Posted on 05/21/2006 4:58:16 AM PDT by ovrtaxt
The federal government will have to reach deep into taxpayers' pockets if it goes ahead with plans to build a security wall along the U.S.-Mexican border it could cost at least $3 million per mile.
That's $568.18 per foot.
President Bush this week sent Congress a $1.9 billion request to increase border security. But that money would go not only for new fencing, but also for 1,000 new Border Patrol agents, the temporary deployment of up to 6,000 National Guard troops, two new surveillance aircraft and five helicopters.
In December the House voted to build a security barrier with a double set of steel walls, floodlights, surveillance cameras and motion detectors along 700 miles of the 1,952-mile border.
The Senate this week voted to build 370 miles of barrier.
After the House vote, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., estimated that the 700-mile barrier would cost $2.2 billion, or about $3 million mile.
But that estimate could be way off the mark.
NewsMax looked toward Israel as an example and found that the 425-mile complex of fences, concrete walls, trenches and razor wire it is building along its border with the West Bank will cost $1.56 billion, or $3.67 million per mile in an area where labor costs are far lower than in the United States.
The San Diego experience points to even higher costs.
A 14-mile, 15-foot-high double fence is now under construction near San Diego. Roughly $39 million has been spent on the project so far, and Homeland Security plans to spend $35 million more.
"If that $74 million is enough to finish the job [Border Patrol says the cost could keep rising] and the price is multiplied over the proposed 700 miles, the new fence could run $3.7 billion," the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
"Even that estimate doesn't take into account the expense of purchasing or condemning many miles of privately owned land abutting the border or of potential legal challenges."
At $3.7 billion, the 700-mile fence would cost $5.28 million per mile or an astounding $1,000 per foot.
The fence near San Diego has slowed the flood of illegal aliens traveling through the border city of Imperial Beach, Calif., from about 2,000 a day to just a few a day on average.
That has driven aliens and drug smugglers to more remote and treacherous migration routes, and migrants increasingly hire smugglers to help them make the three-day hike through parched terrain a tactic they could use to circumvent the new 700-mile fence.
So building the fence could turn out to be an expensive boondoggle, according to Mike Allen, director of the McAllen, Texas, Economic Development Corp.
"We want people to support our immigration laws because we live here," said Allen, whose home is half a mile from the border.
"But this will be a tremendous waste of money, and it will not stop immigration. People will just go around it."
The only solution that will work, according to a number of anti-immigration activist groups, is to build the fence along the entire 1,952-mile border.
OK, so maybe a few dozen illegals outsmart the wall.
Experts estimate that 3-4 million illegals simply walk across our southern border each year.
EACH YEAR.
Considering that half of them will likely have children, that would be an increase of 100 MILLION poor, unskilled, border-line marxist leftists in the US by 2026.
If you think THAT is what America needs, I have several used cars I'd like you to buy...
Dream on. The courts, ACLU, La Raza, the Dems, and the Catholic church will never let that happen. Moreover, there is quite a support network in the US, which will help them to stay here regardless. According to the 2000 census there are 9 million Mexican-born residents in the US.
The idea that these people will go home because they don't receive welfare and other benefits is delusional. These people have come here at great personal risk and expense. They are leaving Mexico and Central America where they have no hope and opportunity. Being poor, uneducated, and jobless in America still beats being poor, undeducated and jobless in Mexico and Central America. Why would they want to return to those hell holes?
The idea of the cost of the wall versus the cost of health care and education for the illegals is a false choice. Neither is acceptable.
Why isn't a wall or fence acceptable if it reduces the flow of illegals across our borders? How do we maintain our sovereignty as a nation if people can cross into our country without any scrutiny? These are not false choices. We are also told that it is impossible to deport 11 to 20 million people. Do you honestly believe that we have the political will to deny children access to school, school lunches, medical treatment at ERs, etc?
BTW, what's the Adminstration's position on anchor babies, one of the greatest rip-offs in present-day American history? Don't answer. I already know the issue is NOT being addressed, nor will it.
It should be. What do you do with the millions of illegals who have anchor babies? You can't deport the children or deny them the rights of citizenship including social benefits.
When you have a water pipe break in the basement, the first thing you do is shut off the water. Then you can deal with the water damage. We need to gain control over our southern border and crackdown on visa overstays first.
$5.28 million per mile times 1,952 miles
equals
$10.31 billion
divided by
295 million people in America
equals
$35 each.
Where do I send my 35 dollars?
Anyone else see a problem with taking an estimate based on construction costs in San Diego, and extrapolating that along the entire SW border?
So - the US government has built enough built interstate fences to put almost 48 chain link fences one behind the other at the Mexican border. Factor in all of the concrete used per mile of road and you're talking some serious barriers. Therefore, every time someone says that we do not have the resources or logistics to build a border fence, they are talking a line of utter BS.
Oh well! Hummm! But! Hummm !Wait Hummm! That's not Hummm!Never mind!!
The Bush wall will need a much, much wider buffer zone for patrol roads, installation of special electronics, lookout points, even wrestling mats for captures.
Now with eminent domain handed us by the liberals and mushies on the Supreme Court, it will be easy for the government to condemn and grab large pieces of private land from our American owners. The lawsuits that will emanate from this will be never-ending. The lawyers will again be handed a bonanza.
Ah, but the construction of the Wall will be so much fun to watch and will be such a visible structure of comfort.
During which time up to 20-30 million illegals already in this country will be granted amnesty while everyone is busy googling the Wall every night on TV.
One of the greatest sleights-of-hand in American history.
Reduce the welfare benefits to illegals gradually and set a time-limit on receiving them at all. Go after the greedy businessmen hiring the illegals. Eliminate the anchor baby scam.
Grant the illegals fare and a generous amount of money for sustenance for the trip back to their homes.
Watch a gradual exodus happen before our very eyes......without building an unworkable, exorbitantly-priced, pork barrel wall. The incentives for foreign hordes wanting to invade this country, jobs and welfare, must be removed. A wall will not accomplish this at all.
Yes, for a while the illegals will march across the border. However, no workee, no eatee..... then watch them decide to stay home and aggravate Senor Fox for a change.
Leni
And you'll save thousands in reduced welfare, education and health care costs, which the illegal population drives up!
My comment wasn't anti-fence. As far as I'm concerned they should put tripple German concertina the whole 2000 miles.
I was more wondering what the cost of rural Interstate is. If it's close to the fencing costs I say it's a hell of a bargain. The fence, that is.
Makes sense- except that barren desert will be a whole different ballgame in terms of construction and logistics. Legal costs are a different issue altogether.
These figures were taken from the Israeli wall.
The other 20 million didn't bother to return their Census forms.
There are lots of cost eefcteive ways it could be done. We'll just be deluged with 'cost' stories for a while from the illegal-symps in the lame stream media.
???
hahah!
And that was 1996. California now spends over $10,000 per kid.
It would also help to file criminal charges to employer/cheaters to qualify for criminal charges. That would also make the wall unneeded, because employers would stop cheating.
A distinction without a difference, ERs are being used by illegals as clinics for routine care. What is your reference on the July 1, 2006 cutoff for Medicaid?
hehe- see my home page...
Give me the Samba.
Leni
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