The Wall

I am against the wall for the following reasons:1. The border wall will be a waste of taxpayer dollars. While estimates range for the price of the wall, ranging from $15-$25 billion dollars, the Department of Homeland Security has reported that the initial price would be $21.6 billion (sources 1,2) and take around 3.5 years to complete.2. For much of the wall, there is no federally owned land, so the government would have to seize landowners land, as they have with the existent border fence (source 3. ) The government has also waived the Endangered Species act, the Safe Drinking Water act, Clean Air act, and even the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation act to build the border fence. These were just a few. The full list is available on source 4, second to last paragraph (source 4. )3. The wall would be ineffectual and minimally reduce illegal immigration, most especially of the smuggling of drugs and bringing in of crime. This is because it is estimated that at least 40% of illegal immigrants come on airplanes (source 5. ) In addition, the vast multitude of immigrants come into the USA legally and just overstay their visas. A border wall would not stop them from doing that. It would not stop drug trafficking because the cartels don't just walk across the border, at least the vast majority of them. Many build narco-tunnels, and to quote the San Diego Union-Tribune, "Over the past five years, U. S. authorities have detected more than 75 cross-border smuggling tunnels, most of them in California and Arizona. " (source 6. ) 170 have been detected since 1990. In source 7, you can see how complex these tunnels have become. This one is a half a mile long, and the associate professor of political science and international relations at the University of San Diego, David Shirk, says “They keep finding tunnels, they keep getting bigger and longer and more sophisticated. .. It just seems like we haven’t reduced the capacity of people to make tunnels. I think this is a problem we have to manage, not a problem we can actually solve. ” (source 7. ) There are also narco-submarines. Yes, submarines carrying drugs AROUND any border we have. They are very hard to detect, as they are small and light.4. The cost of the wall would be the most expensive piece of US infrastructure and would equal out to about 20 hoover dams or double the annual budget of NASA (source 8. ) As descriped in a previous debate, there are many more good uses to come out of NASA than a wall would produce (source 9, points 1, 3. ) Or this money could be spent on roads, education, or, really, anything else internally. This wall would just continue to drive our nation into debt. There is no way we can force another nation to foot the bill, especially without a breach of soveriegnity. 5. Most importantly, if you build a 30 foot wall, the market for 31 foot ladders increases. A multi-billion dollar investment, which would also require maintanance and therefore more money poured in yearly, would be defeated by a <$20 piece of rope, as Donald Trump found out while giving a speech (see source 10)This are a few of my major points against the wall. Sources: 1. . http://www.reuters.com...2. . http://www.politifact.com...3. . http://www.businessinsider.com...4. . https://www.uscis.gov...5. . http://www.politifact.com...6. . http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com...7. . https://www.nytimes.com...;8. 9. . http://www.debate.org...10.