Some folks running for office here in Arizona are pledging to "build the wall". I'm thinking the Arizona/Mexico border is about 350 miles long, maybe 400. I asked my wife what she thought might be deterrent enough, given a wall, height, strength, etc. She says it will be covered with razor-wire and possibly electrified. Consider that great numbers of folks enter our country illegally, and thus must be very careful not to be detected. Many have perished attempting to cross these Deserts. So, some years back, groups of "bleeding-hearts" sought legislation requiring that "watering stations" be built to avoid deaths by dehydration. Dunno if they built them; consider the stupidity of it though: Where would the cops be waiting for illegals? Those folks would likely avoid the watering holes knowing full-well...........Ridiculous idea. So, given AZ gets it's wall, what proportion of the crossings will simply move over to Texas? Then, Texas needs a wall, too. Given that we get the wall, what is to keep it from being breached in one way or another? Holes cut, dynamited, tunnels underneath, you can no better keep them out than stop drugs from flowing illegally, IMO. Razorwire will result in lawsuits, as will electrification. After all, the lawyers sought, and GOT, state-subsidized car insurance for those folks unable to afford it who must drive to work, legal or not! Yet another thought struck me today heavily defeating the wall idea: how many thousands of land animals depend on crossing the border to sustain themselves? How many would die being unable to? Real imponderable, that, which I have nowhere seen addressed. Frank
They built them and, I believe, under Obama they didn't want to hinder anyone's access to water so they pointedly did not hang out in those areas. That's the liberal answer to anything they don't want to do. We don't have complete or permanent solutions to very many things in our lives, do we? Shall we remove all laws prohibiting murder? After all, no amount of laws are going to keep people from killing one another? You have walls, doors, and locks on your house. Why? Don't you know that people could still get in if they wanted to? Burglary shouldn't be a crime anyhow, given that laws don't prevent it from happening. Child molestation has been against the law for a long time, yet we have laws against it. Why? We build walls because they will stop the free flow of traffic across our border. Walls will make crossing our borders illegally more difficult, more expensive, and less likely to succeed. Where we have walls, we have fewer crossings.
@Ken Anderson Then you are in favor of the wall? Your last sentence implies data is available; I'm wondering where those walls are, how long are they, how impenetrable, and what are the "dues" for doing so? How long was the Berlin Wall, where many folks attempting to escape East Berlin were summarily killed by Police? Frank
Its a tough one Frank - 'something' has got to be done We need a huge brain (someone must possess one) that can solve this problem
Hummmm....animal crossings. Interesting. Okay, we put doggie doors on the bottom of the walls for the smaller things like snakes, bugs, rabbits and reptiles. Then, we build special gates for the larger animals. Just like having designated deer crossings, they can put signs up directing all the animals to go to the special gate so they can proceed as they normally would. I imagine the signs would have to written in Spanish and English so the animals from the south could understand where their gate is but the only problem I see with that is maybe some animals can’t read or aren’t careful like the deer that get hit by cars because they don’t use the deer crossings. Oh yeah, the animals that have health problems can go to the vet clinics we set up on our side of the gate and we can also have regular feeding stations to help them along the way. Of course, the government would run the whole thing which would make all of us feel better because we all know how efficient the government does things. Just having a little “valley boy” fun at Peta’s and the EPA’s expense, but, could it actually happen?
According to this, we're paying more for immigrant births than we would for a border wall. -- Washington Times
The military has drones that could easily patrol the border. The military also has nonfatal deterrence that could be used to stop people without hurting anyone. There are many ways of fixing the problem. A wall will slow down people.
You have seen the way that people push their way in even when Border Patrol is there. Unless you're talking about weaponizing these drones and imagining a willingness to gun down droves of people, all the drones would do is detect them. Someone standing on the bridge in Brownsville, Texas can detect the illegals crossing the river, but that doesn't stop them. There are no easy ways of stopping them, and there are probably no reasonable ways of stopping them altogether but a wall will stop most of them and slow the others down, to a point where Border Patrol agents might be able to be effective. The other thing we're looking for is something that will still be there if the Democrats take control again. Policies change depending on who is in power, and allowing millions of illegals to enter the country every time the Democrats have a majority is not a healthy outcome.
Kick this around a while. Technology is cheap. Create a temporary work authority. Kind of like the braceros Create a retina scan on each prospective worker. All counties have a workforce development board, all hiring would be done through them. Any employer hiring an undocumented person would receive massive crippling fines,(not the cost of doing business charge they use now), and face criminal charges. Every foreigner with a visa reports to a government office(post office?) every two weeks. Require under penalty of law that schools and universities report if a foreign national under their purview is out of compliance with his visa requirement.
That's been tried before, actually. Oddly enough, the Clinton Administration instituted sharp penalties against any employer found to employ people who didn't have work permits. Not long afterward, the Labor Department of the same Clinton Administration enforced strong penalties against these same employers for asking for documentation, calling that discrimination. So while there were penalties for hiring illegals, they were not allowed to ask if someone was legal. The whole thing fell apart within a couple of years. Policies only last as long as there are people willing and able to enforce them. That would be even worse today when we have cities and states that will issue identification cards and driver's licenses to illegals.
Build the wall .. razor wire the top ... electrify it .. pressure sensitive exploding devices .. cameras with guns that can be fired remotely ... no watering stations .. no mercy. Who cares about lawsuits .. what gives these morons the right to sue? They are NOT legal .. they are breaking our laws. Thanks to the prior administration they have been encouraged to come on down for free prizes .. BS !!! This country needs to wake up and take care of our own first. Our elderly and Veterans are suffering but the illegals are all very well taken care of. We have laws and rules .. why bother if we aren't going to enforce them. Criminals are not welcome .. and every single one of them who cross illegally are a criminal .. and that includes all sexes and ages. We waste so much money catering to these leeches. Can't feel sorry for them one bit ... if they want pity and or help .. then do it the right way. Somehow they manage to come up with $$$ to pay to have someone get them here illegally .. spend that money doing it right.