The Greatest Mass Migration Since WWII

[guncrasher]

Doesn't work like that over here. Unlike in your country, over here national ID is mandatory and given at birth or when citizenship is granted to an immigrant. When I was born I was given a unique personal serial number and enrolled in my county's "citizen register". Any person not in that register is not a citizen of Norway no matter what or where they were born.

Without that personal number and registry I wouldn't be able to get a bank account, a job, a drivers license, rent an apartment, buy a car, a phone subscription... Just about every service in my country is linked to my registered citizen ID.

you mean a social security number?  heck no, nope no other country has thought about that.  no way.  how do you do that again?  give a unique number? wow, that's groundbreaking.

you guys should really get one of them, unique ideas that nobody else can copy, what do you call them? can somebody invent a name like patent or something.


semp

[GScholz]

You guys have a social security numbers sure, but you have to apply for it. Here you don't get a choice, and you can't live without one. In the U.S. (as I understand it, correct me if I'm wrong) if you're born on U.S. soil you are an American, and no one really knows exactly how many Americans there are and who they are. Not so over here. Here you can't live as a "Hillbilly". It is in fact illegal for you not to have a registered address. Here your parents also need to be Norwegian for you to be granted citizenship, and every single citizen is registered. There are no exceptions. We have kids that were born here, and have lived all their lives here, gone to school here, sometimes into their early teens, that are deported to places like Afghanistan because their parents' citizenship applications are rejected.

It may sound harsh and like an Orwellian police state... But the alternative is what you guys are facing with your immigration problems, just worse. Worse in that at least your immigrants are largely culturally compatible. Ours aren't. Europeans, and people in the Western World in general will have to grow some serious emotional and moral calluses to deal with this crisis or our civilization (as we know it) will be lost.

[Brooke]

The vast majority of illegal immigrants in the United States come in legally, at first, through air and sea ports.

This is incorrect.  40% of illegal immigration is from visa overstays, which is not the vast majority.  References:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323916304578404960101110032
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5485917

Building a 40 billion dollar 30 ft wall all along the U.S.- Mexico border (the projection for building and maintenance keeps getting adjusted) can be breached by a 35 ft ladder and a rope (or a tunnel).

Of course a wall isn't going to stop 100% of people, but it might be 95% effective, and 0.05 * N is much, much smaller than 1.0 * N.  Try applying such logic to anything else in the universe.  Window screens don't keep out 100% of insects.  Sunscreen doesn't block out 100% of UV.  Medicine doesn't have a 100% cure rate.  That doesn't make mean they aren't highly useful to employ.

Walls and fences are quite effective in greatly reducing encroachment, which is why they have been used from antiquity through today, where they continue to be widely used around military bases, airports, schools, high-end homes, the Vatican, Israel, secure storage locations, power plants, electrical substations, water-treatment plants, construction areas, pools, parking areas, ports, and so on.

Here is an example (which some people keep ignoring) *directly* relevant to the discussion.

Hungary built this along its border (it took less than a month to do it):



And this was the result, 4000-8000 illegal immigrants per day before vs. (on this scale) zero after:



Is that fence useless?  No.  Are 6000 people per day going over it with a ladder or rope or under it with a tunnel?  No.  Do you think that, even if some tunnels were dug, still 6000 people per day would go through them, or would it put a significant crimp in the flow?

So, let's talk about the costs.  $40B.  Let's look at that from two perspectives.

First is that our government spends $3.5 trillion per year.  If the project took 4 years (likely hugely optimistic), that would be $10B per year, or 0.29% of the government's yearly spending.  If you are a Keynsian (are you?), you wouldn't care about that anyway, since the larger the money spent, the better anyway.  (It is interesting that many of the factions against a border fence are Keynsians yet use the cost as an argument against a fence -- I'm shocked at the hypocrisy.)

Second, there is the cost of illegal immigration.  All references for these numbers are given below.  It costs $10,000 to deport a person.  Illegal immigrants cost the US $113B/year as of 2011.  As of 2011-2013 or so, there were an estimated 20M illegal immigrants in the US.  As of 2000-2005, there are 850,000 new illegal immigrants per year coming in.

So, the cost of a fence is about 1/3 of the cost for one year of illegal immigrants in the US.

Also, assuming an illegal immigrant spends 5 years here before getting deported (my guess is that the average stay is more like a lifetime, not 5 years, but I'll be conservative here in a direction that disfavors my argument), the cost per new illegal immigrant is the cost of his stay plus the cost of eventual deportation = 5 * $113B/20M + $10k = $38k.  Assuming a wall reduces illegal border crossers by 50% (an unrealistically low estimate, I think, based on Hungary), and assuming our current border crossers are 60% of only 850,000/yr (data as of 2011 -- I'm not assuming any increase since then), a wall would reduce crossers by 255,000 people/yr.  Under those conditions, the wall is paid off in 4 years, and after that is generating $10B per year in cash flow.

So, there you have it.  An argument based not on purposefully misleading leftist -- or rightist -- propaganda but on published numbers and using straightforward math.

