House approves 5 billion for Trump’s wall

Post Reply New Topic

Looks like we’re getting a wall.

And yet another campaign promise fulfilled. Well half of it. Now he has to get Mexico to pay for it retroactively. Then again their funds might be too tied up in building their own wall considering Mexico's reaction to the the migrant caravan.

It also shows that both political parties have no spine, let alone gonads to stand up against that tre45onous twerp in the White House. It’s gotten so bad that Mad Dog Mattis has been defanged by Cadet Bone Spurs.

Best neighbor is a good wall.

It was just the House, it will not clear the Senate due to to the filibuster. I actually don't have that much of an issue with the wall, something has to be done about immigration, but there are more effective solutions that are cheaper, such as drone surveillance and putting teeth in employment laws. So long as it's cheaper to pay the fines and illegal wages over paying a citizen's wage nothing will move on this issue because there will still be an incentive for them to come, and physical obstacles will just be a nuisance, and something they'll just find a way around within a month. Not to mention the dirty little secret that 42% (almost half) of illegal immigration doesn't occur at the border, it occurs in the country from people that overstay their VISA. Wall won't stop that, forcing employers to hire Americans will though. VISA immigration %.

Isn’t it nice having a president who follows through with his plans? I see a wall going up and people having more respect for boundaries, just like a fence between neighbors.

It's still not gonna happen because the bill has to pass the Senate with a filibuster proof majority. The wall will be completely ineffective, this is just one giant waste of money for symbolism's sake. As I said it's not a huge issue for me, mainly because the politicians waste a good amount of our money already so this is just the status quo really, but issue is that it won't actually solve the problem, and I'm skeptical it'll even dent the numbers. As long as there is an incentive to be here (job/benefits) they'll find a way around the wall.

As it stands, there's a $3,000 fine for hiring an illegal, that doesn't even come close to covering the difference in wages they pay an illegal compared to a citizen-- meaning it's just seen as the 'cost of doing business'. Until the fines exceed the wages of an American citizen they will continue to hire illegally and thus there's still an incentive for immigrants to come here illegally because there's a job waiting for them. Once you eliminate benefits for just occupying soil here, and you've dissuaded employers from hiring them due to the consequences should they be caught, you will see the incentive disappear, and thus the illegals as well.

And you know what: that wouldn't cost the taxpayers a dime, in fact the public coffers would fill in the initial years from the fine payouts. Not to mention that would have an impact on ALL illegal immigration, not just that coming over the southern border. As I mentioned in an earlier post 42% are people that came here legally and over stayed their VISA, if their job becomes unavailable when their VISA is expired they will go back home. Another dirty secret: our ports account for ~25% of illegal immigration. A big old wall in Texas is not gonna stop that, kind of reminds me of the French cementing their cannons in place after WWI, facing Germany, and when WWII breaks out the Germans just step around them.

Let's hope it stays erect. If this was a resounding monarchy, the noise of marching drums would be deafening.

I thought Mexico had to pay for it??

Americans finally getting the main promise delivered and the main reason so many people we voted for Trump. Build the wall. Build the wall Build the wall!

Mexico is not going to pay for it.

I read that someone had set up a GoFundMe account to pay for the border wall. So far, $12 million has been raised.

i really hope you never honestly believed that.

mexico was never and will never pay a dime towards the wall. it wouldn't even be an actual solution to the problem it sets out to fix. it's useless and an over-inflated problem that needs to take a back seat to far more important things. and nobody even mentions the devastating effect a wall would have on the ecology and the wildlife around the border and how much private property around the border would have to be seized for a wall to even go up without breaks every several miles.

the REAL reason it's being built (if noone actually believes it'll be a solution) is that funnels billions into the pockets of contractors/construction companies. like all things in this administration, it's about stealing every cent of taxpayer money they can get their hands on and shoveling it into the pockets of as many friends/donors/etc as possible until the wheels fall off.

but, yeah, it's far easier to punch down and scapegoat the powerless for your problems than to try and work towards real, complex answers that would actually make progress towards a solution. people want easy answers, and there almost never are any. so people eat this s**t up.

aristophanes already said it's not going to clear the senate, but i still find it hilarious how so many people were lining up to piss their own hard-earned money away on a stupid f*****g wall on gofundme. i can totally see the money going straight into the pockets of whoever is running the campaign. it really is a spectacle to behold, and those people claim to care about america, while homeless veterans, etc get no attention and flint still doesn't have clean water. amazing.

I have my doubts as to how effective if at all a wall would actually be in preventing illegal immigration. Even if funding was secured, who knows how long it would take to build or if it would even be a project that was completed. I don't therefore have a very high opinion of a wall solving much.

I do have a question that you may or may not know the answer to:

What is the estimated annual cost to U.S. taxpayers for all required services combined (ie medical, law enforcement, government assistance, education, etc) that relate to illegal immigration?

Too complex to calculate really. There have been literally 100's of reports on the issue and there's no consensus because it's such a complex issue. Virtually any information you find will be partisan in nature, so I'll drop the wikipedia article that gives an overview of the popular ones. Economic impact of illegal immigration in the United States

Edit: part of what makes it hard to calculate where other large/complex issues are not (think healthcare) is the undocumented nature of it-- there's a lot of uncertainty because most of the numbers used as the basis for the calculations are estimates.

Example: we're not sure exactly how much money is earned by illegal immigrants in their jobs, we estimate there are between 10.5 and 12.5 million illegal immigrants currently, we don't know what they're getting paid because they don't have to file taxes (obviously, being undocumented), so we estimate it's slightly lower than minimum wage. That's a lot of uncertainty. Compare that for average personal expenditure on healthcare-- we've got a fairly good idea there were 3.5 trillion dollars spent last year due to tax documentation, and from social security audits and the census we're fairly certain there are 325 million citizens here thus average healthcare expenditure is a little over 10k per person. The underlying variables on illegal immigration are not so certain, which makes virtually every estimate unreliable.