Illegal Aliens: Would A Wall Be Worth It?

Published on January 30, 2005 By Eastern Diamondback In Current Events

Israel's barriers with the Gaza Strip and the West Bank have been quite successful in stemming the infiltration of Palestinian attackers. There are varying estimates for the per-mile cost of the wall*, but I'll settle on $2 million dollars a mile.

The border between the United States and Mexico is about 2000 miles long. For the sake of this article, I'll give some leeway for some additional inefficiency and suggest the wall costs $3 million per mile to build on the US-Mexican border. The grand total for building the wall comes to $6 billion dollars.

According to the study, illegals have a net cost to the federal government $10 billion annually as of 2002. Sadly, that doesn't even include state and local expenditures. The construction of a formidable barrier to illegal entry would cost less than the annual federal spending on illegals. While a wall would not remove the millions of illegal aliens, it will prevent another 600,000 per year from entering. How can the problem be fixed unless the leak is plugged?

Link

We estimate that there were 8.7 million illegal aliens in the March 2003 CPS. It
must be remembered that this estimate only includes illegal aliens captured by the March
CPS, not those missed by the survey. By design this estimate is very similar to those
prepared by the Census Bureau, the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS),
and the Urban Institute. Although it should be obvious that there is no definitive means
of determining whether a respondent in the survey is an illegal alien, the findings in this
study are consistent with previous research. For example, the Urban Institute estimated
that in 2002 Mexicans accounted for 57 percent of the illegal population; our method
finds 58 percent in 2003. Using 2003 data, we estimate that 88 percent of illegals arrived
after 1990; the Urban Institute estimated 85 percent using 2002 data. Our results also
produce estimates that are similar in other areas, such as age and workforce participation.

Rather than just throw a couple more billion dollars towards Border Patrol, and have it lost in waste and bureaucracy, invest the money in a project that will achieve results. Couple that with interior enforcement of immigration laws and we will be making a serious attempt to fix our immigration fiasco.

Comments

Moderateman

on Jan 30, 2005

Much as I want illegals out, a wall is just too, berlinish for a free country.

Eastern Diamondback

on Jan 30, 2005

Berlin was to keep people in, not to keep people from getting in.

It's the difference between the bars of a jail cell, and burglar bars on a homeowner's windows.

Denise Gardiner

on Jan 30, 2005

I have yet to post an article on this site. Just so much interesting stuff too read and comment on, here I go again. Right-On!! How tall? and How thick, my husband is a concrete contractor. We would be willing to volunteer our time!! Shame Uncle Sam didn't adopt this solution 10 years ago...I wouldn't have to constantly push "1" for English!!

Eastern Diamondback

on Jan 30, 2005

I'm simply lifting the costs from the kind the Israelis built, which is about twenty-five ft high with a six foot trench on each side. I'm not sure how thick it is. Interestingly, many Palestinians actually participated in the buidling of the wall because they needed jobs after the destruction of their economy by the intifada. Perhaps we could use Mexican labor to build our own wall?

I do have environmental concerns about such an massive structure, but the status quo does nothing to protect wildlife in the Arizona desert, especially in Organ Pipe Cactus park in Arizona. It's a mess of illegal aliens and drug runner leaving garbage and waste all over the place.

TheFazz

on Jan 30, 2005

We would still need people to man the wall, undoubtedly, and how could we get it to span rivers?

Eastern Diamondback

on Jan 30, 2005

We would still need people to man the wall, undoubtedly, and how could we get it to span rivers?

Of course you'll need people to man the wall in the watch towers, but the wall will have also have electronics that aid in detection of attempted breaches. There are over 10,000 Border Patrol agents to patrol the entire 2000 mile length. In the desolate areas it often consists of Patrols in Chevy Suburbans, wandering through the desert waiting for a call to respond to. It is inefficient, and more illegals slip through than get caught.

As for spanning the rivers, I'll leave that to engineers.

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