Thread: What Trump's Border Wall May Look Like: Here Are The Proposed Designs

Well, again, I prefer my Wall of 40,000 Americans, but no one seems to like that idea of creating jobs for Americans guarding our borders.

Found some articles on the new surveillance technology. They refer to it as the Arizona Border Surveillance Technology program, apparently superseding the previous means that were drafted by Boeing. One article, from 2016, remarks that political debate had slowed the development and implementation---but with the Trump Administration they should be able to overcome that. Apparently these high tech stations can communicate with local Border Patrol offices, and I would bet they have connections to the patrol vehicles or will have that capability.
Better Than a Wall: A New Detection System Can Help Monitor the U.S.-Mexico Border
http://www.popularmechanics.com/tech...nvisible-wall/
The Integrated Towers System promises to give border-control agents more insight into the threats they face before they face them. And it's only the beginning.

Steve Craft

By Mitch Moxley

Jan 28, 2016
Agent Jose Verdugo's workplace is vast: 1,100 square miles of hilly, sandy terrain surrounding Nogales, Arizona, the second-largest border-patrol station in the country. Depending on the day's assignment, he'll hike trails or drive along the boundary between the United States and Mexico. Some days he investigates human trafficking or drug smuggling. (Half of the marijuana that crosses the southwest border is captured in the Tucson sector, where Nogales is situated.) Other days Verdugo investigates a suspicious blip on a radar system that often turns out to be foul weather, or a rancher tending his land, or a stray cow.


Over the years, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has used a series of strategies, some more effective than others, to monitor huge swaths of rugged terrain along the border. It needed a solution that would prevent agents like Verdugo from being deployed for false alarms, so they could chase and investigate narcos rather than livestock and be prepared for what they encountered when they caught up. This would require permanent sensors that could provide a clear picture to agents back at the station of what was happening in the field. The Integrated Fixed Towers (IFT) system, which includes radar and day and night cameras mounted on a series of towers along the border, promises to solve the problem. The radar and cameras transmit data over microwave link to the Nogales station, where agents determine an appropriate course of action. The system, which enables agents to accurately monitor areas previously unobserved, is, Verdugo says, like "turning on a light switch" along the dark, mysterious border.
The IFT is only the latest of the government's attempts to cover the southwestern border with sensors capable of detecting unlawful crossings. The previous setup, known as SBInet, was a network of newly designed radar, cameras, and heat and motion detectors, which was supposed to allow border-patrol agents to work from a common operational picture. Boeing won the contract in 2006, and the system was initiated across 53 miles of Arizona's Mexico border.
It quickly became a boondoggle. Total acquisition costs rose to a projected $1.6 billion, a staggering $1.4 billion more than initial estimated costs, according to the Government Accountability Office. It also didn't really work. The main problem was communication—the information transmitted to the command center was unreliable. It didn't operate well in the varied terrain of the Tucson sector, and was often triggered by bad weather, leading to false positives. In 2010, as costs rose, then Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano halted the program and asked border patrol to start over. "One of the lessons of SBInet was you're better off going small than big, and you're better off going off-the-shelf than innovative," says Christopher Wilson, a border-security expert and deputy director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center.


Border-patrol officials came to the same conclusion and sought out preexisting, tested technology. The new approach, announced in 2011, would combine proven mobile surveillance, thermal imaging, and tower-mounted video technology. The request for IFT proposals called for sensors able to detect "a single, walking, average-sized adult" and provide sufficiently high-resolution video of that adult at a range of up to 7.5 miles in daylight and darkness.
The biggest defense contractors—including General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon—all competed for the $145 million contract, which was awarded to Elbit Systems of America, the Fort Worth, Texas–based subsidiary of Israel's Elbit Systems. Elbit has deployed hundreds of miles of border-monitoring systems between Israel and Palestine and also provided multisensor surveillance systems along Israel's border with Gaza and Egypt. As of July, Elbit had completed construction in Nogales, and in September it crossed a major hurdle when the IFT system, tested by border-security agents, demonstrated the capacity to detect, track, and classify movement on the border. In other words, it works. Elbit's system is so specific that it can determine whether an individual is carrying a backpack or a long-arm weapon.

