President Trump will apparently speak to the nation about the national security “emergency” we are facing on our southern border.
This will be great. I can hardly wait to hear the fact-based, well-reasoned rationale for spending $20 or $30 billion dollars on a wall. Since no one except the dictator of some banana republic would propose a project of this size or expense without carefully evaluating all aspects of its implementation, I am sure that the speech will be informative, accurate, non-partisan, and compelling.
Of course, we can all expect that the president will use actual data and other evidence to explain the problem with our current situation and how, exactly, a wall will solve the problem. (You know, like, if the problem is 11 million undocumented persons here, how will a wall remove them; or, if nearly 60 percent of the persons here “illegally” actually entered the country legally through ports of entry and overstayed their visa period, how will a wall address that problem?)
I will be especially interested in learning about the detailed proposals for a border barrier that the Republicans in the Congress prepared when they drafted the current federal budget. As they have been responsible for all aspects of national defense and homeland security for the past two years, I am looking forward to seeing the report of the congressional hearings Republicans must have held to examine this critical issue. (Too bad the Fake News Media wouldn’t cover those important hearings.) The testimony they must have heard from border security professionals, immigration officials, environmental groups, lawyers, local government officials, and affected landowners must have been illuminating.
As the White House is convinced that this is a significant issue, and has been saying so for years, I am sure that the administration has amassed a trove of compelling data to support the proposal. I can’t wait to see the numerous studies and reports that the Department of Homeland Security must have prepared to analyze and evaluate the cost and benefits of a wall. I am looking forward to hearing why funds spent on a wall will be more effective than funds spent on additional border personnel, fencing, better equipment, training, surveillance devices, increased cooperation with Mexican authorities, and immigration courts.
I must admit that I have not been paying enough attention to this critical issue. I have somehow missed the administration’s detailed plans for acquiring the necessary land (much of which is privately owned); constructing the barrier on harsh, remote, difficult terrain; monitoring the border; maintaining the wall; and addressing the inevitable attempts to circumvent the wall.
So, I am sure the speech will be great. Hopefully it will be as convincing as the conservative Cato Institute’s 2017 report titled “Why a Wall Won’t Work.”
(link here: https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/why-wall-wont-work )
If you aren’t available to watch the president’s speech, and if you don’t have time to read the report (which really is compelling…), here’s a couple of summary paragraphs from the report:
“In a sense, the wall merely represents the Trump administration’s worst instincts and desires. It is harmful, wasteful, and offensive, but an ineffective wall is nonetheless better than the surge of 5,000 new Border Patrol agents and 10,000 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to round up and deport people that the president also wants. No wall has ever arrested, robbed, battered, or murdered nonviolent people, as immigration enforcement has. A wall will not create an interest group to lobby for itself, endorse nationalist presidential candidates, and demand more power and funding, as the Border Patrol union does.
The wall is more than a symbol. It will harm the lives of thousands of border residents and immigrants while wasting billions of tax dollars. But in a world run by nationalists, the one small source of comfort for non-nationalists over the next four years may be the knowledge that it could be worse.”
January 7, 2019