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.
2 comments:
Great post Kristin. I agree with everything you said in this post. If the government does decide to fund this wall (because Mexico will not pay for it) immigrants will find other means of crossing the boarder. Also from the research you stated in your second paragraph that the majority of illegal immigrants have just overstayed their visas, so what good will a wall do? Put us in more debt for dang sure! The wall is estimated to cost $12-$15 billion for approx 2,000 miles of wall. Quite frankly I do not think this wall will be built. The majority of Americans do not want to pay for it and I believe they see the flaws in the plan unlike the high ranking officials.
Immigration has been a huge problem in the US and building a wall that will cost the US billions of dollars is a poor idea. Agreeing with my colleague Kristin Grill on the fact that majority of the illegal immigrants are coming into this country legally and staying permanently after their visa expires. The correct approach is to invest those billions of dollars in our Immigration system and taken control of the USCIS making sure all the regulations are being ensured. One of the examples that proving that we in fact need more focus on our Immigration system is back in 2016 when the government miserly granted citizenships to at least 858 immigrants and the majority of these given to immigrants coming from countries of concern or this year when some of the DACA applicants received an extension of work permits from 2 years to 3 years another mistake from the USCIS. This just shows that our system needs improvements and needs more focus on instead of a wall that is technically already there between Mexico and the US.
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