WITH RADAR, DAY AND NIGHT CAMERAS, AND THERMAL IMAGING, THE NEW SYSTEM IS LIKE "TURNING ON A LIGHT SWITCH" ALONG THE DARK, MYSTERIOUS BORDER.

It's also designed to operate in the rugged Arizona desert. "Border control can break anything," says John Lawson, CBP acting section chief. "It's very difficult terrain to deploy technology in, and that's one of the benefits that we're anticipating. This system is going to be a lot more rugged than a lot of the previous things we've deployed." Now that the IFT has proved itself worthy, a second installation on the Arizona border is underway, with the ultimate plan of safeguarding the entire Mexico-facing stretch of Arizona's perimeter, pending congressional approval.
The IFT is only one part of the border patrol's effort to use technology to enhance security. The Arizona Border Surveillance Technology Plan, which includes the IFT, also uses remote video surveillance—day and night cameras for cluttered urban environments where radar is not as effective—and truck-mounted mobile sensors that can be moved when needed. Drones have been used to provide a bird's-eye view of vast stretches of border, and in 2012, the agency deployed a military wide-area camera attached to an aerostat, an airship tethered up to 5,000 feet off the ground. Originally used in Afghanistan, these cameras are capable of capturing miles of terrain in a single hi-res image. But officials say that all of the technology, including the IFT system, serves only to support the most valuable assets border patrol has: the agents. "Back in the early days, it was people looking for footprints on the ground," Lawson says. "We still do that." Only now, the agents stand a better chance of finding them.
With radar, day and night cameras, and thermal imaging, the new system is like "turning on a light switch" along the dark, mysterious border.

The following is 3 years old but most of it is still applicable:

Why are advocates for illegal aliens opposed to a border fence?

Because they know it works.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT BORDER FENCES



Q. Can fences along the border impede the flow of hordes of aliens who cross the border illegally daily?

A. Yes. Many successful fences to keep aliens and other types of intruders out have been built. In San Diego, the 14 mile double layer border fence led to a 97 percent decrease in apprehensions and a corresponding decrease in border crime from 1989 to present.



Israel’s border fence has been extraordinarily successful in keeping out potential infiltrators who are far more determined to cross the border than mere immigrants.



Even Saudi Arabia, one of the most vocal critics of Israel's "security fence" in the West Bank, has quietly emulated the Israeli example by erecting a barrier along its porous border with Yemen to prevent terrorists from entering.



Q. Won't border crossers simply go to where there is no fence?

A. That's not an argument against a fence -- it's an argument for a fence across both of the ENTIRE borders (Canada and Mexico).



Q. Isn't a fence of such a large magnitude an enormously costly engineering nightmare?

A. Building a complete double layer border fence across both borders is inexpensive child's play compared to American engineering feats such as the Panama Canal and Boulder Dam.



Q. Can a fence be put across all terrain such as mountains and rivers?

A. No. There are some lengths across both borders where a fence is impractical to install. In some cases, a fence would act as a dam by trapping plants and brush when heavy rain waters or melting snow flows. But those unfenced lengths of rough terrain are natural barriers that aliens would not easily cross. Moreover, those impassable areas are more easily monitored by the border patrol with hi-tech unmanned lookout posts.



Q. Won't a border fence be environmentally unfriendly?

A. A border fence can be built to minimize environmental problems. A fence will not only impede the flow of illegal aliens, but will also impede the flow of terrorists. Worrying about minor environmental problems at the border is like worrying about who will fix the potholes after an earthquake.



Q. Why do opponents of border fences compare it to the Great Wall of China saying that China's enemies still managed to enter china?

