The Wall

First off, while it is true that we already spend billions on ICE, Border Patrol, etc., this does not mean that we should invest in a wall, or that a wall would be effective. Vox did a good piece on this (source 1.) The reporter, Johnny Harris, said it best: "One of the benefits of having the border patrol be this collection of people and technology is that you can move it around, instead of having permanent infrastructure always in one spot." The border patrol does do a good job at tracking and finding illegal crossings. An over $21 billion dollar wall deal, with the incresed annual maintainance that we will be required to finance, would not improve the Border Patrol's effectiveness. This is because of two reasons. Firstly, as I mentioned, and will elaborate on latter, a $30 dollar latter could scale the multi-billion dollar wall, and without sufficent numbers of border patrol personal, the wall will be ineffective at keeping watch for people with ladders. Furthermore, as John Oliver explained in his segment on the wall, training and hiring procedures for increases in border patrol agents, such as has happened before, leds to undertrained, underprepared, and easily corrupted agents who wouldn't pass a standard background check (sources 2,3.) If you really want a secure border, investing in training for border patrol agents and provide them with more modern equipment, such as was on display in source 1.Furthermore, the government will struggle to find legal laborers to work on the wall, as unemployment is very low. This would lead to an increase in labor costs, further extending the price of the wall to higher than its predicted cost (source 4.) While this alone, I admit, isn't a big enough reason not to build the wall, this, coupled with the other reasons shows that the cost of the wall is not worth it. In addition, 50,000 low-paying, temporary jobs will not boost the US economy of 153,439,000 workers, even if they found that many workers. If there was any stagnation in the US economy, it would be because of large shifts in companies, with the rise of Amazon and others shifting power from Sears and other older companies. An unpredictable future is what leads to economic instability.As explained by earlier sources, the US border patrol does a good job at finding any illegal crossings, and what would benefit them is an investment in their technology, allowing them to shift around the border fluidly. Now, I did say that at least 40% of illegal immigration enters through airplanes, but to say that the other 60% comes through border crossings is a logical fallacy. More specifically, fallacy of lost contrast, where you assume that things are either x or not x. Here, that would be coming in on planes or land. This is not true. 2/3 of all illegal immigrants come in on legal visas, and just overstay them. A wall won't stop them. It would make more overstayers, as the trend has been (source 5.) Many people also come via tunnels and boats, both of which go around walls.To quote wikipedia, "Research shows that illegal immigrants increase the size of the U.S. economy, contribute to economic growth, enhance the welfare of natives, contribute more in tax revenue than they collect, reduce American firms' incentives to offshore jobs and import foreign-produced goods, and benefit consumers by reducing the prices of goods and services.[7][12][13][14][15] Economists estimate that legalization of the undocumented immigrant population would increase the immigrants' earnings and consumption considerably, and increase U.S. gross domestic product.[7][16][17][18][19][20] There is no evidence that illegal immigration increases crime in the United States.[21] There is scholarly consensus that illegal immigrants commit less crime than natives.[22][23]" As I explained earlier, due to visas and low numbers of land crossings, the US illegal immigration situation is nowhere near the drastic levels of the Syrian refugee crisis, with millions refugees attempting similar paths into Europe in addition to the others from Africa and the Middle East. These are swarms of people that needed help, rather than isolated people looking for employment. Furthermore, a wall would stop circular immigration, and keep illegal immigrants from returning to Mexico if they are here just to work (source 6.) It will not slow immigration, just force them to come from another way.Illegal immigrants also commit less crimes than native-born Americans and also work jobs that Americans don't want to (source 7.)Furthermore, drugs would continue to flow through the means that I mentioned last round, on narco-submarines and tunnels- both going around any wall. In conclusion, a wall would just waste precious resources and not do much to stop illegal immigration.Sources:1: 2: http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com...;3: 4: https://www.bloomberg.com...5: https://www.nbcnews.com...6: 7: