military funds being used to build wall

[Andrew]

The trouble is that the issue of a border wall isn't as simple as a comparison to houses and the like. Some have argued that if walls don't work it must mean prisoners stay in jail voluntarily. It's clearly absurd to think that if you took away the walls of a prison all the inmates would stay out of a sense of duty to complete their sentences, but it isn't a like-for-like comparison. A prisoner doesn't have access to digging equipment, nor are there areas of the prison wall where a prisoner can spend hours at a time digging without being noticed by a guard. Unless you're going to post guards along the entire length of a border wall the chances are somebody is going to dig underneath it, especially if there is a tangible benefit in doing so. We've already seen drug runners bringing their wares into the country through tunnels so it shouldn't be a surprise that it's possible.

Prisoners also don't have access to aircraft and handy parts of the prison boundary that aren't patrolled very often. The border wall can be bypassed by anyone with access to an aircraft - they just hop right on over.

Prisoners also very seldom get chance to leave the prison. When a lot of illegal immigration is a result of overstaying a visa it's just another way the comparison isn't valid. If a maximum security prisoner could check himself out of prison to go shopping for the afternoon, the comparison would work better.

It is important to make sure people who aren't supposed to be here don't get here and are removed if they are found. The trouble is that a wall is only one part of the process and that criminals tend to go for the lowest hanging fruit. For many would-be illegal immigrants the chances are walking across the border, through the desert, hoping they survive the journey, probably isn't the most obvious method of choice to cross the border. It seems easier to hide in the back of a truck that's headed north - that way even if you get caught you're dropped off near the border ready to have another go.

Well you mentioned its a part of the process, I'm good with that. We still have been patrolling the wall its not like we just build the extensions and then dust our hands and walk away.
I would rather they hide themselves in a vehicle and pass security than to hear of them drowning or being kidnapped in the process.. A big fat wall will at least remind them to try other options and perhaps not travel all the way to the wall knowing it was going to be their.
Obama wanted an armed presence at the border, the wall is more humane, and if they decide to start digging well then we will see how they do it and then stop it, the wall is practical and humane step to tighter border security.

And for those who want open borders...
Undocumented criminals entering in America is a national threat and military funding for the wall is appropriate.
I would like to know if my neighbor is a sex offender because my nieces and nephews come visit from time to time, thus every one here needs criminal history records so appropriate measures can be issued for repeat offenders, without identity and records we are putting ourselves in harms way.

 

[tango]

Well you mentioned its a part of the process, I'm good with that. We still have been patrolling the wall its not like we just build the extensions and then dust our hands and walk away.
I would rather they hide themselves in a vehicle and pass security than to hear of them drowning or being kidnapped in the process.. A big fat wall will at least remind them to try other options and perhaps not travel all the way to the wall knowing it was going to be their.
Obama wanted an armed presence at the border, the wall is more humane, and if they decide to start digging well then we will see how they do it and then stop it, the wall is practical and humane step to tighter border security.

I imagine the wall is patrolled but unless we're going to hire huge numbers of people to watch every part of it day and night the patrols can only go by so often. Chances are those who want to dig a tunnel can do it between patrols. Chances are the people digging have the resources to give enough money to a particular patrol sentry that they are mysteriously distracted when they pass the hole in the ground - when you've got an operation directed by a Mexican drug lord and you're hoping to stop it with a few border guards earning maybe $50,000 in a year, chances are those border guards might find $100,000 in cash to be the kind of thing that distracts them enough that they don't notice the people digging a big hole in the ground near the wall.

I'm not sure that you can argue for a wall if you're worried people will drown trying to migrate unlawfully - if you stop people walking across the border it makes trying to swim around more attractive. What makes the most sense is to make it difficult to get in illegally, easy to be removed if you are here illegally, and as unattractive as possible to be here illegally.

And for those who want open borders...
Undocumented criminals entering in America is a national threat and military funding for the wall is appropriate.
I would like to know if my neighbor is a sex offender because my nieces and nephews come visit from time to time, thus every one here needs criminal history records so appropriate measures can be issued for repeat offenders, without identity and records we are putting ourselves in harms way.