A. Just as any border barrier will not prevent 100 percent of intruders from crossing it, the Great Wall of China did in fact keep China safe from large invading armies.



Q. Why do opponents of border fences compare it to the Berlin wall?

A. Such a comparison is even an insult to the intelligence of dummies. When you build a wall to keep people in, that’s a prison. When you build a fence to keep people out, that’s securing your sovereignty. Would you compare a fence around your house to control who comes into your yard to the Berlin wall? Moreover, the proposal by congress was for building of a "fence," not a "wall."



Q. What's the difference between a fence and a wall?

A. A wall is a thick solid structure through which you cannot see. A fence is a thin structure that you can see through to the other side.



Q. Wait a minute. Isn't the section of border fence which separates Naco, Mexico from Naco, Arizona one that you cannot see through?

A. Yes. And there are many more border fences just like the Naco fence. Sometimes the government does stupid things like building fences through which the Border Patrol cannot see. Illegal crossers poke holes in the fence to watch for border patrol officers. When the coast is clear, they simply scale to the top on the Mexican side sometimes using ladders and drop down on the U.S. side sometimes with ropes. Successful border fences must be able to be seen through.



Speaking of government doing stupid things, this section of border fence which separates Douglas Arizona from Agua Prieta has the iron bar tips pointing away from Mexico. According to Rick Oltman of CAPS (Californians for Population Stabilization), when he asked a staffer at Arizona Senator John McCain's office why the tips were pointing towards the U.S., he was told that they didn't want to offend Mexico.



Q. Why not save all that money to build a physical fence by instead, building a "virtual" fence?

A. There is no such thing as a virtual fence? A physical fence physically impedes aliens from crossing. A so called virtual fence does not. What is referred to as virtual fences, are video cameras and invisible arrays of sensors along the border. When a sensor is triggered, a display appears at the Border Patrol station which tells the station officers in real time when and where aliens are crossing. But effective physical fences also use detection apparatus.



Q. So what's wrong with a virtual fence?

A. The problem at the border is not the inability to electronically detect intruders -- the problem is getting to them and arresting them once they are detected.



Large numbers of up to one hundred aliens can quickly cross an invisible virtual fence (the crossing of such groups are known as Bonzai charges). Intruders crossing a virtual fence are not aware that they have been detected and keep moving on at a rate of about two miles per hour. By the time the border patrol gets to the point of detection, the crossers aren't there. Thus, the arriving border patrol officers must radio for helicopter help to search the area. At the same time other border patrol resources are dispatched to other trails and paths that the crossers MIGHT use. The border patrol is usually successful in apprehending some of the group, but are too overwhelmed to apprehend all those in a large group. Smugglers know how the border patrol works, so while all border patrol resources in the area are being used going after just one group, other groups cross almost unnoticed.



With a physical fence, a large group is easily detected just as with a virtual fence, but it takes time to climb a fence. Thus, the border patrol can get to the fence in time to intercept most of the crossers.



Q. Why bother with a physical fence that apparently is easy to get over using a ladder and rope?

A. Using a ladder and rope to get over a fence is not easy if the fence is a double layered fence as the 700 mile fence is supposed to be. With a double layered fence, a crosser would have to lift the ladder up with him to the top of the fence, lean it against the other side of the first layer, climb down the other side of the first layer and then repeat the process to climb the second layer and would have to leave the ladder behind. For a large group, two ladders would have to be in place -- one ladder against the first layer and second latter against the second layer. A large group would have to climb the first ladder, drop down on the other side of the first layer with a rope and repeat the process for the second layer. A large group trying to hurdle two layers of fence in single file, gives border patrol officers plenty of time to intercept all or most crossers.



Q. How much double layered fence has been built to date so far?

A. ABP (American Border Patrol), a non-profit corporation, performed aerial surveillance of the fence construction progress from the time congress mandated it to the present. ABP has documented proof that only 40 miles of double layered fence has been built to date (July, 2014.)



