Building a Wall - a Boondoggle From Any Angle

As promised in the election campaign, the POTUS seems determined to move ahead with a wall along Mexico's northern border.

There are any number of articles from reasonably sane publications and organizations that refute all of the contentions made by those in support of a wall.

Newsweek ran one that originally appeared on the CATO Institute's website back in August of 2015.  The original article was called "Donald Trump on Immigration: Same Anti-Immigration Ideas, New Salesman".  Newsweek titled the article: "Trump on Immigration: Fantasy Meets Ignorance".

Newsweek had another article that appeared later that fall. " Illegal Immigration: Myths, Half-Truths and a Hole in Trump's Wall"

Both articles are worth reading, but a few highlights:

• Until the mid-1960, America had allowed in up to 50,000 Mexicans annually, almost all as temporary agricultural workers.  Most went home after their jobs ended each year.
• Once temporary visas were ended, the undocumented numbers started to skyrocket.
• Employers in the USA complained and an amnesty in about 1986 merely increased the problems.
• Despite claims by those opposed to immigrants, there has NOT been a crime wave attributed to these migrants, illegal or legal.  The real problem seems to be white men without a high school diploma.  Claims that Mexico is emptying their jails appears to be nonsense.
• Undocumented workers pay taxes and contribute to Social Security, using bogus Social Security numbers which the government knows are fake but it still accepts the money...
• Costs associated with undocumented immigrants are substantial - locking them up might cost up to $10B; emergency healthcare, another $10B; education of their children, another $17B.
• Even the illegal immigrants contribute to the economy.  One study done in Texas in 2005 estimated $17B to the state's gross domestic product.
• Attempting to expel all undocumented immigrants could cost up to $600B or more.

"Indeed, the nation would suffer significantly if all these people were sent home, according to a 2015 report by the American Action Forum, which describes itself as a center-right policy institute. Such a mass deportation “would cause the labor force to shrink by 6.4 percent, which translates to a loss of 11 million workers,’’ the report says. “As a result, 20 years from now the economy would be nearly 6 percent or $1.6 trillion smaller than it would be if the government did not remove all undocumented immigrants.” The impact would be felt across the economy, the report says, although the agriculture, construction, retail and hospitality sectors would be the hardest hit."

• The fence, or wall, faces some significant geographical challenges.
• Mass deportations could take up to 20 years.
• About 50% of undocumented immigrants didn't cross the border illegally where the wall would be anyway.  They either came by plane or by land, with the proper papers, but then just overstayed their visas.  A wall doesn't address that issue.
• A study in 2007 found that a 700-mile wall could cost over $50B over 25 years.  The border is almost 3 times that long and it's now 2017.
• Even if the wall IS built, organized crime units now smuggling people into the USA across the border aren't going to stop because of some wall.  It's odd, and inconsistent, that gun advocates insist that banning guns won't stop gun-related crime and yet seem to believe that a wall will somehow stop human smuggling.
• Immigrants take very few American jobs.  Many studies have proved this.

     "What, then, should the United States do about illegal immigration? A fence won’t work, mass deportation won’t work, and every plan the government has adopted in recent decades has done nothing but enriched and empowered crime syndicates that have transformed a modest problem into an intractable one.

   Perhaps, then, it is time for the country to take a deep, collective breath, stop trafficking in fantasies and face the reality that the only system that ever proved effective in dealing with Mexican nationals wanting to come to America for work was the one abandoned in 1964, when some were given residence and others received temporary visas. Maybe, in this case, the answer for the future can be found in the past."

Once again, in the USA as in so many other countries, politicians seem intent to make some kind of political mileage out of trafficking in fantasies, lies and half-truths.  It's time they were called to account.