Illegal Aliens: Would A Wall Be Worth It?
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Israel's barriers with the Gaza Strip and the West Bank have been quite successful in stemming the infiltration of Palestinian attackers. There are varying estimates for the per-mile cost of the wall*, but I'll settle on $2 million dollars a mile.
The border between the United States and Mexico is about 2000 miles long. For the sake of this article, I'll give some leeway for some additional inefficiency and suggest the wall costs $3 million per mile to build on the US-Mexican border. The grand total for building the wall comes to $6 billion dollars.
According to the study, illegals have a net cost to the federal government $10 billion annually as of 2002. Sadly, that doesn't even include state and local expenditures. The construction of a formidable barrier to illegal entry would cost less than the annual federal spending on illegals. While a wall would not remove the millions of illegal aliens, it will prevent another 600,000 per year from entering. How can the problem be fixed unless the leak is plugged?
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Rather than just throw a couple more billion dollars towards Border Patrol, and have it lost in waste and bureaucracy, invest the money in a project that will achieve results. Couple that with interior enforcement of immigration laws and we will be making a serious attempt to fix our immigration fiasco.
The border between the United States and Mexico is about 2000 miles long. For the sake of this article, I'll give some leeway for some additional inefficiency and suggest the wall costs $3 million per mile to build on the US-Mexican border. The grand total for building the wall comes to $6 billion dollars.
According to the study, illegals have a net cost to the federal government $10 billion annually as of 2002. Sadly, that doesn't even include state and local expenditures. The construction of a formidable barrier to illegal entry would cost less than the annual federal spending on illegals. While a wall would not remove the millions of illegal aliens, it will prevent another 600,000 per year from entering. How can the problem be fixed unless the leak is plugged?
Link
We estimate that there were 8.7 million illegal aliens in the March 2003 CPS. It
must be remembered that this estimate only includes illegal aliens captured by the March
CPS, not those missed by the survey. By design this estimate is very similar to those
prepared by the Census Bureau, the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS),
and the Urban Institute. Although it should be obvious that there is no definitive means
of determining whether a respondent in the survey is an illegal alien, the findings in this
study are consistent with previous research. For example, the Urban Institute estimated
that in 2002 Mexicans accounted for 57 percent of the illegal population; our method
finds 58 percent in 2003. Using 2003 data, we estimate that 88 percent of illegals arrived
after 1990; the Urban Institute estimated 85 percent using 2002 data. Our results also
produce estimates that are similar in other areas, such as age and workforce participation.
Rather than just throw a couple more billion dollars towards Border Patrol, and have it lost in waste and bureaucracy, invest the money in a project that will achieve results. Couple that with interior enforcement of immigration laws and we will be making a serious attempt to fix our immigration fiasco.