Open borders are a problem but worrying about what your neighbor might have done can only go so far. It's easy to worry about sex offenders if you have children (or visiting children) but the trouble with the term "sex offender" is that it is often vague enough to be useless, while sounding serious enough to warrant urgent action. If your neighbor sexually attacked an adult woman that doesn't mean he's a danger to children - the fact he is guilty of a sex crime doesn't mean he has any interest, sexual or otherwise, in children.

 

[Andrew]

I imagine the wall is patrolled but unless we're going to hire huge numbers of people to watch every part of it day and night the patrols can only go by so often. Chances are those who want to dig a tunnel can do it between patrols. Chances are the people digging have the resources to give enough money to a particular patrol sentry that they are mysteriously distracted when they pass the hole in the ground - when you've got an operation directed by a Mexican drug lord and you're hoping to stop it with a few border guards earning maybe $50,000 in a year, chances are those border guards might find $100,000 in cash to be the kind of thing that distracts them enough that they don't notice the people digging a big hole in the ground near the wall.

I'm not sure that you can argue for a wall if you're worried people will drown trying to migrate unlawfully - if you stop people walking across the border it makes trying to swim around more attractive. What makes the most sense is to make it difficult to get in illegally, easy to be removed if you are here illegally, and as unattractive as possible to be here illegally.



Open borders are a problem but worrying about what your neighbor might have done can only go so far. It's easy to worry about sex offenders if you have children (or visiting children) but the trouble with the term "sex offender" is that it is often vague enough to be useless, while sounding serious enough to warrant urgent action. If your neighbor sexually attacked an adult woman that doesn't mean he's a danger to children - the fact he is guilty of a sex crime doesn't mean he has any interest, sexual or otherwise, in children.

Well for some reason here in Texas Sexual Assault of a Child are usually committed by work permitted migrants and they magically disappear before they get caught.
So I do mean child sex offenders in the neighborhood, it's kind of scary because the three recent ones I have known for years! All changed their names and skipped the country! Now I am not saying that every sex offender in town was a migrant but it's always the migrants that make the papers headlines because they aren't caught while the other ones are easily traced and are filed under police blotter.
Also yes crooked boarder patrol works with the cartel and that's another thing that needs to be enforced, couldn't they rotate these men so they know not who they are dealing with? Maybe set up sting operations to test boarder patrol?
That could prevent drug smuggling tunnels at least a little bit, seeing its the only way possible to a team could get away with digging on a vast scale. Heat detection technology plays a good role in spotting intruders.
Anyway, maybe its no threat to northern states but Texas is shaped like a hook hung up with Mexico and that's where I am, so there are a massive amount of drug traffickers and human traffickers around where I live and they are VERY paranoid people who are but a hop skip and a jump away in Mexico if need be.. they have no problem waving their guns in your face and pulling out knives, I hardly go to my home town anymore because I have been threatened too many times and while at work, the cartel is very much alive in my parts and im technically a minority where I live so they walk all over me if they believe I am suspicious of them, which makes it obvious that they aren't bluffing when they threaten you. So with border patrol I believe cracking down on drug smuggling should be a main priority because drug pushers bring in a lot of criminal activity, I live in a small town and we have one of the highest crime rates per volume in Texas, my counties newspaper is littered with criminal activity and police blotter, this means that Houston for example probably has the highest crime rate in Texas (not too sure but its likely) but their are also a lot of people living and working in Houston, my county is in and out on a 15 minute drive yet it most of the youth and even young adults have been in jail and on probation at least 2 or 3 times and the teenagers are hooked on either crack heroin or meth, im lucky I made it out alive because the people I dealt with would light you up if you made a wrong move.
Just not a big fan of crime in my area I guess... but when I travel north I seem to never cross shady people like I do here, they are everywhere!

 

[Josiah]

Kind of like how Clinton and Obama talked about how illegal immigration had to be stopped but as soon as Trump talks about stopping illegal immigration it's suddenly racist and sanctuary cities spring up all over the place?

Yes. Exactly like that.

