Cog wrote:We can do more than one thing at a time. I've seen the pictures of people climbing the border fences so it does happen. Or crossing where there are no fences at all.
I'm not a combat engineer but I worked with them a lot in the Army. The purpose of an obstacle or barrier is not to fully stop an enemy. It is to impede his advance until you can defeat him in other ways. Do you think that prison walls are in place for decoration? Or that the prisoners just voluntarily stay there without them?
The wall is part of an overall solution and at $5 billion its a steal relative to the $50 billion we are going to hand out in foreign aid this year.
First, I'm not buying that $5 billion will do anything remotely close to building an effective wall across the entire US border with Mexico. I have my doubts about $50 billion doing it. Then you have maintenance, etc.
Second, I don't want to spend that money to solve some relatively small part of the problem. Illegal immigration from Mexico has decreased a lot over the past decade.
Again, if it solved the problem, or even a significant majority of the problem, I'd have a different opinion.
Meanwhile, I still think a virtual wall to stop illegals from getting US employment on the books (unless authorized for temp work visas and the like) would be FAR more effective.
For one thing, once the majority of the Mexican illegals, those who stayed after their temp. visas expired, and suddenly find it hard to get a job on the books -- what's the economic incentive for them to stay then?
Finally, prison walls are pretty effective at keeping prisoners in the prisons, so they're justified. Why make a completely invalid comparison? Oh yes, to score political points for the wall. Never mind.
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.