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Community Debate: Do Border Walls Actually Work?

Started By:
Kerry Malone, Tue 07 Feb, 2017 6:24 AM
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    #1
    COMMUNITY DEBATE
    DO BORDER WALLS ACTUALLY WORK?


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    At the terrifying risk of starting WW3 here on our forums, I'm going to open this one up for debate!

    Unless you've been living in a cave, which unlike those in Pakistan - does not have cable TV, you will have heard of the US/Mexican Border Wall idea.

    The concept is incredibly simple, the politics - amazingly complex!

    What the current administration propose is to erect a massive 35-45ft high reinforced concrete wall along the border between the United States and Mexico, in a hope to curtail illegal immigration through one of the most travelled borders in the world. The US is hardly unique in its desire for a physical border defence, as such things have existed for centuries, going as far back as Hadrian's Wall in the north of England, to the Great Wall of China, to the Israeli/Palestinian wall on the West Bank.

    However, it has often been said that such walls are the landmarks of folly and foolhardiness, and that all erecting a wall will do is encourage people to find ways to circumvent the wall. After all, in the immortal words of Blackadder:

    "We're facing a horde of ginger maniacs, with wild goats nesting in their huge orange beards, or, to put it another way, 'The Scots', and how does our inspiring leader Hadrian intend to keep out this vast army of lunatics? By building a three foot high wall. A terrifying obstacle. About as frightening as a little rabbit with the word "boo" painted on its nose."

    Write your thoughts in the comments below!
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    #2
    I guess I'll start. What other option is there? You tell your neighbor at your house to stop coming into your yard and they they still do; what do you do? Build a fence around your property. I do realize on a national level its a bit more complicated, however with todays age we need (feel the need to) regulated who is entering the county. Really does boggle my mind why people are ok with illegals coming into the country.

    No, I don't think all of them are criminals. Before the defense of all of America were immigrates, as this is true, we still had a process. First colonies came from many great nations settling the new land. We technically were just resettlements of where we came from. Its until we (America in this case) became a nation where we started to have a due process in immigration.

    This has always been a issue throughout time. Every president (leaders) has tried to find a solution to problems of illegals. No easy answer.
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    #3
    A hard border isn't going to do much, other than make people find other ways to get through. Unless you have enough people patrolling it and train people in identifying false documents, with proper checkpoints. If you can't do that, all you have is a wall. It makes travel for the law-abiding people harder, while doing little to hurt the people traffickers and forgers.

    When you consider that people can get in through air and sea as well, it just seems like a waste of resources. If you don't have a free movement agreement with a neighbouring country, then you will want a patrolled border, with the checks carried out at checkpoints, which I believe is already done in a lot of areas.
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    #4
    I don't see it working that well. Unless as three has said, that you stock it with people it'll fail. In order to stock it, you'll need to pay those people... mexico wont pay for them either btw
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    #5
    I believe those saying it will not accomplish anything are slightly shortsighted. Looking at the numbers will let you know securing the borders does help. In 2005 over 720,000 people crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally. Since that time SOME of the border has been secured with fencing and patrols along the border have been increased. This past year's estimate is 170,000 crossed the border illegally. A drastic reduction, and while the fences cannot be attributed to all of the decrease, it certainly helped. The fencing does not extend along the entire border, so a wall which does will reduce that number even more. Will it stop the problem? No. What it will do is limit opportunities to cross the border illegally and give border agents a much greater chance of catching those who use other methods.
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    #6
    I know that Trump's premise of Mexicans bringing drugs and crime into the country is a ridiculous concept. I believe there's more crime from US-born citizens than anyone that comes to the country. However, I understand his entire plan to restore our country. He want's to close the doors and start cleaning house. I think it's a smart move considering the condition in the country, but he presents it in a very abrasive way.

    I would say that we let those that are here stay, but not allow anyone else in until we can better stabilize our country.
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    #7
    As with all intelligent people and the desperate, you present them with a problem and they will find a solution. As a well humoured Mexican man put it 40% of all illegal migration into the USA comes via plane tickets bought as returns who don't go home! It will also create further criminality and endanger people by encouraging people traffickers to exploit vulnerable people and endanger them in the process to such things as modern day slavery, prostitution and gangs!

    A proper way of dealing woth with illegal migration is by creating a lasting solution by improving conditions with your neighbour so that people feel more inclined to stay in their own country as conditions have improved from previously and they'll feel that they have a future there. Ever wondered why cows always want to jump the fence to the greener grass on the other side?

    Additionally more of americas troubles are caused by the availability of weapons, corruption in local government and deep sitting racism and lack of integration within communities that creates a them and us culture rather than integrating them as Americans and this means they are more likely to conduct criminal activity as they may be bullied and or abused or segregated in both their personal and employment opportunities!

