Can anyone justify NOT having the Wall?

[Crockett]

So if one favors any walls, one must favor a 1,981 mile long wall between the US and Mexico? Personally, I think physical barriers are very useful and am all for their cost-effective use in border security. Where the costs outweigh benefits, use other strategies. Wall or no, vast amounts of people and material legally cross the border each day.

 

[Phil Elliott]

"Other strategies" are much more temporary than a physical wall. Look, if the fed gov't had done their job on border security, the wall would not be worth mentioning. But they did not do that and now the guys who shirked their responsibility are telling us we are racist for wanting some kind of protection that does not hang on the whim of whichever party is in power on any given day. No sale.

Maybe the wall won't work, maybe you guys are right, I cannot say. However, I feel Trump has to deliver on this as a symbol that this admin takes the concerns of US citizens about illegal immigration seriously *and* as more important than the feelings of non-citizens.

 

[Seattle Husker]

Maybe the wall won't work, maybe you guys are right, I cannot say. However, I feel Trump has to deliver on this as a symbol that this admin takes the concerns of US citizens about illegal immigration seriously *and* as more important than the feelings of non-citizens.

A $20B symbol? Of course, that also doesn't include ongoing maintenance that will run in the 10's of millions of dollars each year.

Crack down on the employers of illegal immigrants and the problem would disappear.

 

[iatrogenic]

Do you really want to keep people out? Punish the companies that hire them, punish the home builders, the farm owners, construction companies, restaurants, hotel chains. No work, no pay, no illegals. Pretty dam simple but go ahead and believe a wall will help, you have already made it clear your a stupid FU..

Man, you are really, really smart. Say, what do we do about the cost of processing the unaccompanied children that are apprehended? Those children won't be working, so your "damn simple" idea concerning no work, no pay makes you a stup...uh...what was the term you used again? In 2014 the vaunted Democrats, which you vote for, requested $11.6billion specifically to take care of unaccompanied children that illegally cross the border. That was just for the upcoming 2015 year. With that kind of money, we could build some really good $20billion fences every two years, and I haven't even ventured into the cost of dealing with illegal adults.

If we sum twenty-years of what Democrats want to spend on processing illegal children we have over $220billion. I am guessing that a really good fence could be built with that kind of money.

 

[I35]

A prison doesn't always keep the inmates in. So when one escapes, should we just take down the fences since it doesn't work? That's the attitude from the libs. If a border wall doesn't keep a few in their country then the fence is a disaster right? A wall would make it so much harder to cross instead of swimming across a low area of a filthy river.

 

[Crockett]

I think Seattle Husker is right to point out that jobs and opportunity are the biggest drivers of immigration. I guess some of us would be more comfortable in a world unburdened by a responsibility to care for unaccompanied children. To me, that's just a price of living in a humane country...

 

[Vol Horn 4 Life]

Border patrol is at its highest amount ever and they understand the difficulties in policing the areas even with increased budgets and technology.

To be fair, I have a good friend who is a DPS officer and another who is a Texas Ranger. Both must pull border patrol twice a year. ICE/federal border patrol officers have had their hands tied for the past several years and really couldn't do anything at all to stop the influx of illegals. Effective next month, DPS patrols or most of them will stop because the federal guys are now being allowed to forcefully patrol our borders. Both of my friends are ecstatic to resume their regular duties.

So in reference to your quote it is about to be much easier with fewer officers to slow the problem down than the last five or six years because now they are allowed to do their jobs.

 

[Vol Horn 4 Life]

I think Seattle Husker is right to point out that jobs and opportunity are the biggest drivers of immigration.

No one here is concerned with immigration, just illegal immigration. 100% agree with stiff penalties for employers of illegals. Call me heartless, but as much as I would love to take care of every child in the world, we cant. There has to be a line in the sand and sending the message that "if we make it with kids we're safe" just incentivises them to do it the wrong way. Send the illegal kids back with their parents with a few brochures in Spanish on how to LEGALLY immigrate to the US. It might take a couple years but if the family really wants to come here LEGALLY they'll figure it out.

