maybe we can finally have a serious debate about immigration.
Prepare to be upstaged, China. Here comes the Great Wall of Trump.
“We’re building a wall,” Donald Trump told moderator John Dickerson Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation. “And it’s going to be a great wall. And, by the way, Mexico will pay for it. It’s going to a great wall, because I know how to build. And it’s not going to cost nearly as much as what they’re saying for a crummy wall.”
The GOP front-runner has no use for crummy walls. Crummy policies advocating repeal of the 14th Amendment and an end to birthright citizenship, yes. But crummy walls, no. It will even have a “very big, very beautiful door” for people we want to let back in.
Trump insists he was just kidding when he suggested during a campaign stop that the giant wall he promises to build on the 1,954-mile-long border with Mexico might one day bear his name.
But after two months of watching Trump the presidential candidate, Americans should have learned this much: When it comes to promoting his brand, Trump never kids.
So the Great Wall of Trump it is. The only thing left to decide is the exact size of the enormous letters spelling out “TRUMP” and whether they will face the U.S. or Mexico side.
Actually, there are a few other pesky details to work through. They come from a place I like to call: the real world.
For instance, those 1,954 miles cover just about every sort of terrain you can imagine—valley, mountain, desert, river, Indian reservation, private land, state property. Ever try to build a wall on a river, or atop an Indian burial ground, or through the library of a state university? It’s tricky. And once the environmentalists and the EPA get involved, it’s nearly impossible.
Then there’s the fact that no one seems to know what it would cost. In the last six years, estimates for building a fence—which is probably much cheaper than building a wall—have ranged wildly from $1 million per mile to $15 million per mile, depending on where the fence goes. At that price, fencing for 2,000 miles would cost between $2 billion and $30 billion.
Currently, about a third of the border already has fencing, mostly in California, Arizona, and New Mexico. But building a wall probably means starting from scratch.
Undeterred, Trump seems intent on building what could well be the Taj Majal of border walls.
Still, I have yet more bad news for the emperor. After all the fuss, and what you can bet would be one unbelievably lavish grand opening, the Great Wall of Trump likely wouldn’t do such a great job of stopping illegal immigration.
You see, walls won’t do wonders. At least that’s what I’ve heard from border patrol agents each of the half dozen times I’ve visited the U.S.-Mexico border—in Arizona, Texas, and California. They don’t mind the additional fencing, and many of them will tell you that it does tend to slow down some would-be border crossers and give border patrol agents more time to get to the scene.
But they just wish Congress didn’t waste so much time and political capital on debating the fence as if it were a cure-all for illegal immigration.
As one especially wise border patrol agent once told me, “There is no barrier known to man that will stop someone who has traveled hundreds of miles to feed his family. He will go over, under, or around anything you put up.”
The only way to put a dent in illegal immigration is to penalize employers. No jobs, no illegal immigrants. The trouble is, in both political parties, there is no appetite for getting tough with a group of people who can utter six little words that strike fear into the hearts of politicians everywhere: “I’m stopping payment on the check.”
In fact, if our earlier attempts at building border walls and fencing in the early 1990s is any guide, a big wall might even backfire and make the problem worse.
As has been documented by noted border experts such as sociology professor Douglas Massey of Princeton and Wayne Cornelius of University of California, San Diego—both of whom have studied the border for as long as Trump has bought real estate—walls don’t just keep people out but also pen people in.
So those 11 million undocumented immigrants who are already here won’t feel so inclined to go home to Mexico for Christmas or Mother’s Day, like they used to, and where there was always a chance that some of them would stay. Now, unsure that they’d be able to return if they left, they’ll just resign themselves to putting down roots and staying on this side of the border.
Thus, a measure intended to keep out additional Mexican immigrants might just ensure that we keep the ones who are already here.
Still, I don’t expect facts, cost, logic, research, or past experience to dissuade Trump or his supporters. They’re stuck on the idea of building a giant, expensive, gaudy, white elephant wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. And nothing will pull them off.
So what more can I say, except: “Go ahead, folks. Knock yourselves out. Build, baby, build.”
Once you construct your precious wall, and immigrant smugglers respond by tripling their fees and building tunnels underneath it (or simply leasing drug tunnels that are already there) to stay in business, you can admit you were wrong, put aside simplistic solutions and think more deeply about how to deal with illegal immigration.
To show there are no hard feelings, I’ll even recommend a company with some expertise in that area. Let’s see. Where did I leave that business card? Oh yeah, here it is.
President Trump should call the Golden State Fence Company in Riverside, California. Launched in 1984, the company—which has contracted with the U.S. government to build fences on the U.S.-Mexico border—at one point had as many as 750 employees and generated annual revenue of about $150 million.
Oh, wait. There is no more Golden State Fence Company. The outfit is now called Fenceworks, Inc. That’s because the Golden State Fence Company was busted in 1999, 2004, and 2005 for hiring illegal immigrants—to build the fencing that was meant to keep out illegal immigrants.
