If you ask anyone on the street, in your workplace, at your school, etc. about the first thing they think of when they think of Donald Trump’s campaign, most people, in my estimation, would mention the “wall.” The mythical and ultimately ridiculous wall was the most memorable part of Trump’s campaign and one of the few things he went into great detail about during his run for the White House. Most of us believed that the wall was nothing more than a grown-up “phase.” “Trump will never actually build a wall,” most of said in a matter-of-fact tone. Well, guess what? He’s building it, and he’s genuinely trying to get Mexico to pay for it.
CNN reported on Thursday, January 26 that, “President Donald Trump is considering a 20 percent tax on imports from Mexico to pay for a southern border wall, but that the President is still weighing other options.” CNN also reported that the Mexican government, naturally, canceled a scheduled meeting with President Trump in the wake of the President signing the executive order to commence the wall construction process.
A physical border barrier between the U.S. and Mexico is nothing new. George W. Bush attempted to secure our southern border with the Secure Fence Act of 2006. Much like Trump’s wall, the fence was also quite expensive, costing roughly $2.4 billion just to cover 1/3 of the 2,000-mile long border between America and Mexico.
Obviously, a wall will be much more expensive than a fence. During his campaign, Trump estimated that the wall would cost between $12 and $15 billion to build, depending on what interview you watched. According to CNBC, the actual cost of the wall will be around the $25 billion dollar mark, and this price tag is not taking into account all of the maintenance that will have to be done once the wall is theoretically built.
The wall also presents some geographical challenges as CNBC points out, “The U.S. border with Mexico is roughly 2,000 miles long and underlines four states, from California to Texas, more than half of it along the Colorado River and the Rio Grande.” So if and when this prodigious structure actually begins construction, there will be a great deal of time dedicated to where the wall is being built in relation to the rivers near our border to the south.
The wall alone, according to many people within the U.S. government, will not do the job. CNBC reports that John Kelly, Trump’s chief of Homeland Security, said the wall will “not do the job.” Kelly continues, “If you build a wall, you would still have to back that wall up with patrolling by human beings, by sensors, by observation devices.” All this extraneous manpower will obviously add on to the already enormous cost of this wall.
To close, let me be up front. I am in no way opposed to the idea of securing our border and preventing criminally active illegal aliens from entering our country. However, I do not feel that Trump’s wall is the solution because of the financial and logistical problems such a piece of infrastructure presents. Hopefully, President Trump will reconsider his method of securing our border.
You can find the full stories mentioned in this piece here and here.
