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Comment by davidw | Hacker News Reader

I don't really follow the rant, but let me try again:

Some people are poor. They'll risk everything to come to the US or other wealthy countries. That's the economic reality.

You have several options:

* Become like North Korea. Walls, "papers, please", etc...

* Ignore it and pretend like you can keep them out or that there's a viable "legal path". This is kind of what we're doing now.

* Make it easier for them to come legally so that you can keep track of who is here, kick out the people who actually misbehave, and otherwise run a lawful and orderly country.

This has some parallels with the "war on drugs".

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The characterization of the first option as North Korea is not honest. They kidnap people and make it hard to get out---but no one is proposing that. They're worried about people getting in. We generally consider DPRK a failure because we watch how people are voting with their feet. But by that same measure the US is wildly successful. So I don't think "like North Korea" is a fair comparison.

"Dropit, you're ignoring reality, people will come whatever official attempts are made/there is not the political will to do what it would take to maintain an actually strong border."

Yes, I know. And the incentives of that reality, for the elite, are to become rootless and disinterested (or worse: exploitative), while the proles just become resentful. I don't get the sense that anyone is making that connection.

#1 & #3 are just different implementations of the same idea. Putting up a wall does make you "North Korea" any more than having a locked front door on your house does. You can simultaneously make it easier for them to enter legally AND harder to enter illegally.

You don't need a wall if it's easy to get in legally. You still need some border security, but walls are mostly symbolic and easy enough to route around in other ways. It's a lot of wasted money.

Agreed. I don't think we need a wall either. But we do need something. I was just pointing out that putting up a wall doesn't make you a bad person.

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