 

[BrntOrngStmpeDe]

No one here is concerned with immigration, just illegal immigration. 100% agree with stiff penalties for employers of illegals. Call me heartless, but as much as I would love to take care of every child in the world, we cant. There has to be a line in the sand and sending the message that "if we make it with kids we're safe" just incentivises them to do it the wrong way. Send the illegal kids back with their parents with a few brochures in Spanish on how to LEGALLY immigrate to the US. It might take a couple years but if the family really wants to come here LEGALLY they'll figure it out.

Agreed. That's how the problem got to big as big as it is. Reagan made a deal and didn't follow through well enough. Amnesty begets more illegals.

The wall certainly could be a deterrent and in this case it would likely slow down the flow of illegal immigration and consequently make it easier to deal with the smaller numbers once they got through, however...

It will cost substantially more than Trump or any of the advocates are saying, and it will take substantially longer, that's just how these things work.

I would suggest we just start work on the wall and advertise the heck out of it. Couple this with E-verify becoming the law of the land and illegal immigrants will no longer consider it worth the effort/risk.

To deal with the child immigration issue, I would suggest that we refuse visa's to any country that won't repatriate their own citizens, children or adults.

Whatever we are going to do, they better get moving. I don't think the GOP hold on congress is going to last more than the two years. If they don't get something meaningful through congress in the next 15 months, we will go back to a stalemate on the issue.

 

[iatrogenic]

To deal with the child immigration issue, I would suggest that we refuse visa's to any country that won't repatriate their own citizens, children or adults.

Denying visas to those countries that won't accept repatriation is a really good idea.

 

[iatrogenic]

I guess some of us would be more comfortable in a world unburdened by a responsibility to care for unaccompanied children. To me, that's just a price of living in a humane country...

Classic liberal response.

You are so omnipotent that you are able to see the long term effect of allowing unaccompanied children into our country, and that cost is acceptable. In fact, your statement suggests we allow ALL suffering children into our country so that we can be their savior. If not ALL children, how many children need to be allowed to immigrate? 1 million? 30 million? Why can't we let all poor people into the land of milk and honey since your humane benevolence makes you feel so good? After all it is just the "cost" of living in a humane society, and that cost is irrelevant and should be ignored, or we should accept your version of that "cost" without any direct evidence of the cost.

So please, as the self-appointed instructor of arranging our country's social safety net and economy, and since you understand the "cost" so well, please let us know what that cost will be? In a world of limited resources and concrete constraints, which people do you suggest we take from in order to give to these children? Who do you want to drag down while you are lifting up the suffering children from other countries? If you don't think there is a tradeoff, what will the law state that pours unlimited bliss on everyone given our limited resources? In other words, whose freedom do you want to diminish in order to exact your great social plan for the world's children, or what specific plan do you have that allows everyone to be "happy"?

Go ahead, lay out the logic and evidence that your ideas will work. Unfold your superior reality on us. We will all be so very grateful.

 

[Crockett]

You are so omnipotent that you are able to see the long term effect of allowing unaccompanied children into our country, and that cost is acceptable. In fact, your statement suggests we allow ALL suffering children into our country so that we can be their savior. If not ALL children, how many children need to be allowed to immigrate? 1 million? 30 million?

Fortunately humans, unless under unbearable duress, don't abandon their children and hope for the best in a strange country. I don't expect this to be a problem of unlimited scope or duration. I'm all for repatriating them to their families and not putting them on a path to citizenship or even a green card.

 

[iatrogenic]

Fortunately humans, unless under unbearable duress, don't abandon their children and hope for the best in a strange country. I don't expect this to be a problem of unlimited scope or duration. I'm all for repatriating them to their families and not putting them on a path to citizenship or even a green card.

Oh, I see your position is been modified. You didn't answer any of the difficult questions. Let's just start with the two easy questions:
How much is it going to cost?
and
Who will we send the bill to?

 

[Horn6721]

IA
I was just about to ask why Croc changed position.
Croc does that mean you would deport the150 k (apprx) that have come in the last few years and for whom billions of our tax dollars have already been spent?

 

[Crockett]

So you disagree that a lost abandoned child should be treated humanely? I didn't back off from that.

 

[BrntOrngStmpeDe]

So you disagree that a lost abandoned child should be treated humanely? I didn't back off from that.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that we treat them inhumanely, but I am advocating that they be returned to their parents preferably and their country definitely. Somehow, somewhere these kids parents chose to place them in limbo and even jeopardy. I don't think the US is obligated to accept and/or make these children citizens just because they are here. DNA testing is sophisticated enough that we can likely tell the country of origin for the vast majority of these children even if their parents and/or countries are not stepping up to claim them.

