Quote:I agree that the Bush administration was also unwilling to protect the border.


The border wall can be patrolled by drones, we don't need thousands of people. The video can be scanned electronically for possible tunneling activity, with a few humans to check anything the computer marks suspicious. This is all technology that has only been available for about ten years. There is an annual expense here, but it isn't as high as the border patrol we already pay. The wall itself, whether or not Mexico pays for it, is a one-time expense plus nominal maintenance (if it's done right, but since it's government ...).


A ladder is another case where you have to get close to put one up, and destroying it is easy. A wall (or good double fence) will not prevent everyone from entering, but one has to have significant resources to get past a physical barrier. Most of those invading the US couldn't afford it. It would have kept out 99% of those who illegally crossed the border in the past.


Digging a tunnel takes more that a small number of people. Those trafficking tunnels are long, you can't just start a tunnel two feet from the fence and expect no one to notice. Sub sonic scanning from the drones would locate a tunnel long before it's completed.

So you want to patrol thousands of miles of our border with drones? Endlessly, for all time. How do you think the people who own private property along over half our border will like that? (You don't care). You want to do subsonic scanning over thousands of miles looking for three to four foot wide anomalies indicating a possible tunnel. How much do you think that would cost in man hours alone to identify and investigate? A long ladder is suddenly "significant resources"? It must be hard to come by rope in Mexico too. You want to spend billions on something you yourself admit will not prevent everyone from coming over. And spend God knows how much more annually for all time to drone patrol and sub sonically scan thousands of miles of land. Great plan. Mexicans won't wanna come here because we will be broke before long. Ten billion dollars on a [BLEEP] wall. If Congress allows the money to be fronted, I'll expect your utter lack of outrage when companies with business ties to Trump are awarded the contract to build the biggest waste of money in our nation's history.

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