I can't trust a single thing DHS says any more. I can't take seriously "child recycling rings" when the Administration's supporters believe in pseudoscience, numerology, and "Q".
I once thought the same thing about building a wall but a friend of mine who worked extensively with CBP had talked to agents who are out of the political eye, and they had some convincing arguments for building one. For them it wasn't about keeping Mexicans out or whatever racist BS our president is agitating over. But it was more that there are small groups such as cartels in Mexico and Canada who want to come here for the express purpose of committing crimes, and they exploit the response times of CBP in remote areas to cross the border at will.
And do keep in mind that it’s possible to be a racist without explicitly saying it. This can of worms never opens well on HN, because 99.9% of the people here have always had pleasant interactions with the police (i.e. they’re white), but American law enforcement, especially CBP, tends to hold certain views about people who aren’t white, and that’s how you wind up with immigrants being denied basic things like water and medicine.
I'm white and as a teen growing up in Idaho I had many unpleasant interactions with police. Once two friends of mine and I were stopped at gun point just for walking home at 2am. The excuse was that there had been some thefts in the area. I guess we looked the part.
Granted, there are not a lot of black people in Idaho. I was actually quite surprised when I moved to NYC and realized that the cops weren't looking at me any more just because I was white.
The point of the wall isn't to stop people from crossing the border. It's to slow them down enough to make the CBP response time smaller than the crossing time. Beyond the political aspects of this there are actually some thoughtful reasonable arguments for it. The people in CBP who want to build this thing know that people will break sections of it, but they can't break the entire thing down. So it concentrates the border crossings into smaller areas. The intent wasn't to build it and then not defend it.
Increasing the pool of unskilled labor is good for some parts of the economy. It's great for me because I'm wealthy. It's bad for the American poor because it depresses their wages and aids in fighting against unions.
Is this actually true, given that walls must also be manned, regularly maintained, repaired, etc?
> It's bad for the American poor because it depresses their wages and aids in fighting against unions.
Is this actually true? I'm really not educated myself on the matter. Do you have sources, studies, etc?
Illegal immigration hurts the poor while generally helping the broader economy. Specifically, minorities and people without a high school education get their wages suppressed. Here's an article by a Harvard PhD economist.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/trump-clinto...
Without the Walls of Constantinople, the Eastern Roman Empire would have fallen in the 700's instead of lasting until the 1400's.
The Great Wall of China helped protect northern Chinese frontiers for centuries.
Are walls 100% effective. Of course not. Nothing is. But walls can be a useful part of a strategy for regulating/protecting your borders.
That is not to say that a wall along the Mexican border is advised. It is a very long border, and individuals and groups of smugglers are able to get around an unguarded wall. However, to absolutely dismiss the utility of walls on principle is incorrect.
more recently, how'd the Maginot line go? what makes defence against warring enemies similar to preventing immigrants?
Regarding the Maginot line, it actually forced the Germans to use the Ardennes. This was a high risk move for the Germans and if the French had been doing what they were supposed to be doing, they could have destroyed the German Army in the Ardennes.
So, the Maginot line actually was useful, but the French failed to exploit what it was doing for them.
break through the wall, and you have even more time before CBP can respond.
comparing against alternative means, like having more drone coverage, and better CBP placement based on ML analysis of the drone input would be a far more cost effective mechanism for the same thing
It’s dishonest and in bad faith, but it works on lazy or decided individuals.
For example: https://www.bennet.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/immigration
Citation needed. Cutting the enforcement budget for border patrol to zero (as Julian Castro proposes) is open borders in all but name.
> It’s dishonest and in bad faith
... To pretend that some Democrats aren't for open borders.
Julian Castro isn’t even an elected official.
Also, Castro is a 2020 primary contender. To count him out because he doesn't currently hold office is a bit silly. I guess Hillary Clinton wouldn't have counted in 2014 either?
Don't slide the goalposts. This is not a claim I've made. The exhaustive claim ("no Democrat with standing") came from the person I responded to.
I didn't know they hated wars and spying.
Abolishing ICE is different from wanting open borders. You can disagree with the methods and still believe in the mission - much of the current administration’s stance is an attempt to conflate the methods they have chosen with the concept of border security, as painfully evidenced by the 2018 shutdown meeting between Pelosi, Schumer and Trump.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/11/trump-meets-with-pelosi-and-...
ICE is a relatively new organization, that many believe does not have a great track record of either effectiveness or respect for human rights. There are many ideas of how we would accomplish border security more humanely. https://pelosi.house.gov/issues/immigration
> I guess Hillary Clinton wouldn’t have counted in 2014 either?
No, the clear forerunner and a senator would count. Herman Cain wouldn’t have spoken for the Republican Party though.