There is big difference between demanding that they go back home and treating them inhumanely.

"Fortunately humans, unless under unbearable duress, don't abandon their children and hope for the best in a strange country"

I think we have evidence to the contrary, specifically as it deals with immigration. Many of these kids were sent to the US by their parents...by themselves to fend for themselves in a 'coyote' system that is rampant with abuse and sex trafficking.

 

[Horn6721]

These children are sent here because the parents know once here the kids will be taken care of by the taxpayers.
AND under BO there existed the potential of the parents being allowed in as well.

 

[Phil Elliott]

The Dems did not have any problem shipping that little Cuban boy back to Castro Inc back in the day.

 

[iatrogenic]

So you disagree that a lost abandoned child should be treated humanely? I didn't back off from that.

I might disagree. Are the children lost, or are they abandoned? What is the cost of treating them humanely? How many are there, 1 or 10,000 or 1 million? If we treat one humanely, will the parents of others abandon their children with the hope we will take them in? Will some of those children die or be sold into sex trafficking before they make it to the U.S.?

 

[Clean]

When I read **** like this from Jorge Ramos, I agree we need the wall as a symbolic barrier. It won't stop organized crime from coming around through the Gulf or over Lake Amistad, but it sends a message.

Univision senior anchor Jorge Ramos declared on Friday that the United States belongs to Latino migrants, emphatically stating to a Spanish-speaking audience that “it is our country, not theirs.”
Ramos took an unusual tack, pivoting from talk of diversity and togetherness into boasts of conquest. Mass immigration, particularly illegal immigration, was a fait accompli. There is nothing the U.S. can do about it, and they must accept that America is “not their” country and that illegal aliens, particularly Latinos, “are not going to leave,” he said.

“I am an immigrant, just like many of you,” Ramos said in Spanish, as translated by the Media Research Center. “I am a proud Latino immigrant here in the United States. My name is Jorge Ramos, and I work at Univision and at the Fusion network.”

“And you know exactly what is going on here in the United States. There are many people who do not want us to be here, and who want to create a wall in order to separate us,” he said.

“But you know what? This is also our country. Let me repeat this: Our country, not theirs. It is our country. And we are not going to leave. We are nearly 60 million Latinos in the United States,” he continued. “And thanks to us, the United States eats, grows and, as we’ve seen today, sings and dances.”

“So when they attack us, we already know what we are going to do. We are not going to sit down. We will not shut up. And we will not leave. That is what we are going to do,” he added.

Ramos gave his speech on Friday during Premios Lo Nuestro, or “Our Awards,” on Univision.

Ramos, who immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico, frequently portrays American law as unjust and prejudiced and supports open borders.

“The taboo issue of an open border should be tackled. Not now. Politically it is impossible even to discuss that. But I don’t see why we can’t have in North America the same immigration that they have within the European Union,” Ramos said to Time magazine in 2014.

The U.S. should not enforce its immigration laws even after illegal aliens kill Americans, he said during a CNN interview in August 2015, because that would be “completely unfair” to the illegal population. In June of 2016, Ramos told a crowd of illegal aliens gathered in Houston, Texas, “I think you the DREAMers are the Rosa Parks of this time.”

And Ramos’ views are not fringe ones in Mexico: A 2013 poll found that 66 percent of Mexicans believe the U.S. government has no right to limit immigration, while 52 percent said Mexicans have a right to be in the United States. Another 88 percent said it is fine to enter the U.S. illegally if one needs money. Over half, 56 percent, said they had friends or family who tried to immigrate to the U.S. illegally.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-govern...ur-country-not-theirs-we-are-not-going-leave/

 

[iatrogenic]

When I read **** like this from Jorge Ramos, I agree we need the wall as a symbolic barrier. It won't stop organized crime from coming around through the Gulf or over Lake Amistad, but it sends a message.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-govern...ur-country-not-theirs-we-are-not-going-leave/

That looks like a little more than opinion. It seems like sedition, and possibly a violation of 18 U.S. Code § 2383 - Rebellion or insurrection.

 

[BrntOrngStmpeDe]

That looks like a little more than opinion. It seems like sedition, and possibly a violation of 18 U.S. Code § 2383 - Rebellion or insurrection.

Their true colors come out when they face resistance to the globalism agenda. When we appeared to be on a tack of slowly becoming the North American Union with zero borders then they held their tongues but now that there is resistance to that, they are starting to become more vocal and belligerent about it.

Immigrants didn't make this country great. This country made it possible for immigrants to be great. It's our rules, policies and culture that allows people to become great, but all these interlopers (and many leftist elites) want to change all those things. As soon as they get their way, we will cease to be the place where people can become great on their own.

 

[Clean]

That looks like a little more than opinion. It seems like sedition, and possibly a violation of 18 U.S. Code § 2383 - Rebellion or insurrection.

He's a Reconquistador. He's stirring up the old Aztlan movement.

 

[Horn6721]

BOSD
" This country made it possible for immigrants to be great. "

 

[iatrogenic]

Their true colors come out when they face resistance to the globalism agenda. When we appeared to be on a tack of slowly becoming the North American Union with zero borders then they held their tongues but now that there is resistance to that, they are starting to become more vocal and belligerent about it.

Immigrants didn't make this country great. This country made it possible for immigrants to be great. It's our rules, policies and culture that allows people to become great, but all these interlopers (and many leftist elites) want to change all those things. As soon as they get their way, we will cease to be the place where people can become great on their own.

As a sophomore or an old guy, you're still a superstar BOS.

 

[Mr. Deez]

As a sophomore or an old guy, you're still a superstar BOS.

Ditto. Even when I don't agree with him 100 percent, he's always sharp and insightful.

 

[Joe Fan]

College students chant ‘Build the Wall’
In Cancun

The Mexicans were none too happy
Yet had nada to say about Mexican nationals raising their home flag above American high schools, waving it at college graduations in the US or chanting “Osama, Osama” when Mexico beats America in soccer in Los Angeles.

http://www.theyucatantimes.com/2017...ng-build-that-wall-in-cancun-is-unacceptable/

 

[Joe Fan]

Since 1965, immigration has added 72 million people to the U.S —more than the current population of France. Immigrants are now "13.5% of the total US population, the highest percentage in over 100 years." 51% of immigrant-headed households on welfare system (cf 30% of native pop) & 2/3 of them access food assistance programs.

Is it fair to question a system that welcomes immigrants who are so poor that they cannot feed their own children?

".... Trump did not create the strong dissatisfaction with immigration felt by his working-class supporters, but he certainly harnessed it. Voters’ sense that he would restrict immigration may be the single most important factor that helped him win the longtime Democratic stronghold of the industrial Midwest, and thus the presidency...."​

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/arti...se-against-immigration?cid=int-lea&pgtype=hpg

 

[Mr. Deez]

Since 1965, immigration has added 72 million people to the U.S —more than the current population of France. Immigrants are now "13.5% of the total US population, the highest percentage in over 100 years." 51% of immigrant-headed households on welfare system (cf 30% of native pop) & 2/3 of them access food assistance programs.

Is it fair to question a system that welcomes immigrants who are so poor that they cannot feed their own children?

".... Trump did not create the strong dissatisfaction with immigration felt by his working-class supporters, but he certainly harnessed it. Voters’ sense that he would restrict immigration may be the single most important factor that helped him win the longtime Democratic stronghold of the industrial Midwest, and thus the presidency...."​

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/arti...se-against-immigration?cid=int-lea&pgtype=hpg

Interesting article. There is probably no issue in which the view of elites differs more widely from the view of most Americans. They're miles apart.

Furthermore, I don't think we're actually debating immigration in America. We're debating the concept of the nation state. We don't know that's what we're debating, but that's what we're really debating. Of course, Europe is explicitly having that debate and has been for a while, but we're really doing the same thing. They just have a supranational organization (the EU) to provide a context for that debate. However, one can see the context in our own debate in the court rulings invalidating the travel ban, where the judges are effectively saying that we don't have the right to dictate who enters the United States. Well, that's fundamental to the concept of the nation state. If you don't have that right, then you're not a nation state.

 

[Monahorns]

Mr. Deez, you are completely right. I think some on the right do understand the issue is nation-state sovereignty, but I think we should be more explicitly bringing this fact up.