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Trump is right: Walls work on the Southern border
The Hill ^ | 01/12/19 | Ford O’Connell

Posted on 01/12/2019 8:39:13 AM PST by yesthatjallen

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) contend the crisis on the U.S. southern border is manufactured.

Yet, The Washington Post, no friend to the Trump Administration, disagrees. According to the Post, the situation on the southern border is indeed “a bona fide emergency.”

Record numbers of migrant families are coming to the United States, the U.S. immigration courts have a backlog in excess of 800,000 cases and the holding cells and detention centers are at overflow capacity.

Add in the fact that scores of Americans are killed by illegal immigrants every month, the tremendous strain illegal aliens place on the nation’s social welfare system, not to mention the human trafficking, drugs and crime burdening American citizens.

Still crickets from the left.

When we do hear from Democrats, it is because they are expressing outrage over the Border Patrol taking non-lethal countermeasures to protect themselves from a migrant caravan bum rushing the border; a level of contempt we didn’t see from Democrats when former President Barack Obama was faced with a nearly identical situation and dealt with it in a similar fashion a few years earlier.

Luckily for the White House, Americans by and large are not buying what Congressional Democrats are selling when it comes to the southern border. They want strong border security. A recent survey from Morning Consult shows that 79 percent of registered voters see the situation at the southern border as a “crisis” or “problem.”

So what specifically makes this current southern border crisis different than the ones faced by President George W. Bush or Barack Obama? It is not so much the raw number of aliens crossing illegally, but the “make up of the flow” that is different. More migrants hail from Central America, more are coming in family units, and there are more unaccompanied minors. This shift in composition of illegal immigrant groups is key to understanding how our current asylum laws combined with various other immigration loopholes and defects allow them to specifically game the system in a way that unaccompanied adult Mexican nationals, who previously comprised the majority of illegal immigrants, cannot. In other words, once these folks (Central American migrants, family units and minors) arrive and set foot on U.S. soil, they are next to impossible to remove. This is why the Trump administration has gone to great lengths to broker a deal with Mexico to serve as a staging area for Central American migrants until their asylum claims are processed.

But until Congress has the will to change the asylum laws and to fix the other legal loopholes and defects, it would be foolish not to better secure the southern border in the meantime.

Speaker Pelosi will tell you a wall is “immoral,” and both Schumer and Pelosi will tell you they are “ineffective.”

Of course what Pelosi and Schumer won’t tell you is that the U.S. currently has more than 650 miles of physical barriers and fencing on its southern border. They also won’t tell you that several prominent Democrats including Schumer, Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden voted for it as senators in the name of better border security.

Playing asinine semantics of what constitutes a wall and claiming that physical barriers on the southern border are “ineffective” are among the most intellectually dishonest statements in recent political memory, particularly when the data suggests just the opposite.

Of course nothing is impenetrable or foolproof, but the fencing in Yuma, Arizona, is a great example of what works. Since its construction in 2005, it has yielded better than a 90 percent drop in illegal traffic. Similar numbers have been registered at other physical barriers in San Diego, El Paso, Texas, and Tucson, Arizona, since their construction.

Even former Obama Border Patrol chief Mark Morgan, who was removed by Trump, concedes that physical barriers work and that more need to be constructed to make the southern border stronger.

Contrary to the media hype, President Trump is not advocating that one continuous wall should be built on the nearly two-thousand mile U.S. southern border, but that the current barriers be extended by a few hundred more miles. He is also asking for more immigration judges, law enforcement officers, detention beds and additional border technology, among other items — common sense stuff when it comes to stronger border security.

If the Democrats were to come to the table right now and talk comprehensive immigration reform and DACA, so long as it contains additional physical barriers along the southern border, the White House has signaled a willingness to move forward on that front, provided that it enhances border security.

The White House is ready to deal. And even though federal government workers will eventually receive back pay, the White House doesn’t want to see them suffer. The questions for congressional Democrats are simple: Do they really hate President Trump more than they love border security? Do they care more about illegal immigrants than American citizens? Only time will tell.

Ford O'Connell served as director of rural outreach for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign; he runs a political consulting business, is an adjunct professor at The George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management, and is a regular commentator on FOX Business. He has also appeared on CNN. Follow him on Twitter @FordOConnell.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: border; trump; wall

1 posted on 01/12/2019 8:39:13 AM PST by yesthatjallen
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To: yesthatjallen

The answer is yes. They hate Trump more than they have any desire to solve these problems. Hatred of trump overrides everything. They are desperate not to give Trump any perceived political victory.


2 posted on 01/12/2019 8:43:49 AM PST by Dilbert San Diego
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To: yesthatjallen

I’m surprised this came from the Post and the Hill both.


3 posted on 01/12/2019 8:46:22 AM PST by Openurmind
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To: yesthatjallen
OK, OK - someone explain this to me:

Whenever Trump tweets, a couple of dweebs by the name of Krassenstein immediately pounce and try to promote talking points.

They are usually the first ones to respond.

4 posted on 01/12/2019 8:47:36 AM PST by Extremely Extreme Extremist (Trust the 17th letter of the English alphabet!!)
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To: yesthatjallen

Schumer has been in congress for 37 years and Pelosi 31. They’ve done nothing to fix problems originating at the southern border.

They are playing a losing hand and Trump know it.


5 posted on 01/12/2019 8:48:50 AM PST by Gahanna Bob
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To: Dilbert San Diego

Trump embodies the threat that the governed will reassert control - “by the will of the governed” - over the rule of the professional government class.