    20-30 billion USD is a staggering sum of money and in reality will achieve very little, if they used that as foreign aid in improving the quality of life in the poorest parts of Mexico where the migrants come from they will cause less isolationist behaviour and more than likely have the same if not better effect on net migration into the USA! As a Brit we are surrounded by water and we still get illegal migration so that automatically default proves that a big wall will do nothing as 3 miles of freezing cold water doesn't stop them!

    at the end of the day - short sighted isolationist thinking solves nothing, look what happened/happening to Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mugabe, Putin and every other isolationist leader in the world - it never ever works! It'll only create more problems than it solves!

    At the end of the day Mexican illegal migrants contribute a significant amount of GDP towards the American economy and fill a number of low skilled jobs that many companies struggle to employ people into! So in essence, America/Americans need Mexico!
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    #8
    Be quite honest it really isn't neighbor responsibility to improve the life or well being of another nation. This is what got America in a lot of trouble on global scale and you want use to do more? People been saying for years America needs to get their hands out of other peoples business, but when the time comes when we want to help protect ourselves from illegals or whatever you want to fill the blank with we look like the bad guys. Just like with the whole liberal and conservative conflict we (America) have now. Calling each other hypocrites for whatever reason.

    (No offense) But I will also say this particular topic if we want to keep it to Mexico/America really no ones concern other then those from those countries. I'd go as far as to probably only concerns states that would be effected the most by putting this wall up. I live pretty far north of the Mexico/America boarder and to be honest it's not that big of a deal to me way up here. I don't see what others are seeing from illegal issues. It's like with European union with Britain leaving it, president of the US came to Britain gave his view point, no one even cared what he said because he isn't from that area. Even when that topic came up here on the forums I was very hesitant to even reply to it due to that fact.
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    #9
    I liked Obama :-)
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    #10
     –  Last edited by Dark; Wed 08 Feb, 2017 3:23 PM.
    The entire "Mexican illegals" thing is a non-issue.

    It is objective historical fact that they don't take away jobs from Americans, and objective historical fact that they decrease crime rates due to being less likely to commit crimes.

    They're scapegoats, nothing more, nothing less.

    They're scapegoats used by fear mongering plutocrats to distract from the fact that they are the ones responsible for everything their voters complained about. Now you have the penultimate plutocrat in charge, putting plutocrats in positions of power, dismantling consumer and employee protections. You have an anti-education plutocrat heading the Department of Education, an anti-employee plutocrat heading the Department of Labor, an anti-consumer plutocrat heading the FCC - it goes on and on. You have them repealing the Dodd-Frank act, the very law that was put in place due to the subprime mortgage crisis to prevent further corporate malfeasance and exploitation of consumers.

    Will the wall work?
    For the purpose of stopping illegals, sure - but all experts and historical evidence say not as well as spending that same money on other measures.

    Will the wall work?
    For the actual purpose of keeping the public distracted and focused on the Mexican non-issue while the plutocrats quietly dismantle the laws impeding their ability to exploit the public? Absolutely.
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    #11
    Well to put my 2 cents in here is a border wall would only be the first step. Mexico put up their own wall on its southern border and patrol it and its been working for them. Same for Israel and Palatine. The wall itself wont be enough, but combines with vets coming home and needing jobs they are good at, would be a good place. And if people say they can tunnel under it, remember that for a foundation of a building that high will have to be set deep. So unless the drug cartels are planning on starting a coal mine under the boarder, i don't see it happening.

    I've been following the news and California is about to collapse under the sanctuary status for illegals. From independent bloggers and news reports says that CA has a 122 billion dollar economy which is huge. But CA has been raising taxes every year. This year they are raising tax on gas by 42% and raising vehicle registration by 141% just to pay for the illegals who need housing food and basic needs. So far because of the increased taxes on business, CA has lost 9000 businesses to other countries and other states. Right now they are broke. a 122 billion dollar state is running in the red by 2 billion because of the flow of unchecked migration. So the argument that illegals aren't hurting the US is woefully wrong. If they are bringing down the biggest state in the union, they can take down any state.

    Yes illegals come in from air and boat as well and those are other issues to be tackled. The reason for the southern wall is so important isn't because of Mexicans. Its people from other countries that cant get onto a plane or a boat and get to america. They go into Mexico who has very loose if non existent standards for travel and then cross the boarder to the south. The whole world knows how easy it is to get across our southern boarder. IF someone from any country wanted to get in, going to mexico and crossing from there is the best option.
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    #12
     –  Last edited by Dark; Fri 10 Feb, 2017 10:28 PM.
    I've been following the news and California is about to collapse under the sanctuary status for illegals. From independent bloggers and news reports says that CA has a 122 billion dollar economy which is huge. But CA has been raising taxes every year. This year they are raising tax on gas by 42% and raising vehicle registration by 141% just to pay for the illegals who need housing food and basic needs. So far because of the increased taxes on business, CA has lost 9000 businesses to other countries and other states. Right now they are broke. a 122 billion dollar state is running in the red by 2 billion because of the flow of unchecked migration. So the argument that illegals aren't hurting the US is woefully wrong. If they are bringing down the biggest state in the union, they can take down any state.
    This link shows sources arguing if illegals hurt or help the economy.