Q. I don't get it. On December 15, 2008, Michael Chertoff, then Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security claimed that 500 miles of fence had been built. Isn't this in conflict with American Border Patrol's figure of 40 miles?

A. Although congress originally mandated that the entire fence be double layered, Texas Senator Hutchison introduced and passed a Border Amendment which virtually gutted the original fence bill. The amendment required Chertoff to use double layer fence only in more smuggler troublesome areas but allowed the use of single layer fence where Chertoff determined it was adequate. But not only did Chertoff use single layer fence where he thought it adequate, he had vehicle barriers which do not impede pedestrian movement built in place of fencing and left existing inferior fencing in place in many locations. Chertoff came up with his 500 mile figure by adding any newly constructed double layer fencing (40 miles) plus newly constructed single layer fencing plus vehicle barriers plus existing fencing.

Watch ABP video which documents the "border fence scam."



Q. Hal, have you verified the border scam for yourself?

A. Yes. Watchdog America's satellite office is located within walking distance from the fence along the border separating Sonora, Mexico and Palominas, Arizona. Here is just one example of what Homeland Security isn't telling the public.



Q. So is the border fence a failure?

A. On the contrary. Although the Bush administration saw to it that the fence be designed and constructed to fail, to their's and the Obama administration surprise, it is working to a great extent despite its shortcomings and has caused the drug cartels to fight over remaining routes where there is no fence or inadequate fencing. So the Obama and the Democratic congress realizing that the fence works, they are determined not to finish it.



Q. Why hasn't the main stream media reported the truth on the border fence?

A. The only organization that has been reporting the truth on the border fence is American Border Patrol. It is no secret that the N.Y. Times, the L.A. Times, the Chicago Tribune and a myriad of other main stream news media are in lock step with President Obama and the majority of Democrats in congress who favor open borders. These media have enacted a virtual news blackout on American Border Patrol.



Q. Why do some people insist that a fence alone won't fix the problem?

A. They are right that a fence alone won't fix the (entire) problem. But that doesn't mean that if you can't fix the entire problem all at once, that you shouldn't fix part of the problem to begin with. Wouldn't you expect a doctor to first stop the hemorrhaging from an opening in a patient's body before fixing the cause of the hemorrhaging?



Q. Won't a border fence offend Hispanics?

A. There should be no American offended by a fence to secure our country. American Hispanics are AMERICANS.



Q. Shouldn't our government work together with the Mexican government to more harmoniously construct a fence?

A. No. As American citizens, we influence our elected leaders to reflect political policies in our national interest. As American citizens, we can't influence by vote, Mexican foreign policy. Mexican politicos do not make policy in the interest of the U.S.



Q. With the facts presented in this Q. and A., Why would anyone be opposed to a border fence?

A. Let's be honest. The majority of those opposed to a border fence, really don't want it because they want the border open to illegals, who will be future Democrat voters whose demographics will render the Republican party extinct.



Q. So why would anyone in the federal government and the Department of Homeland Security be opposed to a border fence?

A. Because the Obama administration and most Democrats know it works.



Hal Netkin's keen awareness of the fence solution results from the analytical analysis in great part by American Border Patrol and observation of actual crossings by illegal aliens.

http://www.lawatchdog.com/Understand...rFences-2.html

Why the Wall Will Work


byCHRISTOPHER MANION 14 April 2016

While European media feature several major stories a day on the immigration crisis there, America’s corporate media elites seem desperate to avoid the chaos caused by the breakdown of the rule of law on our own southern border.

Whatever the motivation of our elites, their purpose is clear: bury the issue.
After all, confronting the immigration crisis is Trump’s first priority, while the bipartisan Establishment’s first priority is to defeat him. To put it another way, his unprecedented popularity flows directly from his unflinching demand that U.S. immigration law be not only enforced, but strengthened, and that a wall protecting the southern border of the United States is indispensable to that goal.

