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[Zips]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...28c0aa-cec7-11e6-b8a2-8c2a61b0436f_story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...14789c-ab59-11e6-8f19-21a1c65d2043_story.html


15% increase in illegal border crossings in 2016 with the majority coming from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala etc. Most of it is that once they crossed, before Trump came into power, applying for asylum, they would be detained and held and then processed and let go with a promise to appear, which many don't do. It is not so much Mexicans anymore but other central and latin american groups fleeing violence and gangs and poverty etc. Now think about it, you have a 30 foot tall barrier where nothing is now, where are the people going to go so easily? Those articles show the difficulties faced by both US authorities and then migrants/refugees etc.

Your articles don't say that 90% of illegal/undocumented immigrants cross at unguarded parts of the border. Without at least 90% doing so, your figure is bullshit. Then there's the fact that a gigantically long wall is not going to be impervious. If people are sneaking across now, they will still do so even with a wall in the way.

Would a theoretical wall covering the entire length of the border make it harder for some people? Sure. Not anywhere close to stopping 90% of them, and you would still get people and smugglers circumventing it. This all still aside from the high likelihood that the wall will never be finished to begin with.

If undocumented immigrants are such a problem, the U.S. should focus on the reasons why people are migrating, and work on the source of it, not blow billions on something that does little to nothing, and will cost gigantic amounts to staff and maintain.

The way things are going, the U.S. is more likely to find its immigrant troubles reducing because it's become a shithole people just don't want to go to anymore, over some magical wall.

 

[Mega]

Sweet summer child

Invoice the government for some gold tier cement, get cheap Chinese knockoff instead. Pocket the difference.
Not to mention the bullshit you can pull with labor costs

Summer child yourself.

Overbilling committed labor or for materials that actually cost less or substituting a cheaper alternative... none of that is money laundering.

 

[Plasmid]

Lol they want it see through? LIke this?

Just with bad dudes on the other side.

 

[Slayven]

Summer child yourself.

Overbilling committed labor or for materials that actually cost less or substituting a cheaper alternative... none of that is money laundering.

we will agree to disagree

 

[JORMBO]

Mexico should just blow up the wall when it's built. It would be a great way to piss off Trump and he could do nothing about it.

Or Mexico can work on making their country a place people don't want to flee.

 

[johnny956]

Or Mexico can work on making their country a place people don't want to flee.

U.S demand of drugs unfortunately won't ever let that happen

 

[Mega]

we will agree to disagree

There is nothing to disagree about. Hospitals do what you described. Office employees who bill overtime. Ordinary businesses, freelance artists and contract workers operating within the law. It's perhaps shady but it's not laundering as a matter of fact.

 

[Phased]

Sane US or Trump's US?

Trump could declare war if someone wrote a swear word on it.

It's for reasons like this the President has no authority to declare war. That power rests solely within Congress. I don't care how far gone Conservatives are, you'd never get enough of them to declare war on fucking Mexico.

 

[Aytumious]

The wall is just a series of concrete resting on land between two countries. As long as no one gets killed, Trump would have to justify invading a country over rubble being periodically blown up.

I'm not sure why you think people could try to blow up the wall with no retaliation. Those people would likely get shot by border patrol.

 

[Marky Mark]

30 feet.

ok, 18.

The wall just got 12 feet smaller.

 

[WhiskeyDiver]

30 feet tall? That's only 70 or so trump hands high, because he has like 5.5 inch long hands from the base of his palm to the end of his middle finger...right?

On a serious note, this wall is a dumb idea and will probably never get fully built OR take 20 years and an extra $70 billion dollars to get it done because something something concrete and rebar became really really expensive.

 

[Ryuuroden]

I expect to be hearing "eminent domain" a lot in the future.

That will go over well.

This has already been a major issue in Texas. There is already miles of fences in places and its screwed up cattle grazing lands etc. The issue is the wall and fences can't be built right on the border. Often times it has to be set back from the border cutting property in half and more. A lot of people on the border hate it and this includes white republicans on the border. It tends to be the people who don't live around immigrants who want this shit more. The ones who don't have day to day interactions with immigrants.

 

[Joni]

Re-read what you just wrote. You honestly think customs and border protection and US authorities would do nothing if people are throwing explosives and blowing up the wall they would spend billions building? They may not declare war, but again, depending on how the wall is built, they may authorize deadly force. You just wouldn't see it happen.

So you expect the entire wall to be guarded the entire time to stop anyone throwing a bomb at it? If they could do that, we wouldn't hear about the wall at all. Trump would prefer shooting them without a wall.

 

[Lagamorph]

Isn't the vast majority of the land it has to be built on privately owned?

 

[RumblingRosco]

Isn't the vast majority of the land it has to be built on privately owned?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.bu...r-wall-land-acquisition-eminent-domain-2017-3

Eminent domain begins.

 

[toddhunter]

It's for reasons like this the President has no authority to declare war. That power rests solely within Congress. I don't care how far gone Conservatives are, you'd never get enough of them to declare war on fucking Mexico.

