What no one is talking about is that since a decade ago, illegal border crossings have decreased and continue to decrease to the point where border patrols often have nothing to do.
The number of deaths from fenthanyl overdoses has been falling for a while now, due to more effective health campaigns (and junkies killing themselves faster then new ones get addicted), to the point that firefighters no longer have to carry naxolone, so its absolutely justfied to do nothing. Sunshine everywhere.
Thats how you sound. newsflash, if a problem reduced itself by 10%, you still have 90% of a problem. You take an absolutely unrelated statistic, namely level of immigration due to state of the economy, and you try to spin it as if its good news. Wheres in fact any number of crossings above zero is problematic. And what are you going to say when it picks up again in a few years? You do exactly what you accuse trump of doing -
he fact that nearly everything he says is hyperbole, half-truths, or just plain false
This is what you, exactly, are doing. Nevermind the fact that wall between north and south korea prevents migration from north into south - completely. Never mind that israel's wall stops all but the most hardcore jihadists. never mind that american barriers force illegals to divert to places where there are no walls yet - never mind all that - it wont work, period, according to you, so shouldnt even be tried. Whereas in reality, the better funded a set of barriers is, the better it works.
Now whos spinning half-truths and outright lies? Come on.
If our southern border becomes the hardest access point, then they'll just use other access points.
Thats the whole point. Close these routes one by one, starting with the biggest - land. And after that, arrivals will drop by 90% - because coming by sea or air is a LOT harder when you have a good naval force running interdiction - which is what happened in north africa, once EU trained up and supplied lybian navy, boat arrivals dropped off a cliff, and why australia runs naval interdiction. Compare australia (arrivals in the hundreds if not less) to USA - arrivals in the hundreds of thousands.
Im sorry but there is no good argument to keep borders unsecured. none of what you typed is a good argument, not even close. In the long run, any cost is justified - especially with the coming of automation. What are you going to do when most manual labour is done by machines, but your country is overflowing with low-skilled labour that you let in half a century earlier? You going to pay welfare for all of them? Yes you will, when the smart move would have been to strictly control the levels of low skilled labour in the first place, and avoid surplus. 20 billion would seem like a drop in the ocean then, when welfare bills would run in the 10s of thousands per person. And lets not forget that 20 billion over 10 years or whatever is like 5$ per person per year for those 10 years. lets not pretend that thats a big amount, and lets not pretend that its taken from someone's pocket - its all borrowed, backed by treasuries, and that debt will never have to be re-payed - not in your lifetime, and afterwards, inflation will reduce it to nothing. Like I said earlier, the cost is laughable, the consequences of not doing - terrible.