Trump's America

[knapplc]

3 minutes ago, B.B. Hemingway said:

It's odd to me that the response to illegals penetrating our current border obstructions is to just stop trying to keep them from doing it.

 

That's actually not the response. All this is doing is showing that walls are not an effective deterrent. 

 

 

[RedDenver]

13 minutes ago, B.B. Hemingway said:

 

 

It's odd to me that the response to illegals penetrating our current border obstructions is to just stop trying to keep them from doing it.

 

I'm almost certain that there are engineers out there that could figure something out. 

The immigrants turned themselves in. That would have happened with or without a wall. And I'm not saying we shouldn't have ways to prevent or minimize illegal immigration - just that a wall does almost nothing but costs a lot and is against the very fabric of what America stands for.

 

I'm an engineer and can tell you that any wall that humans can build, humans can also get around or destroy.

 

Edit: I got eyeTrolled, so I guess that means I've won the debate. What do I get?

[B.B. Hemingway]

Just now, knapplc said:

 

That's actually not the response. All this is doing is showing that walls are not an effective deterrent. 

 

 

 

There has been plenty of proof that they are an effective deterrent (CNN's Acosta said as much), they're just not a 'complete' deterrent.

[StPaulHusker]

10 minutes ago, B.B. Hemingway said:

It's odd to me that the response to illegals penetrating our current border obstructions is to just stop trying to keep them from doing it.

 

There is no such thing as an impenetrable wall.

 

And no one is saying stop trying.  Most are saying use better methods.

[B.B. Hemingway]

Just now, StPaulHusker said:

 

There is no such thing as an impenetrable wall.

 

Okay.

[RedDenver]

3 minutes ago, B.B. Hemingway said:

 

There has been plenty of proof that they are an effective deterrent (CNN's Acosta said as much), they're just not a 'complete' deterrent.

Is Acosta some sort of wall or immigration expert? I mean, if there's evidence of a wall being effective, I'd love to see it but since Trump and the Repubs haven't produced it since it became a major talking-point during the 2016 primary, I doubt it exists.

[knapplc]

6 minutes ago, B.B. Hemingway said:

 

There has been plenty of proof that they are an effective deterrent (CNN's Acosta said as much), they're just not a 'complete' deterrent.

 

Walls have been proven not to work. By more than one publication. All of which I won't list here.

 

Walls are an ecological problem. Which more than one study has shown. All of which I won't list here.

 

We will never have a complete deterrent. What we need is the most effective deterrent.  That's not a wall, and never has been.

 

 

3 minutes ago, StPaulHusker said:

There is no such thing as an impenetrable wall.

 

Oddly enough, this line actually worked on my first girlfriend in college.

[knapplc]

 

[B.B. Hemingway]

3 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

 

We will never have a complete deterrent. What we need is the most effective deterrent.  That's not a wall, and never has been.

 

 

What deterrents do you believe to be effective, that a wall wouldn't aid? I ask, because I've never suggested that a wall, in of itself, should be the only deterrent.

[knapplc]

2 minutes ago, B.B. Hemingway said:

 

What deterrents do you believe to be effective, that a wall wouldn't aid? I ask, because I've never suggested that a wall, in of itself, should be the only deterrent.

 

I suppose, first of all, we should determine if immigration is something that needs to be deterred. Because most of the people entering illegally are just would-be migrants who want a safer place to work, live & raise their family.  They're good people, often more motivated than the people born in this country. 

 

So why should we keep them out?  Or, what's a reasonable number to allow?

 

 

[StPaulHusker]

5 minutes ago, B.B. Hemingway said:

 

What deterrents do you believe to be effective, that a wall wouldn't aid? I ask, because I've never suggested that a wall, in of itself, should be the only deterrent.

Can you point to specific areas of the border where a wall would be more effective than the already used and less expensive fencing that has funding voted for in the House?

[B.B. Hemingway]

2 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

I suppose, first of all, we should determine if immigration is something that needs to be deterred. Because most of the people entering illegally are just would-be migrants who want a safer place to work, live & raise their family.  They're good people, often more motivated than the people born in this country. 

 

So why should we keep them out?  Or, what's a reasonable number to allow?

 

 

 

I don't think we should keep them out, as long as it's a controlled process, and a somewhat limited one (for assimilation purposes). I don't know what that number should be.

[RedDenver]

Here's a libertarian view on why walls won't work:

https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/why-wall-wont-work

Quote

 

Fences or walls obstruct crossers’ paths, cutting off a straight shot into the interior of the country. But a barrier is not the permanent object that some people imagine. Natural events can knock down parts of a border fence. One storm in Texas left a hole for months. Fences and walls can also erode near rivers or beaches, as the one in San Diego did. And they can be penetrated: Some fencing can be cut in minutes, and the Border Patrol reported repairing more than 4,000 holes in one year alone. They neglected to mention whether that number equaled that year’s number of breaches.

Much of the current fencing can be easily mounted with a ladder or from the roof of a truck. In some cases, border crossers can scale the fence without any additional equipment. One viral video from 2010 shows two women easily climbing an 18-foot steel bollard-style pedestrian fence in less than 20 seconds. Smugglers can even drive over the fence using ramps, a fact that was discovered only when a couple of foolish drug entrepreneurs managed to get their SUV stuck on top. (They took the dope and split.)

 

Quote

 

Until the first fence was built in 1990, workers could circulate freely across the border, coming to harvest crops during the summer and then returning home in the winter. They crossed with a goal of bettering their lives south of the border. The 1980s had more total crossings than the 1990s, but because as many people left each year as arrived, the total number of unauthorized immigrants remained roughly constant at about 3 million. The true measure of of a barrier’s efficacy should be not the gross flow but the net flow, taking into account both entries and exits.

...

But this strategy backfired. The increased costs and risks disincentivized people from returning home. In 1996, just as the secondary fencing was going up in San Diego, a majority of new unauthorized entrants left within one year, according to a study by the University of Pennsylvania sociologist Douglas Massey. By 2009-with three times as many agents, 650 miles of barriers, and constant surveillance along the border-an illegal immigrant’s likelihood of leaving within one year had dropped to a statistically insignificant level. Border security had essentially trapped them in.

The illegal population grew in tandem with the increases in smuggling prices, which in turn paralleled the growth in the number of border officers. This process continued from 1990 to 2007, when the housing collapse finally set Mexican migration into reverse.

 

 

[B.B. Hemingway]

10 minutes ago, StPaulHusker said:

Can you point to specific areas of the border where a wall would be more effective than the already used and less expensive fencing that has funding voted for in the House?

 

 

Put up a fence then. I don't care. But there's still 1,300 miles of the southern border without a barrier.

 

(Fencing is not as impenetrable as a concrete/steel wall would be)

 

[RedDenver]

1 minute ago, B.B. Hemingway said:

 

 

Put up a fence then. I don't care. But there's still 1,300 miles of the southern border without a barrier.

 

Isn't that what got passed in the Senate (100-0) and in the House but Trump vetoed? (I'm honestly asking.)