@mdk The likelyhood is that living off grid ect is better than what they fled. If that weren't the case people wouldn't keep coming. A sane and moral response is increasing efforts to address the problem down stream. There aren't easy answers to this problem which is what the build a wall and deport them all crowd refuses to see.

A country has the right to control its borders and set its own immigration policy but what is legal and what is moral are not always the same thing.

It would certainly make me happier if there were a reasonable legal way for people in these terrible situations to find a measure of sanctuary.

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but it's so much easier to come illegally

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it's not like these poor folks have time to sit around.

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we're neglecting a huge, huge source of poverty, crime, and other badness.

The idea that building a huge wall is a practical solution has the appeal of simplicity but I sincerely doubt that it would be physically or fiscally possible.

Firstly I doubt anyone coming from somewhere like El Salvador would describe the trip as easy.

If there were a realistic option people would take it. If there were a modicum of stability at home people wouldn't be as inclined to risk it in the first place.

No one is arguing for some sort of completely open border....

People don't break the law because they are evil (generally) they do it because they are desperate.

So long as we continue to pretend that building a wall or digging a moat or whatever is going to solve the problem, its never going to get much better.

When you do the math on the financial impact of illegal immigration, building a wall is about 90% cheaper (assuming a 100% elimination, which is a faulty assumption, but just for the sake of argument). It would save us money; and in terms of feasibility, large portions are already built (the wall was already approved years ago -- Clinton actually voted in favor). But anyway "physically (im)possible" just sounds like a challenge. I do physically impossible shit every day. Dream big!

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I feel like this bit highlights all the practical problems with building a wall, and why it isn't a worthwhile investment, and why it is mostly a political red herring used to keep us from focusing on our real problems.

1: That 100% effectiveness is unlikely and shouldn't taken into calculation. 50% elimination would be wildly impressive.

2: That we've already got walls in the sensible places, and what we are mostly discussing now is the utility of building walls across the remote deserts and mountains that make up so much of the border.

3: That it would be a continuous cost to upkeep a massive piece of infrastructure that more or less doesn't do anything. This means it would probably be abandoned in portions as both parties look to reapportion that money to active projects, so that I would expect the Trump portions of the wall to be mostly abandoned and let go into ruin since they are impractical.

I personally don't have a problem with them building the wall. I'd rather Trump focus on it, actually. Sure, it's a waste of money, and there is probably some dark and dirty corruption behind the plan, but corrupt wastes of money is something we can swallow and forget. Get the dumb thing out of the way so we can get to forgetting about it sooner, and hope that Republicans don't start pushing something equally "useful" like building a really really really tall tower on the Canada border so we can see to the artic.

1. Prepare to be impressed! Just by talking about it, we've made a big dent. Follow-through is important though, or else that's all coming right back.

2. 600 of 1900 miles, if my sources are any good (they're probably not) are currently walled. That's a LOT of open territory. Anyway if we had the sensible places all shored up then why do we still have illegal immigration?

3. I mean I'm waiting to see what the project looks like before declaring it useless. One proposal involved covering the whole thing in solar panels -- I mean how badass would that be? We are, after all, talking about deserts. That could be huge. Another proposal worked in some mass transit (though I dunno how many passengers/goods take that route -- I mean I guess our own little land-borne panama canal could be neat).

The reality of managing the upkeep of a mostly concrete and steel structure is minimal in a desert; it isn't like it is going to rust that much.

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And remember -- it (kinda, for a while anyway) worked for China.

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I feel like this analogy does all its own work.

I was thinking of a giant project that utterly failed to accomplish its goal and to which the eventual answer was assimilation :)

Women's Health -- well I'm certainly not qualified to speak to that'n. My position begins and ends with "don't make people do things they don't wanna do."