Not around during the Bush Jnr years? War on terror means an open cheque book to do whatever the fuck he likes.

 

[Mr. X]

A wall half the lenght of the great wall isn't going to get built, for many reasons.

As soon as the government comes in talking about seizing land from ranchers, all hell is going to break lose.

Yeah, they've been hoarding guns for this moment. They probably expected a Democrat to make em bring them out though.

 

[Aureon]

The border is 2000 miles long. A wall is literally going to do nothing because we could never ever watch all of it.

Let's see...
3200km
Reasonably, you'd need a guard every 200m or so.
Four shifts, of 16000, plus a manager every 10 guards or so, that's 70k jobs!
Wall maintanance is going to be what, another billion+ a year? Just the guards are going to be at least two billion.

Paul Krugman once said that war-preparations against the aliens would've helped the economy out of the liquidity trap. I'm unsure if the USA economy is still in a liquidity trap, but this could be actual keynesian policy, in the style of "Pay a man to dig a hole and another to fill it"

The real issue, obviously, is that there's a FUCKTON of swamps, rivers, mountains and whatnot on the border, and good luck closing those.

 

[MUnited83]

Nah, it is a fallacy to think it won't stop anything. If they actually complete and fi ish the wall, you will have directly blunted maybe 90% of easy access especially if backed up with increased patrols and watches and sensors and towers. Just look at Israel, India's border with Bangladesh and many others to see how it blunts low level travel.

Granted anyone determined to come will still come. Cartels have billions of dollars and already employ things like drones and submarines. They would tunnel or hell even blow parts of the wall away. But a 30 foot wall will be extremely difficult for low level smugglers to cross, even more so for the father or mother crossing with kids now.

You can debate the humanitarian aspects, the economic costs, but if your goal is to prevent mass migration, this would work, if it is a structurally sound, imposing and actually completed.

Most immigrants don't even come in by foot.
And you can't watch a wall this long, so people will still easily cross it, shit is pretty fucking easy. Not to mention there will be parts where a wall can't really be built to begin with.

 

[Sir Abacus]

People and weapons:

Drugs:

A giant imposing wall will be a mild inconvenience.

 

[RinsFury]

$40 billion to build a wall that's going to be torn down as soon as Trump is removed from office. I hope I can be there to smash down a section myself.

 

[StoOgE]

Nah, it is a fallacy to think it won't stop anything. If they actually complete and fi ish the wall, you will have directly blunted maybe 90% of easy access especially if backed up with increased patrols and watches and sensors and towers. Just look at Israel, India's border with Bangladesh and many others to see how it blunts low level travel.

Granted anyone determined to come will still come. Cartels have billions of dollars and already employ things like drones and submarines. They would tunnel or hell even blow parts of the wall away. But a 30 foot wall will be extremely difficult for low level smugglers to cross, even more so for the father or mother crossing with kids now.

You can debate the humanitarian aspects, the economic costs, but if your goal is to prevent mass migration, this would work, if it is a structurally sound, imposing and actually completed.

Most illegal immigrants already come by airplane and overstay tourist Visas.

The cartel is going to give no fucks about this wall at all, a d will likely just lead to further consolidation and violence as the larger cartels become more powerful because it increases the sophistication needed to get stuff over the border.

Tunnels drones, etc will be employed as they already are where portions of the wall exist, and because of the immense costs, the next administration will kill funding for the wall.

There are tunnels in Palestine you can drive a fucking vehicle through, AND that is a fucking militarized as hell border which the US will not have the appetite for unless we start mandatory military service in the US we simply don't have the manpower to do so.

The Wall isn't stopping shit except for some poor ranchers cows from grazing on the other side of their property.

 

[Rebel Leader]

People and weapons:



Drugs:



A giant imposing wall will be a mild inconvenience.

mild?

\They also have airplanes and submarines they use

 

[Joni]

The Wall isn't stopping shit except for some poor ranchers cows from grazing on the other side of their property.

And wildlife, a lot of wildlife.

 

[darkwing]

but what about the maintenance costs

 

[Kai Dracon]

but what about the maintenance costs

Practical considerations don't exist in Trump Space.

 

[Lkr]

people are just gonna fill up their stamina wheels and climb it no matter how large you make it

 

[dramatis]

A chunk of the land on the border is tribal and private land. The Trump admin is just going to spend most of the presidency fighting NIMBYs.

 

[enzo_gt]

$38 billion dollar stimulus to DeWalt ladders whew

 

[Forerunner]

There are already a shit ton of tunnels. Cartels aren't stupid they have the money and means of getting drugs across. They either are going to tunnel, go by sea, or rely on dirty officers. When it comes to immigration people come by fucking air anyways. The wall is just dumb. Yeah, let's cut Coast Guard (one of the agencies that actually enforces drug/immigration interdiction) for a fucking wall.

 

[Volimar]

You won't even need tunnels. People will just walk up to the wall and use hand tools to break through. It's so goddamn long that there's no way to watch all of it. There will likely be manmade breaks in the wall big enough to cross through before the whole wall is even finished.

