Have any basis for your wild cost estimates?
A fence is a deterrent, not an absolute barrier. And they are market tested and shown to be effective. That's why there are so many millions of miles of fences built all over the world. If they didn't work, nobody would be building them.
If you were asked by a company to analyze how best to keep unwanted persons from the grounds would you respond by proposing a wall 'a billion feet high' etc etc? Of course not. So why do so in such a serious situation as US national security?
No solution is perfect. But a wall/fence makes a lot more sense than nothing at all. And it will not cost anywhere close to half a trillion dollars nor take 20 years to build. And I'll bet you know that.
Yep. There's one around the White House.
I do, but a wall/fence would be ineffective and expensive. It took Israel years to compelte a portion of its fence and it would be many more years until it's going to be complete. And Israel is just slightly smaller than New Hampshire.
And illegals would find other ways to circumvent a fence and it would take additional billions to maintain such a fence/wall.
I propose lining up skunks for the entire 2,000 mile southern border.
---No solution is perfect. But a wall/fence makes a lot more sense than nothing at all. And it will not cost anywhere close to half a trillion dollars nor take 20 years to build. And I'll bet you know that. ---
It worked well for Hadrian and the Romans in northern Britain. They put one up there not to deter an armed invasion but to regulate the flow of goods and people on a frontier too long and rugged to patrol effectively.
We only have 12,000 border patrol agents total. By contrast there are almost 40,000 officers in the NYPD alone.