The Mexico–United States Border Wall Nonsense

Coming off the worst December for the stock market since 1931, Trump isn’t nearly as proud of the economy as he was when it was still Barack Obama’s economy. The largest noncrisis deficit and massive tax cuts for the rich and their corporations haven’t produced anything like the boom Trump promised. With Trump’s trade policies and the Fed tightening also complicating the economic picture, a “good shutdown” that Trump can try to blame on Democrats gives him an excuse for the end of the longest sustained period of private sector growth in American history.

Back in Feb Trump got his $5B for the Wall and $25B for Border Security and Dems got their DACA ...But Trump walked away instead.. Why didn't he sign it at that time and avoid all of this? Illegal border crossings represent a relatively small share of the number of people who enter the country, legally or otherwise. In 2016 there was 170,000 successful illegal border crossings occurring outside of authorized ports of entry. That’s down by roughly 90 percent since 2000, and it’s about one seventh of the roughly 1.2 million immigrants who obtained lawful permanent resident status via a green card, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Border crossings don’t even account for a majority of the people joining the unauthorized population in a given year. In 2016 the Department of Homeland Security estimated that 628,799 people who had previously entered the country legally overstayed their visa that year. Other groups, like the Center for Migration Studies, have similarly estimated that visa overstays account for about two-thirds of the total number of people joining the undocumented population in any given year. The number attempting to get across the Southern border is probably the lowest its been since at least the 1970s. Thanks to globalization, Mexicans are enjoying a higher quality of life and want to stay in Mexico. That's how you STOP illegal border crossings.

Seriously, a boarder wall wouldn't do shit and cost over $40 - $70 billion dollars. Lets look at the number: The US Southern border is approximately 1935 miles in length, however a physical wall/fence is only feasible on approximately 1600 miles. Recently (2018) the GAO issued an estimate that was similar to a 2017 Brookings Institute study on construction of a US Southern border barrier estimate of $20 million per mile in easily accessible areas and where there were no land/property acquisition issues and would take over 7 years to complete.

The construction costs per mile for difficult to access some areas is estimated to run $70+ million per mile.
Regarding private land disputes (land usage, access and eminent domain) along the border area the legal costs for the US government could easily exceed $10 million per disputed mile per incident and take decades to resolve.

On top of the legal fees, there would be annual lease payouts to the private land owners estimated at $1-2 million per mile or one-time purchases of approximately $10-16 million per mile.

Some Texas land owners have previously petitioned for and received special border barrier access portals because they own and operate agricultural/farm/ranch/oil/gas land on both sides of the border that cost approximately $3 million each to construct and cost approximately $300K annually to operate and approximately $100K annually to maintain.

There is precedence regarding Eminent Domain on the Southern border stemming from the Secure Fence Act of 2006 signed into law by GW Bush 43. Any Eminent Domain assertion is challengeable in court and historically those court challenges have ended projects or stopped projects from starting and or progressing for decades.

Previous federal Eminent Domain attempts along the Texas border have led to more than a decade of court battles where the federal government has so far lost practically every case.

Estimates for total annual maintenance and repair costs on a mixed concrete and steel barrier were estimated at $1 to $12 billion annually depending on age, needs and damage.

Bernstein Research estimated the easily accessible area construction costs at $17 million per mile and did not estimate costs for difficult to access areas and or legal disputes.

DHS estimated the construction costs at $13 million per mile and did not estimate costs for difficult to access areas and or legal disputes.

You can perform the math to project the total cost for each possible scenario.

Now are Mexicans even a problem? JUST the economy of California makes $180 Billion from illegal aliens per year! = California gets 8–12 X as much benefit from illegal aliens as they pay. in 2015 California paid $32 Billion more to America than it received and in 2016 — California paid $103 Billion more to America than it received. YES $103 BILLION! = America is getting 4.5–8.5 X a return on the cash they spent to support California’s love of illegal aliens.

Sources:

https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/06/25/federal-data-most-immigrants-ente...

https://medium.com/@marcus.ruiz.evans/california-gets-a-great-deal-cover...