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Schumer says Dems won’t budge on Trump wall demand

Congress has still not been presented with a proposal for what exactly DHS/the administration wants to build and where it wants to build it. I have no issues with additional Border Security as long as it is integrated border security including physical barrier (not necessarily WALL) and as long as whatever it is wherever it is makes sense.

The Administration has not spent more than a smidgeon of the money it got in the last CR. the Dems are offering that we should provide the same dollars this year as last year and I fail to understand why DHS should get a penny more than that until this Administration presents a proposal.

I will say this much. Based on what I have actually seen from DHS, said proposal will not include much in the way of solid wall. However whatever the amount of physical barrier of some kind their is in their planning, they want 1,100 miles of it. That is from what they are forwarding up the line to the President where the request might be changed or might be presented to Congress as is. 1,100 miles of eminent domain and purchased private property is one heck of a nut assuming the WH does not modify what DHS has in its plan and present something else to the Congress. What DHS appears to want does not appear to be what Donald has been yammering about. I am not convinced that the amount of private property the federal government is going to have to take makes the effort pay off compared to more sophisticated approaches than a Wall, any Wall or any physical barrier for that matter again assuming that somehow what Donald presents to Congress is the same thing DHS is planning around.

I am however in favor of maintaining and renovating the Bollard Fencing particularly since where it is it is part of an integrated system. But until Congress sees an actual proposal that includes the details, I have no earthly idea why they should offer up more money than was offered in the last CR. The Bollard Fence renovations and repairs should likely continue as they are coming from a different fund though they are in fact over budget.

For the record NO....Mexico is not paying for the renovations either!
 
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humbolt said:
The US Army Corps of Engineers do construction. You should read up on them. I don't think they believe their efforts are ridiculous.
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I know about them, and if he'd said that instead of the more general, "the military" perhaps I'd have understood he meant that, if he did, which isn't clear.

And the general point is Trump cannot just take up to $7 billion from a non-existent discretionary account and then co-opt the CoE for a few YEARS to provide the labor and expertise to build his wall. It's not how it works. I also imagine if, somehow, the CoE are drafted to build his wall, then to meet their existing commitments other than being Great Wall of Trump workers will require hiring more people for CoE, since some significant share of them are now on the border, which would require an appropriation from Congress, etc.....
 
Don’t really matter what democrats say about the wall, Trump will use the military to build the wall to make sure we aren’t facing these invaders anymore.


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veritas1 said:
Of course Democrats don't want the wall because they know it will work. In the areas where there is a substantial wall as opposed to corrugated metal and chicken wire, illegal crossings have been cut to a trickle. That walls work is well known. If they didn't, they wouldn't be around homes, businesses, research facilities, military bases, prisons, nuclear plants and, yes, nations. Nobody keeps using something that fails to perform its intended purpose. Democrats support illegal immigration. They want more of it. Big business supports it and wants more of it, too. The only people who don't want it are the majority of everyday Americans. Trump is only doing what the public wants.

Oh, and I'm happy to have my tax dollars go to the wall if that's what it takes. In the long run, it'll saves us hundreds of billions of dollars.
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That's the big question and given the demand for cheap labor in this country, it's going to take more than a wall to curb that demand. There are so many questions about how to effectively manage a wall of that size and how much that will cost, and none of that has been addressed; it's like buying a new tool without knowing how any of it works. The idea of a wall is simple enough, but one of that size is not the same as a perimeter wall around a building or a wall protecting a small border. Having none of those variables addressed, I don't know how anyone can say "it will work". So what's the plan if drug smuggling tunnels are used to smuggle people in? What if the profit motive for creating new tunnels for drug smuggling incentivizes cartels to make new ones? How much man power will it take to prevent these kind of breaches?
 
MrShangles said:
Don’t really matter what democrats say about the wall, Trump will use the military to build the wall to make sure we aren’t facing these invaders anymore.


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Is he going to use the military to surveil it?
 
Chomsky said:
I think that's fair, Ramoss. So many terms are co-opted and corrupted for political use, and open-borders is one of them.

But as far as this wall stuff, why are we not mandating E-Verify firstly? It's already rolled-out, fully implemented, and free! Without that, how can I take the screaming for a 30B wall as anything but political posturing?
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I have no problem with mandating e-verify, and also larger penalties for employers that knowing hire illegals.
 
sangha said:
Before Congress can vote on an appropriations bill, they first have to pass a budget.

There has been nothing stopping the republican house and senate from budgeting for a wall. They have not done so because the republicans themselves are divided on the issue, as the article from CNBC implies.
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Here's CNBC from today:

Trump needs nine Senate Democrats to support a funding bill to reach the 60 votes needed to pass one. Schumer has committed to approve $1.6 billion for border fencing and technology, but not the wall as the president has proposed. Trump wants $5 billion in taxpayer money for his wall.
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About half way through the article. Plus more.
 