For the Establishment, the logic is simple: to oppose Trump, oppose the wall.

While elites on both sides of the border have resorted to feigned mockery regarding Trump’s proposal, the Mexican people would hardly find it unusual. After all, virtually every family in Mexico builds a wall around their home as soon as they can afford one. Those walls, often topped with glass, barbed wire, or both, are as necessary to their daily lives, health, and safety as indoor plumbing.

Even liberals understand the necessity of walls. Five years ago, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat and second-generation Mexican-American, demanded an exception to zoning laws so he could build a six-foot high wall around his official residence. And Hillary Clinton’s family home in Chappaqua, New York, is surrounded by a high security fence complete with a guardhouse.

When it comes to walls, American liberals are not alone. Even European socialists have come to their senses. The European Union has now reversed its open-borders policy and has agreed to spend billions bribing Turkey to take back some of the thousands of “refugees” that it has poured into Europe over the past two years. Meanwhile, member countries build fences and walls with layers of razor-wire protected by armed guards to prevent another illegal inundation.

Like its counterpart in the U.S., Mexico’s powerful ruling establishment has condemned Mr. Trump’s proposal. But Mexico’s ruling party, the “Institutional Revolutionary Party” (PRI) has routinely condemned the United States for decades, in season and out of season. The reason is simple: the PRI and Mexico’s lavish insider network of politicians, businessmen, and financiers are one and the same, and their unique partnership has made many Mexican politicians and their favored allies some of the richest men in the world. Meanwhile, the Mexican people have remained impoverished, surrounded daily by a culture of violence, gangs, and bribes.

Long ago Lord Peter Bauer, one of the most noted economists of the twentieth century, explained how “democratic” tyrants stay in power. “Our poverty is your fault,” they tell the United States – pounding the table as they continue to oppress and to impoverish their people. This fomenting of hatred of America is a core plank in the propaganda platform of Mexico’s elites, and it saturates their government’s policy of encouraging migration, legal and illegal, into the United States. Poor Mexicans are told that America has exploited them for years, so, when they arrive in the United States, they should exploit every possible opportunity to benefit from the broad and generous welfare programs which the U.S. offers for the asking.

Here is where the wall comes in: those welfare benefits are also promised to their people by the government of Mexico. However, the corruptos (as Mexicans call their rulers) guarantee that they are never delivered. Instead, Mexicans working in the U.S. send back to their extended families tens of billions of dollars a year, resulting in an extensive Mexican welfare system, a courtesy extended to the Mexican elite establishment by its enthusiastic elitist counterparts in the United States.

These financial remittances are called remesas, and Donald Trump proposes that the U.S. impose a surcharge on each of them, since they constitute an indirect but de facto Mexican government welfare program designed to prevent unrest or even broader domestic violence at home – after all, we must recall, Mexico’s official “Institutional Revolutionary Party” is well-entrenched, and with rare exceptions has controlled the country for almost a century. The remesas provide a safety valve that reduces the threat of serious unrest, allowing the corruptos to keep the party going unperturbed.

Of course, the wall is only one ingredient in the restoration of the rule of law on both sides of the border. On the American side, legal immigrants and their employers will once more have an above-board, mutually rewarding relationship. But those on the Mexican side will prosper as well: while some enterprising Mexicans will continue to apply for legal entrance into the United States, millions more will stay at home and demand that their own government reform the current system that perpetuates poverty, violence, and crime.

Christopher Manion, Ph.D., served as staff firector of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs during the Reagan Administration.

http://www.breitbart.com/immigration...all-will-work/

It doesn't look like Congress is going to fund the wall this year, not even the small amount Trump requested to build out the 62 miles in the 3 sections, 2 in San Diego area and 1 in the Rio Grande Valley Sector.

Dems winning fight over wall

By Rafael Bernal and Mike Lillis
04/09/17 10:00 AM EDT

Democrats are winning the war over the wall.

