Why or Why Shouldn't The United States Build A Wall Along The Border of Mexico?

After all the drug wars, bodies being found in the desert, shootouts, illegals coming in and coming crime, not to mention what's actually going on in Mexico right now, why shouldn't the US do something to fully seal off the border? Please don't deflect the question with "they'll do the jobs Americans won't do", or start bringing up rich cunts employing illegals. That's not the question. Why shouldn't America build a war or do something to seal off the border once and for all? Why is anyone against this? It doesn't make any sense.

• My opinion is that the illegal immigrants might cost us a few billion in health care or lost jobs, but that Wall Street is pilfering us for trillions and I'd much rather build a wall around Wall Street.

  Main%20Street

• How tall? Made of what? Patrolled how many yards/miles apart? Cost to build/maintain/man? Answer, then we'll talk.

• What's easier: building a 2400 mile long wall or legalizing drugs?

• We shouldn't for the following reasons: 1) It would be grossly expensive 2) It would be trivial to under-mine or bypass (all you need is a tunnel or ladder) Thus, it would be very expensive and rather ineffective. The reasons we should: 1) There are no reasons we should. Most of the border with Mexico is hellish desert. Also, with our economy the way it is, the flow of illegal immigrants going north has slowed to almost nothing.

• A wall? Gee, it worked so well and was such a morale booster in Berlin.

• Doesn't it go against everything that this country was founded on?

• What the fuck is R6 talking about? Which ones of our founding ideals has to do with keeping drug traffickers and other criminal elements from Mexico out? Do you question why we have borders in the first place, dum dum?

• R7 = moronic teabagger

• No need for a wall. If we really want to stop all of the drug violence on the border we need to rethink our own drug policies. We also need to stop trying to influence other countries when they try to legalize drugs.

  Anonymous

• And as usual, the opposers use the excuses that I said were not acceptable to use. Stop deflecting! Illegals are costing the country dearly, and are putting the entire country in danger. Funnily enough, these illegals hate gays, not to mention the gang banging culture they have.

  op

• [quote]Illegals are costing the country dearly No, they aren't. Trumped up right-wing xenophobia. [quote]and are putting the entire country in danger They rank WAY down in the list of dangers to this country, and the root cause is more our own drug policies... change those and a lot of the criminal violence goes away. BTW, do you get bonus points from Rush Limbaugh for trying to equate illegal immigrants with drug violence? Dear lord, you are a piece of ignorant work.

• Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" Emma Lazarus, 1883

• You know, what this country spends on illegals, welfare and other social programs is but a fraction of what we pay out in corporate welfare each year. I really wish people would get their priorities in order.

• American's still want that cheap supply of labor.

• bitching about "illegals" is the same as saying "I don't like brown people" except god forbid you'd expose your ignorance so blatantly as that. But it still shows. And why is it always a wall between the US and Mexico? You do realize we have other borders, right? Shall we build a wall along the canadian border? How about a wall around hawaii and alaska? I have an alternative idea, OP: why don't you build a wall around your home and stay there.

• OP is an idiot.

• If I thought it would work I would say yes. Every country has a right to control its own borders, but it probably wouldn't work unless it was massively built and equally as expensive.

• There is no reason for a fence, wall or any barrier. And, r10, the illegals that I know don't hate the gays or cost the US, in fact, they are using false soc sec numbers thus contributing not costing! Stop this rhetoric of hatred, it smacks of limbaugh, bad politicians and bigotry. Oh, if you decide to build the wall, let me know, I'll get some kickbacks from some cronnies that employ illegal cheap labor that "stole" jobs from Americans!

  LatinoLegal

• If we legalize drugs, then the drug cartels over there lose their power and their country gets stronger and so people quit leaving it.

• Isn't there already a wall and/or a fast-rapid water system along the border?

• It would be too ugly.

• Because it's insanely inhumane and xenophobic.

• r10 is an idiot. Many posters in this thread brought up the issue of money and how much it would cost to build the wall you so desperately want. Funny how Republicans are for limited spending...except when they aren't! I bet you support funding abstinence only education, too.

• [quote]Most of the border with Mexico is hellish desert And the rest of it is *a river.* [quote]Funnily enough, these illegals hate gays Whatever arguments may be valid in favor of combatting clandestine immigration, this is not one of them. Mexican culture is not especially anti-gay, particularly in comparison to, say, African or Afro-Caribbean cultures.

• r11 will scream to everyone that the sky is black, not blue. Honey, have you actually looked at the stats, you fucking moronic asshole? r15, Mexico is our biggest problem. Don't play the race card. You're the reason why Liberals don't get elected. r18, they don't contribute to SS. That is a myth. r22 plays the PC card. Great. r23, closing the border is a necessity. The US is getting invaded. r24 knows nothing about Mexican culture. It's Catholic Conservatism. Illegals do not want to assimilate. After 9/11, I can't believe people take no issue with not knowing who the fuck is entering the country. This is one issue the Left is so fucking stupid about.

• [quote]R11 will scream to everyone that the sky is black, not blue. Honey, have you actually looked at the stats, you fucking moronic asshole? Um, no dear. I'm sorry, I'm the one dealing in facts, not you. YOU are the one painting the sky black. YOU are the fucking moronic asshole here. In fact, R25 (who is also the moron at R10, who is also the ignorant idiot OP), almost everything in your post is flat out wrong and easily disprovalbe.

• Borders are imaginary stupid things. What a waste of time and hassle they are. Humans are meant to roam. We should be able to go where ever the fuck we'd like.

• R25, they're taxed, of course they contribute to social security. Every other thing you've said has been said about EVERY OTHER ETHNIC GROUP THAT EVER CAME TO AMERICA, EVER. Everything worked out just fine. Quit being such a pussy.

  Libertarian%20Asshat%20who%20thinks%20borders%20are%20BS.

• We think it's a tremendous idea!

  ACME%20LADDER%20CO.

• OP/R10/R25 has been sucking on the teat of FOX News and Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and all the rest of those lying propagandists for far too long...

• [quote]they don't contribute to SS. That is a myth. I sent the money somewhere, r25. Where did it go?

  former payroll clerk

• I *am* Mexican, R25, but thanks for taking a stab at it. While it's true that people are turning up mutilated and tortured all over Mexico, it's not because they're gay, which seems to be the only reason people are tortured and killed in white America these days.

• R25 is one of the dumbest people I've ever encountered on DL. Go away, Freeper. I personally KNOW illegals that pay into SS and get nothing back, idiot. I LIVED in Mexico, shitstain. I know the culture, and it's no more anti-gay than many parts of the US. The Federal District has even legalized gay marriage, moron.

• Oops, meant to sign myself as R24.

  R24/R32

• OP just isn't finding the support for his ignorant hateful xenophobia he thought he would.

• Thank you r33. Ditto. R25 seems to have been listening to faux news while limbaugh was blaring in the background.

  LatinoLegal

• The Unites States also dramatically increased security along the Canadian border (thank Janet Neapolitano), except when it wants a 70% slice of Canadian oil, which it lets through with no problem. It is all the sign of the fall of the USA. Paranoia, corruption, bankruptcy - bye bye America, 235 years was long enough.

• Did anyone see Stephen Fry's 'America'? He visited the US-Canadian border and the US-Mexico border - they couldn't be different.

• [quote]Because it's insanely inhumane and xenophobic. You must be a Mexican. How the hell is inhumane to keep these annoying illegals (most of whom do nothing but cause trouble) out of the US? And I'm tired of all this "xenophobic" shit.

• Why or Why Shouldn't? Oh Dear.

• Building a 1500 mile wall? If the US had that kind of money, the US would build homes for the homeless too.

