I think the idea of a border wall is absolutely ridiculous and I refuse to believe Trump wants to keep our country safe. If he did, he would not have frozen the pay for federal civilians which include TSA agents, air traffic controllers, and border security agents. I’m doubtful the Democrats will cave, but if they do, I wouldn’t count on seeing a border wall in the near future anyway.
For starters, Trump’s request for $5.7 billion would likely not even begin to meet his needs. In an internal report back in Feb 2017, the Department of Homeland Security estimated that it could cost roughly $21.6 billion. This cost already makes it logistically impossible, given our current deficit.
But let’s say we go ahead and get to building the wall. The border wall is about 1,945 miles long. Roughly 650 miles of which, already have fencing. About 190 have natural barriers. Building a wall on top of it would be wasteful and redundant. As for the natural barriers, lol best of luck building a wall along the mountains near the border. And I’m not sure Texas would see much of one either. Texas might be the state with the longest stretch of land bordering Mexico, but most of what separates the Texas Mexican border is the Rio Grande river. There are international treaties and flood zone requirements which would make a border wall along this area pretty difficult to justify. And for these portions of Texas, the walls that do exist are inland, but they cut into private property. And as you can predict, these landowners aren’t exactly thrilled.
And to go a bit further, if curbing illegal immigration is really, truly, a chief concern, prioritizing a border wall is a mistake. Roughly half of the illegal immigrants that come into the United States may have entered legally, but they simply overstayed their visas. There are definitely still people entering through the border, but it this really where we should focus all our resources? I don’t think so.
If we’re going to beef up on immigration, then the borders will need more surveillance tools. More cameras, more motion sensors, more lights, more border security agents. A wall can only do so much. Maybe I’m more out of touch than I like to think, but I have yet to hear Trump say anything beyond his campaign stump speech about building a wall.
It really is starting to feel like this is about keeping his base happy than actually taking a serious look at immigration policy.