 

[Dubbedinenglish]

but what about the maintenance costs

They don't even know how source that much concrete...

 

[HStallion]

The amazing thing is that this wall is going to have to go through parts of the country that are by no means easily accesible and a nightmare to do any kind of construction, let alone trying to build a gigantic wall. You seriously think they're going to easily build a wall over a fucking mountain range in less than 8 years? Yeah I don't think so.

 

[RDreamer]

Or Mexico can work on making their country a place people don't want to flee.

Looks like that's already happening:

A new study of immigration to the United States shows that more Mexicans have returned home than have arrived here since 2009.

 

[Lambtron]

I can't believe we elected this fucking buffoon and that this monument to his stupidity is being considered. God it's so fucking dumb.

 

[Escape Goat]

"¡Madre! La libertad está dentro de mi vista! ¡Finalmente estaremos libres de los cárteles! Arrrghghgghgh!"

 

[Thelonelykoopa]

Trump isn't thinking efficiently, What he needs to do is make a moat connecting the gulf of Mexico to the pacific and than you use the Dirt you dug up to make an Earthen wall.

 

[GK86]

I look forward to the next Dem president ordering it to be torned down.

 

[Lord Frieza]

Nah, it is a fallacy to think it won't stop anything. If they actually complete and fi ish the wall, you will have directly blunted maybe 90% of easy access especially if backed up with increased patrols and watches and sensors and towers. Just look at Israel, India's border with Bangladesh and many others to see how it blunts low level travel.

Granted anyone determined to come will still come. Cartels have billions of dollars and already employ things like drones and submarines. They would tunnel or hell even blow parts of the wall away. But a 30 foot wall will be extremely difficult for low level smugglers to cross, even more so for the father or mother crossing with kids now.

You can debate the humanitarian aspects, the economic costs, but if your goal is to prevent mass migration, this would work, if it is a structurally sound, imposing and actually completed.

No, it would not. As as been said many times before, most of the illegal immigrants in the US come legally and just allow their visa to lapse. Wall ain't going to stop that. Not to mention that if you are making the trek through the desert way to get to the border, a wall is not going to stop you, especially if it only ends up being 18 feet tall. It will maybe stop...I don't know, 2% of border crossing at the end of the day. It's pretty much worthless garbage.

 

[Joni]

They would at least catch criminals that are bad at engineering.

 

[elrechazado]

So you expect the entire wall to be guarded the entire time to stop anyone throwing a bomb at it? If they could do that, we wouldn't hear about the wall at all. Trump would prefer shooting them without a wall.

Throwing bombs? Stop watching cartoons

 

[Joni]

Throwing bombs? Stop watching cartoons

They will also not see someone walk/crawl up to the wall and place a bomb. They will also not see anyone catapult drugs over the wall.

 

[Ushojax]

Have these people never heard of ladders? You may as well just set $20bn dollars on fire.

 

[ZealousD]

Obviously this will will be unprecedented in its cost and whether it will ever be built, but it will blunt force stop 90% of migration.

No it won't. Most illegal immigrants come on planes and overstay their legal visas. The wall will do jack shit about that.

 

[elrechazado]

No it won't. Most illegal immigrants come on planes and overstay their legal visas. The wall will do jack shit about that.

Depends on how high we build the wall tho

 

[Slayven]

The amazing thing is that this wall is going to have to go through parts of the country that are by no means easily accesible and a nightmare to do any kind of construction, let alone trying to build a gigantic wall. You seriously think they're going to easily build a wall over a fucking mountain range in less than 8 years? Yeah I don't think so.

I was just thinking about that, ALOT of the wall runs into places that are 200 miles pass the boondocks. A lot of it desert. Are the construction workers going to be housed there? If so what about housing, food, and other infrastructure costs?

 

[Regulus Tera]

Or Mexico can work on making their country a place people don't want to flee.

Immigration from Mexico to the US has been negative in the past few years.

 

[Extollere]

The wall is a symbol of our fear and hate, and nothing more. The only thing it does is give a false sense of security to the die hard lunatics that think this thing will keep them or their families safe from some non-existent threat.

For everyone else, it's a giant fuck you. Fuck your tax dollars, and sensibilities. Fuck America's welcoming arms, and history of immigration, Fuck the notion of us being a more inclusive society, and most of all fuck brown people for even thinking of it. It is an insult to everyone, and if a single brink even gets laid it will be a shame on us all.

 

[BobLoblaw]

What I find fascinating is that we've lost all pretense of Mexico paying for this dumbass wall, and now we just assume we're going to spend tens of billions of dollars on it. Fuck this shit

 

[TylerD]

Maintenance will be a huge bitch and super $$$ and I'm sure the drug cartels can't wait to deploy lots more "cheap" drones as they get more capable and build more tunnels.

http://www.businessinsider.com/colombian-cocaine-drug-smuggler-using-drones-2016-11

It would be smart for the wall to be see-through too.