Actually, it probably would cost far less to rebuild NYC than it would cost to keep the nuke from getting into the country with a high level of confidence.
You have also set your standard of performance for border security: it now must achieve a 100% success rate. Any illegal alien getting through holds the prospect of catastrophic failure.
Now, for the next question: will border security be any less of a failure if the nuke is smuggled across our border with Canada, or over the beach? Most border security efforts are along the US-Mexican border: the rest of the border is almost completely unsecured.
If the threat is foreign terrorists coming in illegally, then shutting the US-Mexican border is a woefully inadequate response. You now have six times as much frontier to secure, plus many ports of entry located within the US heartland. You've just multiplied an unreasonably high price tag even higher.
You make some very good points.
What do you suggest doing to (1)secure our borders against a tide of non-assimilaitng illegals (2) keep terrorists from using our open bordrs to attack us ?
I have not said anywhere that securing our borders would be either cheap or easy. I just think it is something that needs doing. Whatever the cost, it would be money, time and effort well spent. If you think otherwise, this is just going to be something that we disagree about.
Freegards