Cruz wants to "finally, finally, finally" secure the borders

[Chris0nllyn]

He reminisced about an America that has welcomed so many millions, including his Cuban-born father, then asked when the country would “finally, finally, finally” get a president who secures the borders.

http://www.economist.com/news/unite...not-be-americas-next-president-he-could-shape

How would he do it?

Cruz proposed to secure the border by tripling the size of the border patrol and quadrupling the number of helicopters and cameras on the border and completing a double-layered border fence.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...his-border-security+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Never mind that 45% of all illegal immigrants are visa over-stayers.
http://www.aim.org/guest-column/alm...-s-legally-but-overstayed-visas-senators-say/

Never mind that even the Berlin wall was breached over 1,000 per year.
http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-journal/2012/1/cj32n1-8.pdf

Never mind that whatever wall is built, couldn't close completely without damming the various tributaries leading to the Rio Grande.
http://www.texasobserver.org/new-border-walls-designed-to-flood-texas-towns/

Cost-wise, if it compares to the fence that is there:

The fence itself, the border wall, consists of 18-foot-tall, rust-red hollow posts sunk six inches apart in a concrete base. With a cost of about $6.5 million per mile for pedestrian fence and about $1.7 million per mile for vehicle fence (made of concrete and reinforced steel),

http://www.texascooppower.com/texas-stories/people/borderline

There's about 1,300 unfenced miles @ $6-ish BILLION PER MILE (Pedestrian fencing).
Lord knows how many hundreds of millions per year in maintenance.
He wants to triple the number of border agents. With their annual cost to taxpayers being around $171,000 per year, that's about another $7 Billion.
http://www.wola.org/commentary/what_is_the_real_cost_of_an_additional_20000_border_patrol_agents

That is just numbers on money. We all know the border isn't all federal property. Most of us got upset during the Cliven Bundy thing, right? What do you think will happen when they want to finish? Half the land the wall is on now was private land.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/03/06/us-usa-border-opposition-idUSN0533353820080306
They confiscated ancestral land that had been in families for hundreds of years, and gave pennies for it.
http://lubbockonline.com/texas/2012-10-16/landowners-border-say-they-were-shortchanged#.VRsDdp3D8St
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=87854099

 

[GURPS]

Never mind that even the Berlin wall was breached over 1,000 per year.

well s h i t, I'll take that over 10's of thousands a month ..... [not that I believe Cruz for 10 sec]

 

[Hodr]

My understanding is that if we had perfect border security, Mr. Cruz wouldn't even be alive. Is he just pretending to care about the issue now, or is he one of those people who likes to benefit from a situation then make sure others cannot (pulling the ladder up behind him as it were).

 

[Monello]

How expensive are land mines? Put a couple hundred thousand of those along the border. Make it a challenge to get in. Move the army & marines weapons qual courses to the southern borders. Keep track of the visa over stayers. For each overstay that nation gets penalized 2 visas that are not issued to others from the same country.

We have options in securing the border and getting a handle on the illegals that are already here. We just don't have the appetite to do anything about it.

 

[Chris0nllyn]

We should make it easier to get in.

Make it easier to get a visa and SSN. Know where they are, who they are, why they are here, and they pay taxes. Win, win, win, win.

It's estimated there are a little over 11 million illegal immigrants in the US. That's 3.5% of the population. It's estimated they only take up about 5% of the total workforce.

If people want to bitch about Obamacare costing so much and affecting such a small portion of the populous, why the double standard here?

 

[PJay]

Land mines! Perfect..

I'd pay to watch!

 

[Monello]

It's estimated there are a little over 11 million illegal immigrants in the US. That's 3.5% of the population. It's estimated they only take up about 5% of the total workforce.

I've heard estimates up to 20 million. Then you have their anchor babies, which pads the number even higher. My perception is that people coming in through the southern border require lots of social services. Even Obama's auntie collected $700 a month in welfare benefits while never having ever worked a day in the US in her life. Then she got housing, disability and Medicaid to pay her medical operations. All this after she was twice issued deport orders but stayed anyway.

Plus those people put a burden on our infrastructure. They use our schools, they drive on our roads. I'd love to drive on roads that have 3-5% less drivers on them.

I'm OK with legal immigration. I'm very opposed to what we have now where the laws on the books aren't even being enforced.

 

[Chris0nllyn]

I've heard estimates up to 20 million. Then you have their anchor babies, which pads the number even higher. My perception is that people coming in through the southern border require lots of social services. Even Obama's auntie collected $700 a month in welfare benefits while never having ever worked a day in the US in her life. Then she got housing, disability and Medicaid to pay her medical operations. All this after she was twice issued deport orders but stayed anyway.

Plus those people put a burden on our infrastructure. They use our schools, they drive on our roads. I'd love to drive on roads that have 3-5% less drivers on them.

I'm OK with legal immigration. I'm very opposed to what we have now where the laws on the books aren't even being enforced.

Their "anchor babies" are technically US citizens which wouldn't count toward illegal immigrant numbers.

Mind you, "illegal immigrant" is not just people that come from the southern border. Those numbers include 280,000 Chinese, 270,000 Philippian, 240,000 Indian, 230,000 Korean, and 170,000 Vietnamese in the country illegally. What would building a multi-billion dollar wall on the southern border do to limit those immigrants?
http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/ois_ill_pe_2011.pdf

We agree that paying benefits to illegals is not something we want to do. But it also doesn't help that certain politicians are "handing them the keys" to them for political reasons.

Allowing them to get in and pay taxes would eliminate that infrastructure and school issue, no?

 

[Hodr]

Allowing them to get in and pay taxes would eliminate that infrastructure and school issue, no?

Bit of a nit-pick here, but most of the illegals that have jobs use someone else's SS# to get the job. So technically speaking, they are paying taxes they just don't file a return at the end of the year. It's actually a pretty small percentage that work completely off the books (I.E. the guys who hang out in front of Home Depot looking for day work).

And of course, if they own a house they are paying property taxes (or if they rent they are paying the owner's property tax), and they are paying gas and sales tax.

It's pretty hard to avoid paying taxes, even for non-citizens.

 

[Chris0nllyn]

Bit of a nit-pick here, but most of the illegals that have jobs use someone else's SS# to get the job. So technically speaking, they are paying taxes they just don't file a return at the end of the year. It's actually a pretty small percentage that work completely off the books (I.E. the guys who hang out in front of Home Depot looking for day work).

And of course, if they own a house they are paying property taxes (or if they rent they are paying the owner's property tax), and they are paying gas and sales tax.

It's pretty hard to avoid paying taxes, even for non-citizens.