President Donald Trump,
in an effort to defend America’s borders, promises to build a wall along the
Southern border of the United States. A barrier between the U.S. and Mexico, he
says, will protect the safety of the nation by keeping undocumented immigrants
out. While Trump is right to focus on securing the border, his proposal to
build a wall will not get us any closer to solving the immigration problem.
President Trump and his
supporters feel that building a wall is necessary to stop illegal immigrants
from crossing the border. However, researchers at The Center for Migration
Studies report that most undocumented immigrants cross the border legally but
then overstay their visa. In addition, they claim that “since 2007, visa
overstays have outnumbered border crossers by half a million.”
While building a wall
could potentially lower a number of illegal border crossings, it will not stop
illegal immigrants from finding other ways to enter the country. People would
build another tunnel just like they did in San Diego. In the last decade alone,
more than 170 cross-border tunnels have been discovered, mainly in California
and Arizona.
Trump also promises
that “Mexico will pay for the wall.” Though Mexico’s president, Enrique Peña
Nieto, has made it clear that Mexico “won’t pay for Trump’s wall. So, who then
is going to foot the bill if not Mexico? A recent AP-NORC poll found that 58
percent of Americans oppose funding President Trump’s wall. Besides, America is
already over $19 trillion dollars in debt.
Why
waste billions of dollars on a project that ultimately does nothing to combat illegal
immigration? According to a report
uncovered by Reuters, the wall is estimated to cost $21.6 billion dollars. A better solution would be to move toward a merit-based system for
legal immigration. Such a system would save countless dollars and would take
away the incentives that attract so many immigrants to cross the border
illegally in the first place.
