Who wants a secure border?

[Brooke]

Building a 10ft fence around the mowed lawns of a gated community is a bit different that building a 30ft wall acroos 2000 miles of this:

You don't need to build walls across impassible terrain.

Of the 2000 mile border, some of that probably does not need a wall or fence.

[CptTrips]

Of the 2000 mile border, some of that probably does not need a wall or fence.

Yeah, like 70%.  Thank you for admitting I was right.

There vast regions of nothingness and impassable mountains that it would be utterly ignorant to try and build a wall across. 

Placement of remote sensors and air borne surveillance drone is the much more intelligent approach.  But a reasonable approach like that doesn't whip up the armies of mouth-frothing MAGA supporters at his rallies quite as well.  Especially if you don't lie about who has to pay for it.

[Brooke]

Thank you for admitting I was right.

You are welcome.  I said you were right many times, specifically about:
1.  It is cheaper and faster in a lot of cases to do surveillance instead of a wall.
2.  An important part of the solution is to remove the motivation for illegal immigration (prosecute employers, don't give illegal immigrants free stuff and let them stay, etc.).

The problem is that both of those things rely on administrations doing their jobs.

But we know that doesn't happen sometimes.  There come administrations at times who will be against it, don't do it, and maybe actively undermine it.

Walls are resistant to such vagaries.

Even if you are building a wall, though, you don't build it up a cliff.  You build it on parts that people can or previously did cross.

[Dichotomy]

You are welcome.  I said you were right many times, specifically about:
1.  It is cheaper and faster in a lot of cases to do surveillance instead of a wall.
2.  An important part of the solution is to remove the motivation for illegal immigration (prosecute employers, don't give illegal immigrants free stuff and let them stay, etc.).

The problem is that both of those things rely on administrations doing their jobs.

But we know that doesn't happen sometimes.  There come administrations at times who will be against it, don't do it, and maybe actively undermine it.

Walls are resistant to such vagaries.

Even if you are building a wall, though, you don't build it up a cliff.  You build it on parts that people can or previously did cross.

Then they'll just find the 'holes' and figure out a way to get through them.  Drug dealers have been doing it for years and the drug dealers I knew were pretty damn creative.  Bottom line is securing the border is a political talking point that gets headlines and column inches.  It's an impossible dream. 

Now I'm not saying that building a 'wall' or a 'fence' won't be effective.  But people who are determined to enter this country illegally will find a way every time.  Doesn't matter if it's a tunnel under the 'wall', a zodiac at some remote beach, or whatever, there is absolutely a 0% chance of 100% closing the border to illegals. 

All we have here is a political football and a talking point to the willfully ignorant.  Don't care if you're left or right.  Using 'securing the borders' is a joke to anybody with a functioning brain to be 100% honest. 

[LCADolby]

A secure border would be nice, but there is no perfect solution.

[-gg-]

A secure border would be nice, but there is no perfect solution.

who has ever said there was?

What would be nice is an effort. Any effort.

[Arlo]

And it's not like the border is being swarmed like the panic party pretends.

[CptTrips]

You are welcome.  I said you were right many times, specifically about:
1.  It is cheaper and faster in a lot of cases to do surveillance instead of a wall.
2.  An important part of the solution is to remove the motivation for illegal immigration (prosecute employers, don't give illegal immigrants free stuff and let them stay, etc.).

And a adjunct to that would be to set up a rational guest worker program.  The vast majority of illegal immigrants are not M13 gang members or cartel.  The vast majority are just poor people trying to find work to feed their families.  Yes, they are breaking the law.  I've been known to break the law on occasion going over the posted speed limit.  Because they are brown and speak a different language it is easy for many to vilify them, but maybe just think of them as Okkies.  Separate the majority in you mind from the gangs and cartels.  Sure.  stomp on the cartels all you want.

For the most part their labor benefits our country.  You think food inflation is bad now?  Wait until whole harvests rot in the fields because they can't be harvested.  And we don't want Americans doing those jobs.  We want to educate Americans and move them up the value chain.  Let the poor rural Mexicans come in to harvest the cantaloupes.  It's a win-win.  And under a guest worker program it can be controlled and monitored and we can make sure they don't get abused by those would take advantage of their vulnerable status.

Demographic changes in the US are going to make that sort of labor exchange more and more useful over the coming decades.

Of course none of that is red meat for Trump rallies.

[Arlo]

who has ever said there was?

What would be nice is an effort. Any effort.

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06/29/supreme-court-migrant-protection-protocols-remain-mexico-biden/

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/12/politics/biden-agreement-mexico-honduras-guatemala/index.html

[Brooke]

Then they'll just find the 'holes' and figure out a way to get through them.  Drug dealers have been doing it for years and the drug dealers I knew were pretty damn creative.

Yes.  A wall won't be 100%.

But barriers reduce flow.  Which is why they are used at military bases, airports, storage facilities, parking facilities, homes, Israel, the Vatican, pools, etc.  And at some borders.

You can get effects like this for simple fencing:

"Building a fence curtailed this. In 1992, Border Patrol reported apprehending 565,581 migrants in the San Diego sector, with a much larger number likely evading capture. Preliminary fence construction in the mid-1990s brought that number below 200,000 by 1999."
https://www.wola.org/analysis/wola-report-lessons-san-diegos-border-wall/

[Brooke]

And a adjunct to that would be to set up a rational guest worker program.

Yep.  But it depends on administrations enforcing things.  That's the worrisome vulnerability.

[CptTrips]

Yep.  But it depends on administrations enforcing things.  That's the worrisome vulnerability.

It all comes down to do you want real adult rational solutions or ridiculous vanity boondoggles that are easier for mouth breathing zealots to understand.

"A guest worker what?"
" A WALL!  A big shiny, beautiful WALL!  and MEXICO is going to PAY FOR IT!"
"A Wall!  Fk Yeah!  Build that WALL!"

Instead he stole money from the Pentagon fund they use for upgrading military housing so our young soldiers putting their lives on the line don't have to have their families living in near slum conditions.

MAGA.

[Brooke]

It all comes down to do you want real adult rational solutions or ridiculous vanity boondoggles that are easier for mouth breathing zealots to understand.

The solutions you promote are good -- but they are vulnerable to being ignored or subverted by opposed administrations, which are changing periodically indefinitely into the future.

A wall has far less such vulnerabilities.  Factoring in this real-world aspect, to me, makes a wall part of an adult, rational solution.

But it need not be 2000 miles of wall, going up cliffs.  It can be a wall blocking routes humans would actually take.

[CptTrips]

The solutions you promote are good -- but they are vulnerable to being ignored or subverted by opposed administrations,

And vanity walls are vulnerable to $5 ladders.

[RUSH1]

Anyone have those pre Biden crossing numbers?  Why are we talking about a wall that was never built instead of just comparing illegal entree numbers between the present and previous administration?  And then ask ourselves why?  After all, everyone in this thread claims to be for securing our southern border.  So what happened?