Surely you jest.
Have you any inkling of the cost of illegal invaders overwhelming social services and law enforcement across the country? Or just who's crossed over and set up shop since 9/11? Or the word that there IS no "border enforcement" -- 'Homeland Security', my @ss.
Btw, have you checked out the tab for the Iraq War lately?
Cost has NEVER been a factor in enforcing the border. Political expediency and pandering to whomever is -- especially from the Bush Administraion.
Yes. It's lower than the cost of enforcing the border sufficiently to keep them out.
Hell, a cheaper solution to this problem would be to set up a program that dispenses large quantities of cash in Mexico--but the recipients must provide proof that they were in Mexico the entire time.
Or just who's crossed over and set up shop since 9/11?
If you're suggesting that controlling the border is an antiterrorist measure, then you have just made the problem far more difficult than stopping illegal aliens along a 2,000-mile stretch of the border. You're now talking about securing 19,000 miles of border--and you have also, in an era of man-portable WMD, set a performance criterion of 100% effectiveness (the one guy you miss could be the one guy carrying the suitcase nuke). Multiply your likely costs to a point beyond any level of reality.
Cost has NEVER been a factor in enforcing the border.
Actually, it has.