(05-29-2018, 04:32 PM)B2hibry Wrote: (05-29-2018, 03:32 PM)TJBender Wrote: I really don't want my tax dollars tied up in that boondoggle. Drifter, I don't know if you've ever been to the American southwest, but the vast majority of it is covered in terrain harsh enough that building a wall on the border would be impossible. We'd have to build the wall well within American soil and effectively cede large chunks of land to Mexico to do it. That doesn't even go into how freaking easy a wall is to defeat. Smuggles are capable of driving vans directly over the top of "vehicle fencing", and scaling the most common types of border fencing is a piece of cake for anyone in reasonably good shape and motivated to do so.An economic wall is a far more effective measure, no matter what sensationalist headlines you find on Fox News this week.
I agree it is a mess and would be quite the project, but do we just throw the hands in the air and continue to let the problem fester because it's difficult? Many countries to include the U.S. have tackled more difficult engineering challenges than a border wall.
Trying to build a wall across the entire southern border would be roughly as realistic and cost-effective as digging a hole to China. That leaves us with two
viable alternatives:
1. Cede large swaths of land to Mexico by building the Berlizona Wall on terrain where it can realistically be built.
2. Build a digital and economic wall that levels significant civil and criminal penalties against those here illegally and the businesses that employ them.
I'm not pro-illegal immigration in any way. I think we need to focus on looser requirements for guest workers, and I think some level of amnesty to create a clean slate (particularly for the dreamers) before putting new regulations in place would make sense. I think the practice of an "anchor baby" should end. The child is a US citizen, yes, but the mother's trip from the hospital should be on a bus headed to Mexico, permanently deported, with the option of leaving the baby in the US for adoption/foster care, or taking the child back to Mexico along with its citizenship info so the child can re-enter the US later on if they choose. I think there should be zero tolerance for those who come into this country illegally. You follow the rules, or you're banned permanently. I will never support police profiling, but enforcing immigration laws is a must. I just don't support any half-witted schemes to build a wall that either surrenders large tracts of land to Mexico, sends billions and billions of dollars to Trump's friends in the construction business or both.