You should now be convinced. 

References:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0516/p01s02-ussc.html
http://dailysignal.com/2015/12/27/you-only-think-you-know-how-many-illegal-immigrants-live-in-the-us/
http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states/#Unauthorized%20Immigration
http://www.fairus.org/docs/poverty_rev.pdf
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/news/2015/08/18/119474/what-would-it-cost-to-deport-11-3-million-unauthorized-immigrants/

[Arlo]

We will make Canada pay for the Canadian wall. 

[Brooke]

$10B/year cash flow from an asset that cost $40B to build.  Think of it.  Scale it to something like a house.  Pay $400k and get $100k/yr in cash flow from it.

Would you do it?

That's as good a deal as borrowing at negative interest rates.

[Brooke]

Europeans, and people in the Western World in general will have to grow some serious emotional and moral calluses to deal with this crisis or our civilization (as we know it) will be lost.

My fear is that there aren't enough Europeans who feel that way.

[Brooke]

I enter greece as an asylum seeker, get to the street, throw my papers away and pretend to be a citizen.  so again what is the razor wire for?

For keeping out the people who throw their papers away and pretend to be a citizen.  They don't get let through the checkpoint in the fence.

the reason I ask is because all I see razor wire, but are they at the border?  or are they at the local jail.  I have traveled thru europe (ok I havent but sons have) and they dont mention razor wire at the border.

semp

They are at the border of some countries -- like Hungary -- but not every country and not every border.

Europe's Fences as of December, 2015


You did see the several posts showing Hungary's fence and its effect on eliminating their illegal-immigration problem, right?

[zack1234]

I DONT THINK THERE ARE ENOUGH IMMIGRANTS COMING TO EUROPE!

Would like to know why

[GScholz]

My fear is that there aren't enough Europeans who feel that way.

There is wind of change, so to speak. A stirring in the masses that's almost eerie. And for the first time in my life I have no idea where Europe is headed.

http://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-35026976

[Arlo]

Fear is a powerful motivator. Political candidates with easy answers are generally wrong. Illegal immigration in the U.S.is already on the decline, without a wall. If the true fear is rapists, illegal drugs and terrorists, the Donald wall isn't going to prevent that; with the exception of drugs (which the cartel is wealthy and crafty enough to maintain flow) we mostly home grow the problem. In the U.S. a better investment is in the infrastructure (which is being neglected to decay) and living wages (which is key in helping an economy stay healthy).

So, if a big, expensive, Iron Curtain-like wall excites any of you, prepare for the most expensive anti-climax of your, your children's, their children's (and on) lives.

Can I just go back to making fun of a political thread now? 

[Brooke]

the Donald wall

See above on actual numbers and reasoning as opposed to statements with no (or incorrect) basis.

In the U.S. a better investment is

Not really.  "Economics in One Lesson," by Hazlitt and "Basic Economics," by Sowell lay out what good economic policy really is and why.  If people would read one or the other, they wouldn't fall for hollow buzzwords that lead to incorrect and harmful economic policy.

For example, minimum-wage policies are proven through analysis of much historical data to be harmful to the very people they purport to help.  It's like in the movie Idiocracy, where people believe that watering plants with Brawndo (instead of water) is good because:

So, if a big, expensive, Iron Curtain-like wall excites any of you, prepare for the most expensive anti-climax of your, your children's, their children's (and on) lives.

You ignored the above analysis.  Two points stand out:

1.  The government spends $3.5 trillion *every year*.  Compared to that, $10B/year for 4 years is . . . not even noticeable.  There are the equivalent of 350 $10B-sized expenditures *every year* going on into infinity.  So, no, it wouldn't be the most-expensive anything.

2.  Spending N dollars to get N/4 dollars back per year thereafter is the *opposite* of expensive.

Arlo, you don't like the border fence for emotional reasons, not financial ones.

[Serenity]

See above on actual numbers and reasoning as opposed to statements with no (or incorrect) basis.

Not really.  "Economics in One Lesson," by Hazlitt and "Basic Economics," by Sowell lay out what good economic policy really is and why.  If people would read one or the other, they wouldn't fall for hollow buzzwords that lead to incorrect and harmful economic policy.

For example, minimum-wage policies are proven through analysis of much historical data to be harmful to the very people they purport to help.  It's like in the movie Idiocracy, where people believe that watering plants with Brawndo (instead of water) is good because:

(Image removed from quote.)

You ignored the above analysis.  Two points stand out:

1.  The government spends $3.5 trillion *every year*.  Compared to that, $10B/year for 4 years is . . . not even noticeable.  There are the equivalent of 350 $10B-sized expenditures *every year* going on into infinity.  So, no, it wouldn't be the most-expensive anything.

2.  Spending N dollars to get N/4 dollars back per year thereafter is the *opposite* of expensive.

Arlo, you don't like the border fence for emotional reasons, not financial ones.

I like you.

[Skuzzy]

This has wandered way into the political zone.  I could edit it, but quite frankly, it is a topic which would be hard pressed to keep politics out of it.