Immigration agents estimate that as much as 50 percent of the company’s workforce were in the country illegally. Owner Melvin Kay took a plea bargain where he paid $5 million and spent six months under house arrest, during which time he continued to bid on government contracts.
When punishing those who employ illegal immigrants, that’s how we roll. Americans talk loudly but carry a small stick. And the problem continues.
So, go ahead. Build your dang wall. Feel better. And nothing will change.
“Once you construct your precious wall, and immigrant smugglers respond by tripling their fees...”
EXACTLY! He just made the BEST CASE YET for the wall. It will make coming here more costly for them. Sure, some may come by getting around the wall, perhaps 10,000 people, rather than 1,000,000 people per year...if we get that result, then AMERICA WINS.
No Welfare or other government aid to individual illegal aliens, no Federal Aid of any kind to sanctuary cities, with all aid cut off to those living within them, regardless of citizen status.
Federal Felony charges with a minimum sentence of ten years and individual fines starting at 100,000 dollars and up for aiding illegal aliens, with RICO Act backing these laws. The goal is to imprison and/or economically eviscerate any person or group who dares violate them.
Also enable states and individuals to get in on this action with fine sharing to anyone who aids in the apprehension and conviction of law breakers, the 'Drop a dime, make a bundle act'. You can earn up to 50% of the confiscated gross proceeds, tax exempt!
Make this a cash cow, just like the 'War on Drugs'. It will snow ball as people learn they can make money being patriots, then watch the pro-illegals either fall or turn on their former 'friends' and sell them out. At that point you'll simply sit back and watch as the illegal aliens self deport in droves.
FRiend, by the time the US Government gets around to putting a fence on the border, it will be to keep us in.
Sounds like a good reason to abolish the (river ruining) EPA, eh?
And make the home countries pay for their benefits. No benefits, bet they’d stop coming and probably deport themselves.
Exactly what I expect from the beast.
That’s a good point. Some of the hindrances against us traveling outside our country have already been implemented.
I service the “Intrusion Detection Fence” shown in your jpeg. We have cameras that swing in at any alarm on the fence and satellites could do the same thing.
Seems to work with North Korea.
They will do as little as they can (and talk a "good game" while doing next to nothing) ... and ridicule those who at the very least are willing to do the "heavy lifting".
We hear the constant refrain "we must secure the border!" "we must develop a 'comprehensive immigration plan'! (for the growing millions of illegal invaders ... and these elected officials -- these "professional politicians" -- really, truly have neither a plan nor the energy, nor, in fact, the desire to do a damn thing ........ except talk talk talk and complain about those who speak out honestly about the critical need to control the border ... and implement ways to do it.
How about treating illegals who come from Mexico the same way they treat illegals trying to enter their country ?
In fact Americans who wish to legally immigrate to Mexico cannot vote or own land in their name if they immigrate there. It’s called reciprocal treatment.
And just enforce the law. No Jobs, housing,foodstamps,legal aid, babys born citizeship ,just get arrested pay steep fines and kicked out.Never able to come back.
Combined Taut-Wire / Vibration Fence
Magal Security Systems (Israel)
The basic security fence utilized along the Israeli Buffer Zone and northern border was built by Magal Security Systems and consists of a combination of taut wire and vibration sensors, to reduce false alarms. The fence is built in 50 meter segments, which are activated by any type of tampering or passage attempt. Magal is currently proposing an installation of video cameras, which will cover every segment, and be triggered by alarms of the local segment, thus sending a real-time view of the segment, for visual verification of the event. The image captured by the camera can be transmitted immediately to security forces that rush to the area, to engage the infiltrators. Magal is also providing a similar system for perimeter defense system, utilizing a number of pan mounted cameras, which are automatically aimed at the segment that triggered the alarm. Magal offers such solutions as a low cost addition to security perimeter defenses, where the size of the installation or budget for security measures prohibits the use of video motion detection systems.
Will you apologize to him and his supporters the day the wall is started?
When it comes time to keep us all contained here, you’ll be stunned how fast they’ll build that damn fence.
Sure. I will buy all of you a gallon of pico de gallo.
You've hit on something very basic. No wall will work unless something unpleasant is likely to happen to anybody who tries going over it. Not much of a fence is needed if something very unpleasant is very likely to happen to anybody trying to cross it.
Here in San Diego, on the border we’ve got a double wall and in some places a triple wall, plus motion detectors, drones, stadium lighting and Border Patrol surveillance 24/7.
Our biggest problems are tunnels under the wall, 70 miles of oceanfront with no wall and visa overstayers who come here legally but don’t leave when their tourist, student, or work visas are up.
Also the Obama administration gives Green Cards(Permanent Lawful Residents) to about 140,000 legal Mexican immigrants every year and about a million Green Cards per year to legal immigrants from all nations
‘nickcarraway’ noun Denotes an obsessive-compulsive disorder triggered by seeing or hearing the name “Trump”. First observed in Summer 2015. There is no known cure.
Those who worry about it being used to keep us in? As bad as America could get, you seriously think going to Mexico would be better? I would go north before I go south to escape
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