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Given the combined implications and existentiality of following:
Please, if you believe the US should spend taxpayer money to build a wall on the southern border, provide a sound/cogent case illustrating the preponderance of pecuniary benefits over pecuniary costs of doing so.
A. Customs and Border Patrol Budgets:
[*=1]2017 -- $13.9 billion
[*=1]2016 -- $13.2 billion
[*=1]2015 -- $13.1 billion
B. Trump Administration estimate for building Trump's wall/barrier: ~$25 billion
[*=1]Materials:
[*=1]$8.7 billion in concrete (97 percent of the materials)
[*=1]$3.6 billion in steel (3 percent of the materials)
[*=1]$12.3 billion
[*=1]$200 million
C. Trump assertion:
[*=1]"You know, the border is down 78 percent. Under past administrations, the border didn’t go down, it went up. But if it went down 1 percent, it was like this was a great thing. Down 78 percent....In fact, the southern border of Mexico, we did them a big favor -- believe me. They get very little traffic in there anymore, because they know they're not going to get through the border to the United States."
-- Donald Trump, July 28, 2017 (Transcript)
[*=1]Fact: There is no wall on Mexico's southern border with Guatemala.
[*=1]Fact: No new barriers have, since Trump's inauguration, been erected on the US-Mexico border.
[*=1]Legal immigrants/immigration --> ~$1.2 trillion
[*=1]Illegal immigrants/immigration --> ~$0.4 trillion ($400 billion)
E. Behaviors, per Trump Admin. DHS, accounting for new illegal immigrants' presence in the US:
- [*=1]FY 2017 Visa Overstays --> 701,900
- [*=1]Canadians: ~93K
[*=1]Mexicans: ~29.5K
- [*=1]Canadians: ~93K
F. Terrorists are not entering the US via the southern border:
H. Human trafficking does not avail itself of southern border porosity between ports of entry.
- CIS -- Notes on the Trump Administration's Claim of 3,000-Plus Terrorist Apprehensions at U.S. Borders
- "The claim of 3,000 to 4,000 apprehensions of terrorist suspects is misleading and incorrect."
- CATO -- 45,000 “Special Interest Aliens” Caught Since 2007, But No U.S. Terrorist Attacks from Illegal Border Crossers
- DHS -- Potential Terrorist Threats: Border Security Challenges in Latin America and the Caribbean
- State -- Country Reports on Terrorism 2017
H. Human trafficking does not avail itself of southern border porosity between ports of entry.
Please, if you believe the US should spend taxpayer money to build a wall on the southern border, provide a sound/cogent case illustrating the preponderance of pecuniary benefits over pecuniary costs of doing so.