That would be an utter disaster for our rulers, akin to the original overthrow of the monarchy some 240-odd years ago.


6 posted on 01/12/2019 8:49:16 AM PST by Scott from the Left Coast (You may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you...)
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To: yesthatjallen

“Playing asinine semantics of what constitutes a wall and claiming that physical barriers on the southern border are “ineffective” are among the most intellectually dishonest statements in recent political memory, particularly when the data suggests just the opposite.”

WOW! THE HILL!

OMG! The Hill is becoming Trump’s best friend. The worm is turning.


7 posted on 01/12/2019 8:50:59 AM PST by faucetman (Just the facts, ma'am, Just the facts)
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To: yesthatjallen

America’s success is Nancy and Chucks undoing.


8 posted on 01/12/2019 8:52:58 AM PST by Leep (Leftist are neither liberal or democratic. Neither are they pro American.)
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To: All

The author is naïve. The Rats are against the wall because it works. Too many buy into this BS the rats are dug in because they hate Trump. While true, that is not why they won’t budge. Those are rat voters pouring across the border, 10’s of thousands EVERY month. The rats and MSM know if they can keep things as they are for a few more years the GOP is finished. They will never win a National Election again, the House and the SC will be gone forever. If some Americans die so be it.


9 posted on 01/12/2019 8:53:15 AM PST by gibsonguy
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To: yesthatjallen

Currently, 65 countries already have border walls (including Israel... Interestingly, Germany paid for it, according to Germans I speak with).
It is high time for America to have her own complete and proper wall, too.
Enough with the Dems’ deceptive lies about walls not working.


10 posted on 01/12/2019 8:54:45 AM PST by EURASLEEP (The EU is Crashing and They're Asleep at the Wheel)
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist

They are professional Trump-bashers that run a click-bait web site, ir.net (Independent Reporter). They have long been known for shady financial dealings.


11 posted on 01/12/2019 8:56:56 AM PST by jjotto (Next week, BOOM!, for sure!)
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To: yesthatjallen
Oh yeah!!! PDJT just laid into a bunch of globalists-Nancy-ChuckuShumer and AmazonWashPo fake news...read it backwards or go to his Twitter for a better post...he kicked butt: Donald J. Trump ‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 44m44 minutes ago We have a massive Humanitarian Crisis at our Southern Border. We will be out for a long time unless the Democrats come back from their “vacations” and get back to work. I am in the White House ready to sign! 12,020 replies 6,922 retweets 26,516 likes Donald J. Trump ‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 51m51 minutes ago ....I do have a plan on the Shutdown. But to understand that plan you would have to understand the fact that I won the election, and I promised safety and security for the American people. Part of that promise was a Wall at the Southern Border. Elections have consequences! 14,900 replies 9,677 retweets 38,518 likes Donald J. Trump ‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 1h1 hour ago I just watched a Fake reporter from the Amazon Washington Post say the White House is “chaotic, there does not seem to be a strategy for this Shutdown. There is no plan.” The Fakes always like talking Chaos, there is NONE. In fact, there’s almost nobody in the W.H. but me, and...
12 posted on 01/12/2019 9:00:35 AM PST by CincyRichieRich (Either the Wall gets built or America becomes a democrat socialist state.)
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To: gibsonguy

“The author is naïve. The Rats are against the wall because it works.”

They are against the wall because it worked to get Trump elected, and they KNOW that if they can KEEP him from building it he won’t get reelected!


13 posted on 01/12/2019 9:04:13 AM PST by Beagle8U (Beto went to Liz Warren's genealogist to prove that he was 1/1000 Hispanic.)
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To: Beagle8U

Yes that too, but I stick by my main point.


14 posted on 01/12/2019 9:07:10 AM PST by gibsonguy
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To: yesthatjallen

ANYBODY who believes anything that the HATEFUL, BIGOTED, leftist DIMocRATS claim can be accurately described with one/both of 2 words: STUPID and/or NAIVE.

Yours, TMN78247


15 posted on 01/12/2019 9:53:01 AM PST by TMN78247 ("VICTORY or DEATH", William Barrett Travis, LtCol, comdt., Fortress of the Alamo, Bejar, 1836)
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To: yesthatjallen
Contrary to the media hype, President Trump is not advocating that one continuous wall should be built on the nearly two-thousand mile U.S. southern border, but that the current barriers be extended by a few hundred more miles. He is also asking for more immigration judges, law enforcement officers, detention beds and additional border technology, among other items — common sense stuff when it comes to stronger border security.

I do want a continuous 2,000 mile wall, but with designated points of entry. Patrol the entire Wall, and closely guard the authorized entry points. I want the rest of it too.

The biggest thing we can do other than a Wall is changing the hearing process. Instead of catch-and-release with a multi-year wait before the first hearing, we should switch to last-in, first-out. Hold hearings for the most recently captured invaders before releasing them. If they don't have documentation to prove their claims for sanctuary, and if they don't prevail in an immediate hearing, deport them immediately. No more games of the globalist left overwhelming the system!

16 posted on 01/12/2019 10:17:23 AM PST by Pollster1 ("Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed")
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To: Openurmind

“I’m surprised this came from the Post and the Hill both.”

Winning the argument.

Making the case.

Essential political components of a real solution.


17 posted on 01/12/2019 12:20:50 PM PST by BeauBo
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To: BeauBo

That’s what it looks like. :)


18 posted on 01/12/2019 2:58:36 PM PST by Openurmind
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