• If India can build one along its border with Pakistan, we can too. The failure to do so here is intentional. Mexico is ruthless in enforcing its southern border, so we have every right to do so as well. As Edward Abbey said: “…it occurs to some of us that perhaps ever-continuing industrial and population growth is not the true road to human happiness, that simple gross quantitative increase of this kind creates only more pain, dislocation, confusion, and misery. In which case it might be wise for us as American citizens to consider calling a halt to the mass influx of even more millions of hungry, ignorant, unskilled, and culturally-morally-generically impoverished people. At least until we have brought our own affairs into order.” He also said that they should be sent home with guns and ammo to clean up their own house, and I agree with him. The Mexican elite are even worse than ours.

• All the "elite" should be treated the same. We wouldn't want any confusion when we have our Bastille Day.

• R39, you're as ignorant as you are irrationally hateful.

• R43, the "elite" already build walls around their communities.

• [quote]Building a 1500 mile wall? If the US had that kind of money, the US would build homes for the homeless too. Are you kidding? The US has spent a trillion dollars on wars yet still ignores the homeless, so why couldn't they build a wall?

• [quote]How the hell is inhumane to keep these annoying illegals (most of whom do nothing but cause trouble) out of the US? I live in a sanctuary city where an estimated 30% or more of this town are illegals. We definitely do not have 30% of this city causing trouble, so can you provide a link proving that "most" illegals do nothing but cause trouble? Yeah, didn't think so.

• A 14-foot fence will do wonders for my 15-foot ladder business!

• Forget a wall. Build an electrified 15-foot high chain link fence with barbed wire across the top.

  Thomas A. Edison

• There isn't a wall because it would be too expensive to build and because it wouldn't keep the fuckers out. If illegal assholes want to enter a country, they always seem to find a way. A wall won't stop them. But maybe if the government actually enforced and strengthened immigration laws, they'd learn to stay the fuck out.

• You all forgot to call them dirty, lazy spics. You're slipping.

• If you really want to stop illegal immigration you have to punish the corporations that hire them. That will never happen in corporate run America.

• [quote]will scream to everyone that the sky is black, not blue. Honey, have you actually looked at the stats, you fucking moronic asshole? ROFL.... Oh, the irony.... Love this one, since the OP is so flatly and provably wrong in his idiotic claims.

• So OP, what is the endgame here? Do you want to get rid of all non white people or just stop new ones from coming to the country? Where do we gays fit into your masterplan?

• A little Latin flavor is not so bad.

  http://www.nowhavefun.com/celebritypictures/d/54360-1/30 Eduardo Verastegui picture.jpg

• ¡¡alerta de gnoma le$biana raci$ta!!

• I think Latin guys are hot, so I say let them come over. Hell, when the economy collapses they'll go back to Mexico for the higher wages anyway, so it's probably not worth worrying about. But if you wanted to get serious, you could try copying the Indian fence around Bangladesh.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_-_Bangladesh_Fence

• Wouldn't that make it harder for America's insatiable appetite for street drugs?

• because it is prohibitively expensive and your money would be better spent on education..?

• Money being better spent on education??? You sound like a Democrat!

• If our insane drug policies were brought up-to-date, this problem would disappear. It is outrageous that marijuana is still illegal in the year 2011. The legalization of marijuana alone would solve a lot of border problems between the US and Mexico. It's a really fucked-up country when you can buy alcohol in any number of places, but pot is still "bad" and "immoral." So stupid.

• r60 actually no.. i just thought that if you were had billions knocking around there were better ways to spend it rather than build a huge wall to keep the foreigners out then blaze through nearly as much for upkeep, patrol and so on. they tried it in england hundreds of years ago...

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadrian%27s_Wall

• Mexico should consider it: too many Americans will cross the border to look for work.

• Wall around Wall Street - yes. Wall on the Mexican Border - no. Machine gun nests manned by guy with night-vision goggles, claymore all along the border, and let the drones get the rest of 'em - yes.

• [quote]I think Latin guys are hot, so I say let them come over. Wow, you're an idiot.

  And I think they're ugly

• If anybody was serious about doing something about illegal immigration, all we would have to do is arrest a fair amount of larger employers who are exploiting illegals by giving them their low paying jobs. Put a few owners of large faring operations and chicken processing plants away and enforce the laws we already have, and we have no need to build a wall. We could also spend the money that it would cost to build a wall on border patrol agents and employee some more Americans. This country isn't serious about illegal immigration. It's one of the Republican's go to issues like abortion and the gays to fuel their hate filled campaigns for office.

• R54, the OP has apparently abandoned this thread because it didn't go the way he wanted, and he was called out on his ignorant bullshit.

• [quote]Which ones of our founding ideals has to do with keeping drug traffickers and other criminal elements from Mexico out? Drug traffickers wouldn't even exist if there wasn't a huge market for it in the US, and I suspect most of that market consists of the very idiots who complain about "drug trafficking."

• Gangs will just send drugs over via air and sea.

• Because of the negative impact on script ideas for "Breaking Bad".

• Lots of lies on this thread from the "mainstreamers." Allowing unrestricted immigration is stupid. We are not generating jobs so every single person who comes across the border has to be supported by us when we can't even support our current population. It's just plain stupid. And no true liberal is in favor of it. Yes, we should build that wall. It would employ lots of people and most countries have historically secured their borders. The comparisons to the Berlin Wall are stupid, and so are comparisons to the Great Wall of China (which was probably also built for economic rather than military reasons). Back in the first part of the last century, when the U.S. had ten times the population of Mexico, they made it ILLEGAL for Americans to move there and own land there and seized huge amounts of U.S. property. They weren't wrong to do so, af few hundred Americans owned tens of millinos of acres of Mexico, and we aren't wrong to put a wall up against their failure to teach fucking birth control. Yes, NAFTA means that their problems are our problems too, but it is much cheaper to deal with their humanitarian crisis in their country than in ours. All that a safety valve has done for them is give aid and comfort to the criminals down there who don't need to reform anything as long as money is being transferred from here to there by their rejects. No, immigration has not slowed down. It did for a time when Mexico was thriving and we were not in 2008, but in the last year and a half it has intensified relentlessly as Mexico grapples with the drug war. It has never been worse. Third, electronic surveillance has proved ineffective and an expensive failure. Much more could have been done for much less with a wall and boots on the ground.

• R71, we could have built the wall out of straw, but you used it all to construct your men.

  ShinjukuBaby

• Hey, I've got an idea - why don't we build a wall to keep Americans IN? The only thing Americans excel in these days are consuming corn syrup and bombing the shit out of civilians.

• Wall don't work if you have not heard. Mexican immigrant, even the illegal ones, work. They take the jobs whining spoiled out of work American will not take. They help make our system work thereby. They should be made legal, so they can ge taxed, and immigration between Mexico and the US should be made easy. We are a country of immigrants, most recently from Eastern Europe and Mexico, just prior Southeast Asia, etc etc. Their energy and optimism fuel all that is productive in the US. There have always been xenophobes and racists in the US resisting the latest groups of immigrants. They are of course on the wrong side of history, among other things (they make up the Tea Party and sympathizers).

  charlie

• Wouldn't it be easier to just invade Mexico and then create new states and absorb the whole thing? Take out Canada too and we are the United States of North America. Seems easier to me

• I would have LOVED to live in LA.. all that latin cock.. fuck, I'd be in heaven! I fucking love latinos.. hottest ethnicity, without a doubt! Too bad I live in this shithole, this cold, northerly country. We don't have many hot latinos here :( We do have a few chileans in this city though, and they're all good looking. Is if a fetish if you fantasize about latinos? I think they're all so hot!

• All of it lies charlie. There are not now, nor have there ever been, "jobs Americans just won't do."

• r11 if you don't think illegals are costing us, ask the 15 Calfornia hospitals that went bankrupt what percentage of those who couldn't pay were from across the southern border?

• we should build a wall Then we should start arresting business owners that hire illegals instead of citizens and put their decapitated heads along the wall on little spikes.

• God the level of stupidity of the anti-immigrant assholes is just stunning.

• right back atcha r80 people it's not ANTI IMMIGRANT it's ANTI ILLEGAL If you insists on anything other than ANTI ILLEGAL being wrong then you are astonishingly clueless.

• R81? You have anger issues. Probably stemming from your deep seated sense of envy and jealousy, control issues, and just plain all around ignorance.

• People should be allowed to travel freely. The whole idea of imprisoning them behind walls is stupid. Open the borders.

• You can build a wall but it won't stop the tsunami.

  Japan

• If all countries just open their borders to everyone, why not just dump all the cash in the town center too, then people can just take what they need.

• Argument against: very soon they would run out of bricks. Soon after that they would run out of heads to use as bricks.

• r15 = racist Who said anything about illegals being brown? What color/race is an illegal?

• Why isn't the millions of dollars seized at the boarders used to build a 100 ft electric fence???

• What about the State of California agencies that encourage illegals to come to them if they are being discriminated against. What the heck is that? Yes, I agree: most Mexicans are very hard workers, but why is my tax dollar being spent protecting the civil rights of an illegal when the civil rights of so many of our citizens are not being protected? Remember, just because a person is against illegal immigration does not mean they are against LEGAL immigration.

  Anon

• r82 likes having illegals around -- they draw attention away from the woodpile where he hides and works to make over our culture into his yellow sticky fingered image.

• [quote] Why shouldn't America build a war or do something Silly OP, where have you been? The US is always building a war! We've built a nice one in Afghanistan.

• Building a wall will have the opposite effect. Read the last point from this study. As usual, this is only about some freeper company getting a government contract to build a wall.

  http://boingboing.net/2012/08/08/mexican-us-illegal-migration-h.html

• No we wouldn't, R41.

  Republican

• Empires always end when they start building walls

  Hadrian.%20

• [quote]Empires always end when they start building walls Empires always end when they need a wall to keep from being overrun.

• I think they should build a huge wall and, in order to stimulate local artists, hang a lot of beautiful paintings along it for decorative purposes

• An old thread, and getting close to 100 replies, and not one pointing out the fact that the vast majority of ILLEGAL immigration occurs via airplane, not those dirty brown ones scampering across the Rio Grande. Ring, ring, clue phone: airplanes fly over fences. The only way to stem the tide of illegal immigration is to go after he companies and people (I know, Mitt, I know) who employ them. Here's an idea: a law saying that if you get caught employing an illegal, you get deported with them. Sure, you can re-apply for citizenship, just go to the back of the line, fill out your papers, and wait for the decade or longer before your number is called. And, oh yeah, you have to pass a citizenship test just like the rest of the legal immigrants to get your citizenship back. Oops, just eliminated roughly 90% of the illegal-employers, since most 'Muricans can't tell you the name of the third president of the US, or even enumerate the Bill of Rights (except for #2).

• does anyone realize that Israel is the top beneficiary of US foreign aid?... BUT OF COURSE WE CANNOT COMPLAIN ABOUT THAT.... They have suffered enough....

• Building a wall will not keep illegals out. The best way to address illegal immigration is to stop rewarding Mexico for its fucked-up, criminal government. We need to force Mexico's government to take care of its own fucking country and people. We need to put pressure on the government so that they will eradicate corruption. Illegal immigration is just a right-wing talking point used to rile Americans up so they don't catch on to the real issue.

• Not everyone crossing the soutern border into the U.S. is Mexican. There are a lot of illegals coming from countries south of Mexico.

• Because Americans would ask for unreasonable wages to build the wall.

• OP, Are you aware of the massive and sophisticated tunnels, large enough for a truck, linking Mexico with the border states? All building a fence or hiring more armed security guards would do is increase the fees coyotes charge to bring people and drugs across. Those poor girls are gang raped in the process, and sometimes killed even after paying transport fees, trying to support their starving families. Also many "illegals" take very physically demanding jobs Americans refuse, or are not capable of performing at the same level. CA produce relies on these low-wage earners. We really need a guest worker program instead.

• Why is Mexico such a basket case as a nation, and always has been? They have abundant natural resources, it's not like the country is a wasteland like Afghanistan. The US and Canada, for all their faults, still have a high standard of living and are exceedingly wealthy and technologically advanced. Why is Mexico such a third-world shithole?