(01-26-2019, 12:34 PM)jradMITEX Wrote: If your expecting any movement of public support for the wall, it’s not gonna happen.  Public opinion held steady against it from before and throughout the shut down.  Low 50’s against low 40’s for.  Trump’s had an entire month to convince people, and the arguments are mostly falling flat outside of his base.  Overall 71% of people were against using the shut down to get the wall, that number includes even some wall supporters.  He might be bull headed enough to try again but another shut down would be the second kick from the mule.

I think most people see illegal immigrants and mostly see people that are seeking a better life, sure there are bad ones, but demonizing them as a whole isn’t a compelling argument in itself. I think most people want a secure border to whatever that extent is possible, but no a wall isn’t some kind of game changing item.  

If you look at what the real immigration hardline think tanks, organization and lobbyists think, that really don’t put a wall high on the priority list.  Probably because they know it’s not really all that effective.  That’s why there hasn’t been a DACA for wall deal, because why would you trade something of value for something of little?

Facts remain the same, number of illegal crossings are at or near multi decade lows, most illegal immigrants overstay their visas than illegally cross.  Drugs are smuggled almost overwhelmingly through ports of entry.  Immigrants requesting asylum turn themselves in at legal points of entry which is their legal right.  A wall would make little difference.  All these fly in the face of the justifications that were laid out.  Not to mention the efficacy of a wall vis a vis ways to go under and around it and  other ways people will adapt.

This was just a stupid campaign slogan/promise like “Hope and Change” but this one is one that is simple to be kept or broken.  So he’s going to have to pay some sort of price if it doesn’t happen.  He really has only two options both are bad, he could sign off on an increase in border security spending with little wall money and try to claim victory pissing off his base, or he could strike a larger DACA/TPS deal with a path to citizenship plus other stuff for wall money still pissing of his base but in a different way.