 

[tango]

Well for some reason here in Texas Sexual Assault of a Child are usually committed by work permitted migrants and they magically disappear before they get caught.
So I do mean child sex offenders in the neighborhood, it's kind of scary because the three recent ones I have known for years! All changed their names and skipped the country! Now I am not saying that every sex offender in town was a migrant but it's always the migrants that make the papers headlines because they aren't caught while the other ones are easily traced and are filed under police blotter.

Sure, you want to know if people nearby are dangerous. Although it seems pretty easy to keep an eye on the kids - back when I was a child I was allowed to roam much more freely than is normal these days and there's no way anyone could know that every single person I might have encountered was "safe".

Also yes crooked boarder patrol works with the cartel and that's another thing that needs to be enforced, couldn't they rotate these men so they know not who they are dealing with? Maybe set up sting operations to test boarder patrol?
That could prevent drug smuggling tunnels at least a little bit, seeing its the only way possible to a team could get away with digging on a vast scale. Heat detection technology plays a good role in spotting intruders.

It's hard to know just what best to do about border patrol agents accepting bribes. It's not realistic to pay each and every agent enough that bribing one or two is financially ruinous for the drug cartels so aside from a lot of random rotation there's only so much you can do. Since agents will be working at least reasonably close to where they live there's only so much rotation that can be done. Agents need a reasonable amount of notice to know where and when they are working, so they can easily communicate it to the cartel so people know when they can get busy digging. For good measure the drug lords have probably got more than enough money to bribe the more senior staff to make sure the shift change is a bit slow and that certain people are working.

Heat detection can be a useful tool but one potential issue relates to where it is used, what limitations it has, and what can be done about it. Technically if the wall is built a few feet inside the US it becomes reasonable to take steps against anyone who is even standing next to the wall without the appropriate paperwork for immigration violations. Practically it would require a smaller wall so people couldn't claim they didn't know where the border was on the basis it wasn't marked at all. If the wall is literally right on the border it becomes harder to do much of anything - even if you could demonstrate that Mexicans were within a few feet of the wall digging a hole there's very little that could be done, given they were Mexican nationals digging a hole on Mexican soil. You'd probably only be able to do anything about it once they tunneled under the wall and into US soil, and you'd still struggle to actually arrest them until they emerged above ground on US soil. Anyone who is even a little bit smart would dig from a house to a house so their handiwork could go longer before being spotted.

Anyway, maybe its no threat to northern states but Texas is shaped like a hook hung up with Mexico and that's where I am, so there are a massive amount of drug traffickers and human traffickers around where I live and they are VERY paranoid people who are but a hop skip and a jump away in Mexico if need be.. they have no problem waving their guns in your face and pulling out knives, I hardly go to my home town anymore because I have been threatened too many times and while at work, the cartel is very much alive in my parts and im technically a minority where I live so they walk all over me if they believe I am suspicious of them, which makes it obvious that they aren't bluffing when they threaten you. So with border patrol I believe cracking down on drug smuggling should be a main priority because drug pushers bring in a lot of criminal activity, I live in a small town and we have one of the highest crime rates per volume in Texas, my counties newspaper is littered with criminal activity and police blotter, this means that Houston for example probably has the highest crime rate in Texas (not too sure but its likely) but their are also a lot of people living and working in Houston, my county is in and out on a 15 minute drive yet it most of the youth and even young adults have been in jail and on probation at least 2 or 3 times and the teenagers are hooked on either crack heroin or meth, im lucky I made it out alive because the people I dealt with would light you up if you made a wrong move.
Just not a big fan of crime in my area I guess... but when I travel north I seem to never cross shady people like I do here, they are everywhere!

I don't think many people are big fans of crime. How much of the problem is north/south and how much is city/rural?

 

[Andrew]

I don't think many people are big fans of crime. How much of the problem is north/south and how much is city/rural?

Not sure what you are asking but crime in general seems to peak about where I live (Houston area) and then once you hit Austin area it's like another world, south from where I live I never had close encounters with thugs, pretty silent in the valley because of tourist and south padre islands and the beach and border patrol is very tight, the check points are no joke, they'll make you nervous when you are doing nothing wrong... Everyone pretty much plays nice because of patrol presence. It's the area from Victoria up to Houston that I guess would be considered the crime belt. Where I live people have no shame and the cops are too busy arresting people to arrest more.. wow its sad but true