Should President Trump Close the Southern Border?

Pragmatic · January 22, 2019, 7:32am

You are absolutely correct. I had to clarify. I can make mistakes too.

TWR · January 22, 2019, 7:32am

The biggest problem by far are the 20-30 million illegals already here and being a burden on the US taxpayer.

To claim otherwise is simply a lie.

TWR · January 22, 2019, 7:34am

Another lie. If the numbers are correct there were somewhere around 500-625K illegals who overstayed their visas in 2016-17 and 20-30 million who were already present in the US.

Even if the top estimate of 625,000 is correct that’s 625,000 of 20,000,000-30,000,000 illegals in the US.

Pragmatic · January 22, 2019, 7:36am

Border wall doesn’t solve that.

TWR · January 22, 2019, 7:37am

Look, it was a different thread but you definitely said it and were called on it.

Only after you were called on it did you “correct yourself”.

Pragmatic · January 22, 2019, 7:38am

And?

Since the start of Trumps presidency, our biggest illegal immigration problem is inside our borders. 20 million illegals and visa overstays, which are far outpacing illegal border crossings 2 to 1.

TWR · January 22, 2019, 7:38am

It cuts the current and future flow across the border to a trickle which gives us then the ability to focus more of our resources on the illegals that are already here.

Again, bailing the ship does nothing to solve the problem if you don’t first repair the torpedo damage and eventually it sinks.

Pragmatic · January 22, 2019, 7:39am

Yep. I corrected my statement. Would you rather me double down on an incorrect statement?

TWR · January 22, 2019, 7:39am

If you move the goal posts far enough and often enough eventually you’ll pigeon hole the argument to the point you are finally right.

Congrats.

TWR · January 22, 2019, 7:40am

You claimed you never made the statement to begin with. We can all see that is false.

devauxt · January 22, 2019, 7:41am

Visa overstays are a somewhat known quantity, illegal entries into the USA are an unknown quantity. I’ll leave it to you to spot the fatal flaw in the study

Pragmatic · January 22, 2019, 7:41am

Goalposts weren’t moved at all. My entire premise is that illegal southern borders crossings isn’t a crisis. There are likely areas for improvement, but it isn’t a crisis.

TWR · January 22, 2019, 7:42am

Your posts and the facts show otherwise.

Pragmatic · January 22, 2019, 7:42am

Illegal entry at the southern border will always bean unknown. That alone doesn’t make it a crisis.

TWR · January 22, 2019, 7:46am

What is that gibberish even supposed to mean?

We know that where we’ve put effective barriers, surveillance, and increased patrolling illegal crossings are down 95-99%.

We know therefore that where we put effective physical barriers and increased patrolling we can reduce illegal crossings along the entire border by a similar percentage. Fortunately nature has provided effective physical barriers along many areas of the border so those areas need far less reinforcement other than electronic monitoring and quick reaction teams.

devauxt · January 22, 2019, 7:46am

Since there a re 22m illegal immigrants in the USA (costing the US taxpayer $270bn per year) most of whom have come across the Southern border and continue to do so, it is a crises

Pragmatic · January 22, 2019, 7:48am

How many immigrants successfully cross the border Illegally last year? Or the year befor?

TWR · January 22, 2019, 7:49am

It’s impossible to track how many of those visa overstays left the country through other ports of entry or crossed illegally so it’s an unknown quantity in reality. It’s only fairly recently that we even began tracking those who leave via commercial air so we’ll never know how many left by such means prior to that.

Either way until we secure the southern border we’ll never have the resources necessary to deal with internal enforcement.

devauxt · January 22, 2019, 7:53am

22m+ have already done so successfully

TWR · January 22, 2019, 7:57am

Hard numbers for the areas that don’t have the effective physical barriers and increased BP presence aren’t even possible. All we have are “best guess” estimates based on the number who are caught and observed getting away during interdiction operations.

The number of those attempting it we know increases when the economy is strong and unemployment low and decrease with the the economy is poor and UE is high.

Best guess is that during the Obama administration we had an increase of around 2.5 million but as the economy has improved those numbers have obviously increased and will continue to increase as long as it remains strong unless interdiction increase proportionally with attempted illegal crossings.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/20/number-of-illegals-levels-off-fewer-crossing-mexic/

The fact they are down is reflective of the success of the increased attention to the southern border and the “zero tolerance” effect which is an obvious deterrent.

We can’t however sustain the “zero tolerance” policy because it has completely overwhelmed the system so stopping them at the border rather than just playing catch after they get here is essential to reduce the numbers in the future.