    Alan Greenspan (I can't imagine anyone not having heard of him) is on the side of illegals benefiting the economy, but it's one of the arguments arguing otherwise that addresses that assertion:
    The net fiscal cost of immigration ranges from $11 billion to $22 billion per year, with most government expenditures on immigrants coming from state and local coffers, while most taxes paid by immigrants go to the federal treasury. The net deficit is caused by a low level of tax payments by immigrants, because they are disproportionately low-skilled and thus earn low wages, and a higher rate of consumption of government services, both because of their relative poverty and their higher fertility. This is especially true of illegal immigration. Even though illegal aliens make little use of welfare, from which they are generally barred, the costs of illegal immigration in terms of government expenditures for education, criminal justice, and emergency medical care are significant. California has estimated that the net cost to the state of providing government services to illegal immigrants approached $3 billion during a single fiscal year. The fact that states must bear the cost of federal failure turns illegal immigration, in effect, into one of the largest unfunded federal mandates.
    They still contribute the most taxes to the federal budget, ~100 billion more than the next highest (which is Texas).
    In fact, they contribute ~12% of the total the feds receive from the states, yet only receive ~10% of the money the feds spend on the states.

    Just ~1% of the money the feds spend on the states is over ~30 billion dollars. That sure as heck would balance their budget, hm? If you look at California in a vacuum, taking over federal expenditures while also keeping all received taxes, they'd have a 60 billion surplus.

    They're in the red because the federal government is keeping disproportionately more taxes.
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    #13
    It feels like this discussion has moved a ways away from "Do Border Walls Actually Work?" to "Immigration Policy and the effects of undocumented people".

    As we seem to be in the mist of that, I will say that I don't put a heavy stake in the numbers being thrown about. The only numbers that I am concerned about it how much I am taxed and pay. As I live here in Southern California, I do know how expensive it is to live here. As a homeowner, I see my property tax increase every year. As an employed worker, I see my take home pay (after taxes) decrease. All the while, the standard of living remains stagnant or diminished. Thus, what are my taxes going toward? It's a ponzi scheme for certain.

    For Immigration, I'm all for it. I believe there should be a path to work towards it and it should be obtainable. What I don't believe is that it is an unalienable right for anyone or any group getting special treatment in bypassing that path. My mother and her family went through the process. My mom told me how proud my grandfather was when he swore in to become a US Citizen. He worked hard, followed the laws, took the test, learned the language, and walked that path to the American Dream. He earned it.

    Something given is something not respected. When you remove rules or bypass them, things don't become easier. It becomes messier. From the top down, laws need to apply to everyone equally and fairly. As Trump's executive order did not meet that tenant, the law worked and it was suspended. Rightly so, as it was unfair and not applied equally. Protesters causing riots over the arrests and deportation of illegal aliens "that had committed crimes" is just as wrong as Trump's executive order.

    Being idealistic is easy when the actual effects of things does not directly or personally affect you. It is even easier when you have nothing to lose or have to pay for those ideals. It's good to be passionate about things, but remember that when you are emotional about something, you can't be impartial or logical about it. Emotions usually win out over Logic.

    As for the main topic regarding Border Walls. I think they are simply symbolic. Walls only deter the undetermined. If someone is determined, they will ignore the wall and find another way. Just like laws. Unless the mob mentality has set, then laws don't matter.

    There is no easy answer and answers will vary greatly base on how relative the issue is to a person. Using math or numbers is meaningless as who *really* has access or the knowledge of the *real* numbers or facts? The media? Please... the government? Uh-huh... Some blogger? Are you kidding me? Truly, unless you are omnipotent, we will never know the true facts to make an informed decision. Even less so, unless you are living in the middle of the storm itself.

    Sorry for the ramble.
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    #14
    You know this whole issue I find isn't even about the wall itself. More about the man behind the desk. Like that for many issues that have came up recently, which to me seems very strange and hypocritical. Did you know Obama was already starting legislation for a wall before trump came to office? How about this travel ban? Only difference between trumps ban vs Obamas is religion issues.

    Well, back to subject at hand - you may say illegals isn't the issue but that 3/4 part of the issue. We talk about how the politicians are the issue and we are just complaining about the outcome of many of the issues, which I don't disagree, but it seems not matter what remedy someone proposes there got to be someone always to oppose it. Bickering school children is what I imagine at congress/senate halls. Quite honestly I'm sick of it. I cant even watch the news anymore getting upset about something. Government officials worried about how someone said something or tweeting some stupidity. He said she said garbage you hear in high school drama.

    Obviously something needs to be done. Just like what Kerry said at the start of this thread "The concept is incredibly simple, the politics - amazingly complex!"
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    #15
    (No offense) But I will also say this particular topic if we want to keep it to Mexico/America really no ones concern other then those from those countries. I'd go as far as to probably only concerns states that would be effected the most by putting this wall up. I live pretty far north of the Mexico/America boarder and to be honest it's not that big of a deal to me way up here.
    The darker the color, the more immigrants that state has. As you can see, it's NOT a border state issue. My state (Georgia) has a significant population of illegal immigrants and we are nowhere close to the Mexico border. This is a national issue and as such, the federal government is responsible for the wall.
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