Exclusive - Trump border 'wall' to cost $21.6 billion, take 3.5 years to build: internal report

I like the idea of a high voltage electric fence... imagine Jurassic Park

Education vs Defending the Nation. One is actually written in the Constitution and the other is not.
The federal education budget? $620 billion in 2012–13, or $12,296 per public school student enrolled in the fall (in constant 2014–15 dollars, based on the Consumer Price Index).

Cost of illegal immigration: $113 billion; nearly $29 billion at the federal level and $84 billion at the state and local level.

Cost of border Protection: $21 Billion.

https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66

http://www.fairus.org/publications/the-fiscal-burden-of-illegal-immigration-on-united-states-taxpayers

PO3 Donald Murphy - But you said that 60% of aliens fly. That is not a true statement. 60% of aliens that are caught....fly. So your statement about the wall is incorrect. A correct statement would the wall is not effect against 60% those illegals that get caught. So even the dumb ones that get caught 40% come in by land. The number coming in over the border is an unknown and a wall will have a 100% effect on that unknown number. It may not stop them, but they will have to modify their behavior due to a barrier.

My only concern is if it is cost effective. According to DHS there are less people crossing now that they know there is an active Border Patrol. Just not sure it is enough.

SGT William Howell - No. I said 60% of the ones caught, flew. Also, we're arguing over a moot/dead point. They are not coming over for tourism. They are coming over to work. They are coming to work because their country does not offer the money we offer. So "being in America" is not the gist of them being here. Its not why they want to come to America. If they came and no one hired them, they would have no choice but to leave. They are sending money home. You can't send food stamps home. You can't send welfare housing home. So *NOT HAVING A JOB* is going to force them to not come and to not stay. Building a wall is like draining the gas out of your tank. It stops you from driving to work, but it doesn't stop your job, does it? You still have to get to work. The fact that you can't drive is a hinderance but little else. Your job still exists. So my argument is twofold:

1. You're catching a portion of the people you need to catch. If you're not catching them all, the wall is a waste of money.

2. You're still hiring them. As long as you continue hiring them, they will continue to come.

You can't have it any other way.

What Problem is that? I am stating a fact..... Yes, someone is hiring them, or maybe they are just being a drain on our taxpayer money thru schooling, WIC, using emergency rooms as a doctors office. You know those little things.

The problem is that many seem to feel that the amount of money "we" spend on illegal aliens is more than what the wall would cost. My answer is why stop at one? Why not kill both birds with one stone? Save the money from the building (1) and recoup the money you're spending on illegals (2). Thats a win-win by my math! Right? So you do it by jailing the lawbreakers that are hiring illegals. If Juan and Rosa are here its because things are pretty bad where they live. So they can't afford to be out of work. AT ALL. So you fire them, fire the hiring employer and shut down the company. Bam. Overnight, they can now no longer work for company A. They move on to company B. Shut that one down and fire everyone as well. Bam. Soon word gets out on the illegal side that there are slim pickins. You never fully eliminate it as there are some jobs that are hard to catch (IT folks that can work from home). But you'll kill enough of it that your border patrol won't be swamped.

WIC, ER's, schools... Again, incidental. If theres no jobs, there won't be anyone there. Also, not to be cruel, but there's no reason why we can't do what works elsewhere. Do you remember the Americans on vacation in Italy in the 80's and they got in a car wreck and their son died? He died because the ambulance didn't take him. Yup. No insurance. That's what the rest of the world does. Italy still exists, right? We still visit Italy with tourism, right? So maybe its time to actually back up our words with some balls? "Don't have insurance? You're dying in the street. Guard...walk this guy out of the ER into the parking lot." I realize that we Americans are loathe to do something we didn't think of but maybe its time to?

Cut the head off the snake (build the wall)... Then fix what's going on inside.

SGT Cort Landry - I say try enforcing the law first. Approve the money. All of it. Then for the first year, hire extra marshalls and judges. Build tent prisons like in Arizona. Go from job site to job site in the heavily affected areas (CA, AZ, NM, TX, FL) and arrest anyone here illegally. Shut the company down which fires the legal workers as well. Throw the management in the new jail. Break up the company and sell it. Use the proceeds to fund the jail and deport the illegals. See how that works out. If the number of illegals doesn't drop, build the wall.