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.
No, read it carefully- it's incredibly cheap compared to the cost of social services for illegals.
Maybe we should consult with the Chinese...they're pretty good at building walls of the size necessary to stop the flow of illegals.
You forget - this estimate is from the Federal Goverment - you know, the ones who spend $500 for a $12 Wal-Mart hammer and $2K for a toilet seat.... By the time the appropriate kick-backs are paid to interested parties, then the cost goes up to AT LEAST $568.18 (remember - government contracts always under-estimate the costs).
Yeah right. New Orleans is using Mexican labor, and that's no bargain.
How many millions for each mile for Houston's downtown choo choo?
Perhaps the Senate could find us a source of cheap labor somewhere ..
$3 million per mile is a hell of a lot cheaper than the $15 billion spent on a mile and a half of road on Boston's Big Dig.
haha I could name about 12 RINOs who would make an excellent chain gang!
We have to keep the pressure on. I agree that the govt. would like nothing better than to see us go back to sleep, but that ain't gonna happen.
I was implying what GW would eventually say to keep from having to build the wall/fence.
The fact of the matter is - IF you compare it to the cost of services for illegals, then yes it COULD be a bargain (if we can somehow deport them after the wall is built). But as we won't be saving that money because they will all be granted amnesty (ie - rewarded for breaking the law), we will still be out the fence money AND still be paying the cost of services.
ANd of course, as is true with most statistics - if you compare it to the right figures, you can make $2k toilet seats look like a bargain...
And I am 100% in favor of building a fence/wall to protect our border. I just find it laughable that the cost has already been figured to be $3 million per mile - a number that, were it built by private parties, is several times what it should actually cost.
So - who's going to get the contract? Halliburton???
It never has been a huge bargin. Mexican labor is just a bit lower than Amerian labor, and they are willing to take on any job. The fact is America does not have enough people willing to do hard labor. Certainly American work ethic is one of the best, but most people would rather do something else. I am sure you disagree, but without Mexican labor, it would take 2 or 3 times longer to rebuild New Orleans.
Spend whatever it takes,just get it built.At this point who cares what it costs.
its either a wall at the border or a wall around your local neighborhood like they have in south america.
I'm sure that we can find companies able to provide inexpensive labor to build the wall, so long as we don't ask too closely where the labor came from.
"in an area where labor costs are far lower than in the United States."
Well, Israel does not have millions of Mexican illegals readily available as we do, at low cost, to build the wall. Heck, aren't they also rebuilding New Orleans? Have them build the wall and leave them on the South side of it when complete.
I hire only citizens for my business (I'm in the light construction/landscape field), and I have many competitors who hire Mexicans. We are better, more efficient, and I'm quite successful. I think the value of an uneducated worker who can't communicate is way overvalued.
Just my personal, subjective experience.
There's no wall in the world that will contain clever people determined to get over, through or under it.
The reason walls erected by tyrants worked was because potential escapees were ruthlessly and summarily shot on sight, as in Berlin.
When the illegals get over, around or under the Great Wall of Bush, no one will be shot. Those who are caught will be given every courtesy, a shower and a cold cerveza. They'll be sent home where they'll stay till they try again in a different spot with a different strategy. The profits of a successful coyote will triple.
Leni
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