Since Mexico and its leaders past and present have consistently been a “fuck no” when it comes to paying for Donald Trump’s stupid border wall, how does Mr. Art of the Deal plan to fund a manic obsession that was really nothing more than an applause line to use at his presidential campaign rallies?
The Trump administration would cut or delay funding for border surveillance, radar technology, patrol boats and customs agents in its upcoming spending plan to curb illegal immigration—all proven security measures that officials and experts have said are more effective than building a wall along the Mexican border.
President Trump has made the border wall a focus of his campaign against illegal immigration to stop drugs, terrorists and gangs like MS-13 from coming into the United States. Under spending plans submitted last week to Congress, the wall would cost $18 billion over the next 10 years, and be erected along nearly 900 miles of the southern border.
That’s right, $18 billion in our money that could go to schools, or community health clinics, or Flint, or rebuilding Puerto Rico. With border crossings at their lowest in decades, no one—not border residents or Americans overall—wants this thing. And if Trump truly wants to stop the drugs that Americans are insatiably craving (this trade causes much of the destruction in Mexico and Central America that drives migrants to flee north in the first place), he’s starting in the wrong place:
Homeland Security officials have long and frequently described border security as a holistic system, made up not just of walls and fencing but also patrol routes, lighting, cameras, sensors and personnel.
David Bier, a policy analyst with the Cato Institute, said a border wall would do little to stop the drug trade. Most of the cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines smuggled into the United States come through legal ports of entry rather than areas that would be stopped by a wall, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
So maybe lawmakers can stop treating this man’s obsession as actual policy?
We already spend too much on federal immigration enforcement as it is—in fact, more than all other law enforcement agencies combined—but if this man’s “ideas” are actually sabotaging measures that experts say are proving effective, why treat it as a serious policy, and something that he might shut down the government over?
The wall, said immigrant rights leader Frank Sharry, is “a campaign applause line, an example of Trump’s insatiable quest for ego gratification, and would come at the direct expense of measures that actually improve border security. Responsible Republican lawmakers need to decide: are they really willing to blow up negotiations for Dreamers, undercut real border security, and shut down the government over Trump’s wasteful, unnecessary, and stupid border wall?”