A wall won't matter unless it's properly enforced. That only works in a few places (ie, NK/SK; Israel/Gaza) and even then, you get tunnels under one of the two. It's simply not feasible to do that along the entire US-Mexico border, especially given the terrain. (Indeed, it's not feasible to
have wall on all of the terrain).
Otherwise, there are ropes, ladders, tunnels, oh right and BOATS. So we'd also have to wall off the coastline for quite a distance. But wait.... couldn't they just pay smugglers to take them
farther out into the gulf or up the pacific?
Yeah. Not gonna happen. The wall won't work. The wall won't be built. That's why people pretend to want it.
Xelor:
Wall or artistic "steel slat barrier," whichever it be, I'm merely seeking folks' answers to the questions in the OP.
You're not going to get that because they haven't thought about it. They don't have to. They know they're not getting their big stupid ****ing wall. They also know that if the spending isn't there for the wall, it could never possibly be there for the massive recruitment, infrastructure/supply-chain, and more that would be required to police the wall in such a way that technology from thousands of years ago won't defeat it (ropes, shovels, ladders, and the dreaded Drug Catapult).
If any wall-supporter actually tried to honestly think about it, they would see that it might be just about the dumbest possible way of addressing illegal immigration, second only to the idea of locking them all up for deportation proceedings than deporting them (and by that I mean, look at what it cost - including sunk costs of doing stuff like building prisons - to keep 2.3 million Americans in jail. Now extrapolate to keeping another 8-15 million illegals in jail for a few years, or more likely decades, as all those cases churn through the courts PLUS the cost of deporting (bussing/planes/ships/etc)).
There are sensible ways to approach this but they'll never be talked about. Illegal immigration is the perfect tool used to attack the left, which apart from a few on the very farthest fringes do not want literal "open borders" will oppose an idiotic expensive idea like a wall. So they can demand the wall knowing their idea will never be tested in practice and they can attack "the left" for opposing it. It's a WIN-WIN for them.
They lie.