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Comment by asdff | Hacker News Reader

What you've been reading has been a gross mischaracterization on the issues. Less than one half of one percent of border patrol agents surveyed by the Senate Homeland Security committee want a wall (1), and that's because a wall won't change the situation. It is well known that the overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants arrived by legal means through a port of entry and overstayed their visa. It is also well known that immigrant populations in the united states commit less crime per capita than native born populations. The whole idea of the wall has been around since Mexico declared independence from Spain, and has long been rooted in racism and fear, not fact or data (2)

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/05/us/politics/donald-trump-...

2. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/nation-world/ct-me...

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That's a conflict of interest if there ever were one. If you are paid to catch violators, you want more violators.

Also, you're conflating "illegal immigrants" with "immigrant populations". When mentioning crime, you suddenly switch to discussing a group of people who have patiently followed the immigration law and paid all the fees.

Think about the mechanics of how a wall might even work, the logic isn't really there to even invest in it. The only way a wall would be a practical deterrent would be if someone didn't even know it was there. One rope and you are on the other side. You'd still need border patrol to monitor the wall just like if there wasn't one. On top of that, the landscape is wide. Wouldn't it be far far cheaper to just fly a drone, maybe even with AI, and scan miles of desert at a time for anything that isn't miles of desert, and have a border patrol agent show up with a pickup truck? Because wall or not, you are gonna have to fly a drone or have that same border patrol agent cover the same area anyway to see if there's anyone crossing that stretch of desert to begin with.

For illegal immigrants vs. native born population, it still holds true that the immigrant population has a lower crime rate (1).

1. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/01/11/us/politics/t...

I'm sure this is all true, but I'm also sure that the population of visa overstayers and the population of illegal border-crossers have vastly different characteristics, including crime rate. This seems like an essential distinction for this discussion since only the latter is relevant to border security, yet I have not seen anyone make it (nor do I know if the relevant data exists).

The relevant data does exist, it's actually in this article (1). Once again, even undocumented immigrants have a lower crime rate than native born citizens.

1. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/01/11/us/politics/t...

Only if you assume that the studied population of undocumented immigrants in Texas was predominantly people who illegally crossed the border, not people who overstayed their visas.

The news media has done such a horrible job distorting these distinct groups of people that it's so surprising to see that this needs to be pointed out. Most often I see channels like CNN refer to the umbrella term "immigrants", which I imagine is extremely offensive to folks who pay thousands of dollars and wait in line compared to someone who cheats their way into the country.

It's funny, people against the wall keep bringing up the cost/effectiveness of the wall, as if Democrats would support the wall if it was only more fiscally responsible or effective, meanwhile people who support the wall would probably be willing to spend 5-10x the estimated cost, they'd be willing to spend $50-100B if that's what it took.

So, if walls don't work, isn't that an even better argument for Democrats to just give Trump his wall money? After all, it won't have any substantial effect on Americans, but this shutdown sure will if it keeps going. Or are Democrats more concerned about being the party of anti-Trump than being the adults in the room? After all, every right-thinking person knows Trump is the child throwing a tantrum in this shutdown. So wouldn't we be better served by Democrats taking care of Americans by ending the shutdown than teaching Trump a lesson in the minutiae of wall effectiveness per dollar spent?

Being the adults in the room is not setting 5.6 billion dollars (and the projections for the entire project are well north of that in total) on fire to appease a mob. The project is a shakedown, that 5.6 billion dollars will go straight into a private contractors pocket for absolutely no reason other than to appeal to bigoted logic. How much will Trump and private sector lobbies ask for next year? Do you pay ransomeware?

Whatever the cost, be it $5B or $25B, it's a rounding error in the federal budget. And what you call a "mob", some might call the central promise Trump was elected to carry out. You say a wall is "bigoted" but Democrats keep insisting the wall won't work so who is harmed?

I've never been the victim of ransomware but I assume I'd pay it if the alternative was to lose pictures of my child growing up.

I want a wall because I think the reducing the supply of unskilled labor will tend to raised wages for unskilled workers in the United States.

Actually, the supply of unskilled labor is too low. On agriculture, large corporate farms like Tyson Foods can afford to invest in automation to deal with the lack of labor supply (1), however, many employers of unskilled labor do not have the resources that Tyson Foods does. Limiting immigration has never been good for the economy (2). When farmers cannot hire enough people to harvest a crop, the field goes fallow, and the farm folds.

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/20/us/farmworkers-immigrant-...

2. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/02/business/trump-legal-immi...

What does that have to do with what I said though? Illegal immigration is a separate issue from what I understand. This is about dealing with the humanitarian crisis associated with a porous border.

Regardless how what percentage of people come via visa overstay or not, and regardless of what officials say when asked about solving an illegal immigration issue, the bottom line is that the area is so incredibly dangerous because gangs and criminals prey on anyone who attempts the trip and has the misfortune of encountering them. Over the years, it's quite likely that thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of victims of violence have been created purely because they make this dangerous trip. Why not put an end to this violence once and for all? They would not make this trip anymore if there was no simple way to cross the border.

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