Despite President Trump’s request for more than $1 billion to fund the Mexican border wall this year, GOP leaders are expected to exclude the money in the spending bill being prepared to keep the government open beyond April 28.

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) says the choice is pragmatic and the money will come later.

But the issue has become a political thorn in the side of GOP leaders who are facing pushback from Republicans voicing concerns over the diplomatic fallout, the disruption to local communities and the enormous cost of the project, estimated to be anywhere from $22 billion to $40 billion.

With Democrats united against new wall funding, it’s unlikely the Republicans have the votes to get it through and prevent a government shutdown.

Among the loudest GOP skeptics are those representing border districts. Reps. Will Hurd (R-Texas) and Martha McSally (R-Ariz.), for instance, hail from districts that span a combined 880 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. They’re pressing the administration to justify the huge costs.

“We recognize the need for robust border security and infrastructure to ensure public safety and increase cross border commerce,” the lawmakers wrote recently to top administration officials. “We also have an obligation to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars.”

Grover Norquist, a conservative anti-tax crusader who has supported comprehensive immigration reform, told The Hill that payment for the wall has not been an issue in his discussions with allies on Capitol Hill.

And some Republicans are concerned that deteriorating relations with Mexico may be too high a price to pay for the wall.

In a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing Wednesday, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) expressed concern to Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly about a growing resentment in Mexico over the administration's border policies.

“There is a lot of anti-American sentiment in Mexico. If the election were tomorrow in Mexico, you'd probably have a left-wing, anti-American president in Mexico. That can't be good for America,” McCain said.

“It would not be good for America, or for Mexico,” Kelly conceded.

The thinly veiled reference to Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who tops most polls in the lead-up to Mexico’s upcoming 2018 presidential election, raised eyebrows in Mexico.

Mexican Foreign Affairs Secretary Luis Videgaray told Kelly in Washington Thursday that Mexico “expects the United States to respect the Mexican electoral process.”

Videgaray added that, although Mexico considers the wall an “unfriendly gesture,” it is “not part of a bilateral discussion and it shouldn’t be.”

Democrats have latched on to Mexico's consistent denial that the country will pay for a border wall — various officials and former officials have panned the notion since Trump first brought it up during the campaign — to take swings at the president.

“It's anywhere between $26 billion and $40 billion to build it, you can't drive on it, you can't use it for anything, it doesn't do anything to drive economic growth and jobs in America beyond the building of a wall itself, and it probably wouldn't be built using union jobs to begin with,” said Rep. Joseph Crowley (N.Y.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.

In its budget request, the White House had sought $1.4 billion in 2017 funds for the wall. But hoping to prevent a government shutdown, Ryan has suggested the Republicans will largely delay the wall funding debate until September, when Congress takes up spending bills looking ahead to fiscal 2018.

“The big chunk of money for the wall, really, is ... next fiscal year’s appropriations, because they literally can’t start construction even this quickly,” he told “CBS This Morning” last week.

Democrats are encouraged by those comments, but in the absence of specific legislation they remain leery that some Republicans, particularly those in the White House, will continue to push for wall provisions in the 2017 package.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she’s hopeful the Republicans will punt on the issue, citing recent polls indicating that voters are largely opposed.

“I would hope that they wouldn't try that because … the American people don't even support it,” she told reporters Thursday.

A Pew Research poll released in February found that 67 percent of voters oppose the wall, and only 35 percent support it.

Last month, Pelosi visited the border region in Texas and warned that the wall would damage communities without benefiting public safety.

“It's about commerce. It's about community. It's about family. It's about education. It's about the environment. It's about so many things,” she said. “So to put a wall there is really an insult and really an ineffective insult at that.”

In Texas, where much of the land along the Rio Grande is privately owned, the wall has met resistance from many locals, regardless of party affiliation.

Landowners have long fought the federal government exercising eminent domain to acquire land for border fencing. Plus, the river's natural floodplain would require the wall to be built well north of the border, leaving some land on the Mexican side of the wall.