Schumer said:
"Well, Mr. President, if you say Mexico is going to pay for the wall through NAFTA, which it certainly won't, then I guess we don't have to. Let's fund the government,"
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Not that I'm a fan of Schumer, but...

:lamo


I do find it interesting that Trump is doubling down on Mexico paying for the wall through the "redesigned" NAFTA without there being any specifics on how that's the case. I would love to see how he would explain how it would work...
 
Chomsky said:
This is exactly what Trump wants, and what he needs to do to keep his base solid. It will be interesting seeing how this plays-out. I think it will work for Trump's base, so Trump will stick with it. Then it will come to who is willing to let the country suffer the most.
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According to Schumer and Pelosi, what country? There is only the world. There is no USA.
 
JasperL said:
Just curious if you can cite some evidence for that. What is a 'substantial wall' and where do we have them, and what analysis/es have compared this wall structure with other barriers?

Thanks. I've been looking for some evidence based analysis of the need for the Great Wall of Trump and have come up empty so far.



Just thought I'd note that the GOP House hasn't funded Trump's full Great Wall $ demand, ever. The House failed twice to fund it this summer, so on what basis are you claiming that it's the Democrats' fault that Trump's Great Wall hasn't been fully funded?
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I nowhere said it was the Democrats' fault it wasn't funded and, in fact, have mentioned often in here that the spineless Republicans in Congress are to blame. San Diego and Yuma are two areas with multiple and/or more substantial walls or fencing and they have decreased illegal immigration above other areas without such improvements. Be that as it may, why would anyone argue that walls don't work? If walls are no better than fences then maybe fences are no better than having nothing. In that case, the country can save a ton of money by not putting up walls or fences anywhere. That is the logical conclusion if one believes in the "walls don't work" mantra.
 
Sampson Simpson said:
just keep lying, that's all conservatives have. A collosal waste of money, the dumbest idea ever. But not surprising that conservatives would think it would work, they are so simple minded
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Real world experience shows that walls work. If they didn't, people would stop building them. Talk about simple minded.
 
tres borrachos said:
Post links to confirm that "Democrats support illegal immigration" and "big business supports it too". This should be interesting.

Unfortunately we don't get to approve what our tax dollars go to. So while you may be happy to not fear losing your job to a low skilled immigrant because of a wall, it isn't up to you. I'm sure there are people who don't want their tax dollars to pay for the war in Iraq, but they don't get a say in it.
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Democrats support sanctuary cities and states which are a magnet for illegals so, yea, they support illegal immigration. Big business likes the cheap labor. Everyone knows this.
 
lwf said:
Walls do work to reduce illegal border crossings, but the majority of illegal immigration comes from visa overstays, not illegal border crossings, for which a wall is useless. The cost to gain ratio doesn't support the expense of a building wall. It's a bigger money pit than allowing a small minority of illegal immigrants to avoid paying taxes. This doesn't mean that illegal immigration is a good thing or that all democrats want illegal immigration: It means that the majority of democrats (and republicans if we're being honest) recognize that illegal immigration as it currently stands (at lows not seen in decades) is cheaper than building a wall. 'The public' who thinks that a wall will stop illegal immigration and save the country money is misinformed by propaganda designed to stoke fear.
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Visa overstays also need to be dealt with. The cost/benefit is highly favorable. Maybe $20 billion to save billions yearly into the future. Think of all the billions we waste on other things and the wall is a tiny expense. And it will work.
 
ElChupacabra said:
That's the big question and given the demand for cheap labor in this country, it's going to take more than a wall to curb that demand. There are so many questions about how to effectively manage a wall of that size and how much that will cost, and none of that has been addressed; it's like buying a new tool without knowing how any of it works. The idea of a wall is simple enough, but one of that size is not the same as a perimeter wall around a building or a wall protecting a small border. Having none of those variables addressed, I don't know how anyone can say "it will work". So what's the plan if drug smuggling tunnels are used to smuggle people in? What if the profit motive for creating new tunnels for drug smuggling incentivizes cartels to make new ones? How much man power will it take to prevent these kind of breaches?
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I would imagine we have the technology to discover tunnels and then close them. That doesn't sound like a good argument for simply throwing our hands in the air. I haven't heard of people tunneling under Israel's wall. Why should ours be any less effective simply because it's longer? You employ the number of people required to keep the border secured, which will be fewer with a wall than without it.
 
veritas1 said:
Real world experience shows that walls work. If they didn't, people would stop building them. Talk about simple minded.
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Walls,excuse me, physical barriers work in some places and at some times. Walls can be beaten and they do not actually address the problem.
- Most drugs come through ports of entry. Physical barrier is no help there
- Physical barriers simply reroute illegals. Close them off completely over land and they will come by sea would be the extreme case
- you want to spend money effectively, support programs that prevent people from leaving Central America in the first place
- as for tunnels it appears that by far the most effective means they have to finding and closing off a tunnel is finding either the entrance or the exit. Technology that can be effectively used across a landscape that is dotted with all sorts of landscape features don't seem to be effective for finding tunnels on our Southern border.