Land acquisition is less of a concern in other border states, where much of the land is owned by the federal government and, except for a short span on the Colorado River, the border crosses dry land.

Still, past administrations have found a double duty for the wall in some sectors by building border fencing atop levees that protect communities from floods.

In anticipation of potential litigation over border land, Trump's Department of Justice budget request for 2018 included funding for “20 attorneys to pursue Federal efforts to obtain the land and holdings necessary to secure the Southwest border and another 20 attorneys and support staff for immigration litigation assistance.”

But focus is on the Homeland Security budget that provides for physical construction of the wall. And in that debate, the wildcard remains the question of how hard Trump will push fellow Republicans to help him make good on the central pillar of his campaign.

Democrats see the White House as the biggest threat to a spending deal this month.

“House and Senate Democrats and Republicans have been making very good progress on an appropriations package to fund the government,” Matt House, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), said Friday.

“The only thing that could derail that progress is the White House insisting on their extraneous demands, which would meet bipartisan opposition.”

http://thehill.com/latino/327916-dem...ight-over-wall

A Pew Research poll released in February found that 67 percent of voters oppose the wall, and only 35 percent support it.

That's not good. That means a lot of Republicans and Independents are opposed to the wall as well as all the Democrats. Maybe next year things will be different, but if Trump's other programs keep making progress, border crossings down and deportations up, a lot of th 35% will decide the wall isn't needed after all and the numbers could be worse.

If it turns out the wall really isn't needed, then that's a good thing. He could go with my Wall of Americans! 40,000 good jobs, putting Americans to work guarding our borders. Less than $3 billion a year and every mile is covered 24/7/365.

Originally Posted by Judy

That's not good. That means a lot of Republicans and Independents are opposed to the wall as well as all the Democrats. Maybe next year things will be different, but if Trump's other programs keep making progress, border crossings down and deportations up, a lot of th 35% will decide the wall isn't needed after all and the numbers could be worse.

If it turns out the wall really isn't needed, then that's a good thing. He could go with my Wall of Americans! 40,000 good jobs, putting Americans to work guarding our borders. Less than $3 billion a year and every mile is covered 24/7/365.

I'm in the camp that fully supports Trump's campaign promise to build the wall. A wall or suitable fence is something that would keep giving year after year. I feel the wall is an integral part of good sound border security.

"I feel the wall is an integral part of good sound border security."

The first part is simply the will to do it, and we already are quickly moving towards that as the DHS reorganizes and reprioritizes. The second part is developing NEW policies that discourage all types of illegal immigration, such as what the DOJ is now doing in regards to sanctuary policies, visa overstays and what DHS partners are doing in regard to fraudulent immigration enterprises. The third part is detecting movements of new people across the border but this is the aspect most plagued with political pushback. Agreed that we need to stop new people coming across the border---but we need to figure out how to do this cost effectively and with the minimal pushback. I think we have means of predicting where most of the major movements of border crossers will occur.

Give the border agents the new technology, encourage feedback and discussion, and they themselves will figure out how to make it effective.

There is also the rational Process of Elimination. If something is presently working in some areas consider that a success and continue on with whatever worked. Then put the new ideas into the areas where success has been more difficult, but particularly in areas where people are likley to cross. If an area has traditionally had few or no crossings, there probably are reasons why it will not develop into a new hot spot. We also know the most likely routes people coming from the south take to get to the US; these are well known.

We must already have a great amount of intelligence gathering---it's fallen into disuse due to a lack of political will. But now we have the political will.

With the lackluster way Republicans in Congress are responding to the need for the wall put together with so many of them who are against it, I think there will be some money later on for some sections of wall, but not the big 1,000 mile wall Trump wants. Maybe we can do it with some improved sections and finished sections. Don't know. For now keep pushing for it, but focus on enforcement and deportation.