All of that said, border security is important. However, 1,100 miles of additional physical barrier (assuming that is what Trump ends up proposing) with all of the eminent domain and property purchases it will entail does not sound like an efficient nor effective means to an end. We already have quite a bit of physical barrier at the border, currently under refurbishing per the 2006 act that created it.
 
Sampson Simpson said:
just keep lying, that's all conservatives have. A collosal waste of money, the dumbest idea ever. But not surprising that conservatives would think it would work, they are so simple minded
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You're onto something, but not all cons are simple minded. It's just that most like simple minded political messages and debates, regardless of how complex the issue is.

The post below is a great example. The last sentence that literally proves our point aside, he claims that it comes down to two choices; the wall or unlimited immigration of criminals. Simple! But does he actually believe that?

I wonder how many cons believe the Dems want or would allow unlimited immigration? It's probably the same percentages between Trump supporters who believe he's a good guy and only a victim of the free press, FBI, Justice Department, Deep State, etc. verses the ones who know he's an ignorant criminal scumball, but are willing to look the other way in exchange for the judges he appoints...

joko104 said:
...If you want unlimited illegal immigration by anyone and to reward foreign criminals throwing rocks at law enforcement, vote Democratic. If not, vote Republican. Rather simple to understand.
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Rogue Valley said:
Schumer says Dems won’t budge on Trump wall demand

hl-govt-shut-down-border-security-i-want-me-to-20570789.png




As you stated yourself so many times Mr. Trump, elections have consequences.


sbr121218dapr.jpg
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Trump truly admires and resembles The Grinch.

Eric-Drooker-Grinch-Trump-featuredimg.jpg
 
veritas1 said:
I would imagine we have the technology to discover tunnels and then close them. That doesn't sound like a good argument for simply throwing our hands in the air. I haven't heard of people tunneling under Israel's wall. Why should ours be any less effective simply because it's longer? You employ the number of people required to keep the border secured, which will be fewer with a wall than without it.
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I imagine that we do, but no one has talked about what that would cost in addition to the $25 billion to build the wall. A fair amount of the wall travels through remote areas and bodies of water. People aren't tunneling under Israel's wall because the motivations to pass through the wall are very different since a different fate awaits versus migrants who come here to make money. Securing the border makes sense, but without curbing the cheap labor demand here it will be for naught.
 
jnug said:
Walls,excuse me, physical barriers work in some places and at some times. Walls can be beaten and they do not actually address the problem.
- Most drugs come through ports of entry. Physical barrier is no help there
- Physical barriers simply reroute illegals. Close them off completely over land and they will come by sea would be the extreme case
- you want to spend money effectively, support programs that prevent people from leaving Central America in the first place
- as for tunnels it appears that by far the most effective means they have to finding and closing off a tunnel is finding either the entrance or the exit. Technology that can be effectively used across a landscape that is dotted with all sorts of landscape features don't seem to be effective for finding tunnels on our Southern border.

All of that said, border security is important. However, 1,100 miles of additional physical barrier (assuming that is what Trump ends up proposing) with all of the eminent domain and property purchases it will entail does not sound like an efficient nor effective means to an end. We already have quite a bit of physical barrier at the border, currently under refurbishing per the 2006 act that created it.
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What I remember reading somewhere was that he was proposing replacing the old barriers with one of the wall prototypes he went to inspect. That would make sense in terms of ensuring the border is secured by a wall that's supposedly difficult to get through.
 
RAMOSS said:
I have no problem with mandating e-verify, and also larger penalties for employers that knowing hire illegals.
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I'm glad you see it my way. Mandatory E-Verify is in my mind the fastest & cheapest solution to make a large dent in the problem.
 
Chomsky said:
I'm glad you see it my way. Mandatory E-Verify is in my mind the fastest & cheapest solution to make a large dent in the problem.
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And penalities for employers. The two go hand in hand. I do know people who knowingly hired illegals because they could play them less than minimum wage under the table
 
RAMOSS said:
And penalities for employers. The two go hand in hand. I do know people who knowingly hired illegals because they could play them less than minimum wage under the table
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Of course!
 
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