Border Wall to Cost at Least $3 Million Per Mile

The federal government will have to reach deep into taxpayers' pockets if it goes ahead with plans to build a security wall along the U.S.-Mexican border – it could cost at least $3 million per mile.

President Bush this week sent Congress a $1.9 billion request to increase border security. But that money would go not only for new fencing, but also for 1,000 new Border Patrol agents, the temporary deployment of up to 6,000 National Guard troops, two new surveillance aircraft and five helicopters.

In December the House voted to build a security barrier – with a double set of steel walls, floodlights, surveillance cameras and motion detectors – along 700 miles of the 1,952-mile border.

After the House vote, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., estimated that the 700-mile barrier would cost $2.2 billion, or about $3 million mile.

NewsMax looked toward Israel as an example and found that the 425-mile complex of fences, concrete walls, trenches and razor wire it is building along its border with the West Bank will cost $1.56 billion, or $3.67 million per mile – in an area where labor costs are far lower than in the United States.

A 14-mile, 15-foot-high double fence is now under construction near San Diego. Roughly $39 million has been spent on the project so far, and Homeland Security plans to spend $35 million more.

"If that $74 million is enough to finish the job [Border Patrol says the cost could keep rising] and the price is multiplied over the proposed 700 miles, the new fence could run $3.7 billion," the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

"Even that estimate doesn't take into account the expense of purchasing or condemning many miles of privately owned land abutting the border or of potential legal challenges."

At $3.7 billion, the 700-mile fence would cost $5.28 million per mile – or an astounding $1,000 per foot.

The fence near San Diego has slowed the flood of illegal aliens traveling through the border city of Imperial Beach, Calif., from about 2,000 a day to just a few a day on average.

That has driven aliens and drug smugglers to more remote and treacherous migration routes, and migrants increasingly hire smugglers to help them make the three-day hike through parched terrain – a tactic they could use to circumvent the new 700-mile fence.

So building the fence could turn out to be an expensive boondoggle, according to Mike Allen, director of the McAllen, Texas, Economic Development Corp.

"We want people to support our immigration laws because we live here," said Allen, whose home is half a mile from the border.

"But this will be a tremendous waste of money, and it will not stop immigration. People will just go around it."

The only solution that will work, according to a number of anti-immigration activist groups, is to build the fence along the entire 1,952-mile border.

Cut out the welfare and other benefits of every kind and go after the employers of the illegals at little cost. That'll stop the influx and start an exodus. This is the one plan the White House doesn't want.

Dream on. The courts, ACLU, La Raza, the Dems, and the Catholic church will never let that happen. Moreover, there is quite a support network in the US, which will help them to stay here regardless. According to the 2000 census there are 9 million Mexican-born residents in the US.

The idea that these people will go home because they don't receive welfare and other benefits is delusional. These people have come here at great personal risk and expense. They are leaving Mexico and Central America where they have no hope and opportunity. Being poor, uneducated, and jobless in America still beats being poor, undeducated and jobless in Mexico and Central America. Why would they want to return to those hell holes?

The idea of the cost of the wall versus the cost of health care and education for the illegals is a false choice. Neither is acceptable.

Why isn't a wall or fence acceptable if it reduces the flow of illegals across our borders? How do we maintain our sovereignty as a nation if people can cross into our country without any scrutiny? These are not false choices. We are also told that it is impossible to deport 11 to 20 million people. Do you honestly believe that we have the political will to deny children access to school, school lunches, medical treatment at ERs, etc?

BTW, what's the Adminstration's position on anchor babies, one of the greatest rip-offs in present-day American history? Don't answer. I already know the issue is NOT being addressed, nor will it.

It should be. What do you do with the millions of illegals who have anchor babies? You can't deport the children or deny them the rights of citizenship including social benefits.

When you have a water pipe break in the basement, the first thing you do is shut off the water. Then you can deal with the water damage. We need to gain control over our southern border and crackdown on visa overstays first.

I have been noticing articles around the web where illegals and their enablers are moaning that over half of them will not get any sort of work permit, let alone citizenship. The *path to citizenship* will take years for only some of them. Other articles moan about those who did not meet the 1986 requirements and never became legal. We survived and prospered as a nation.

As for the schools, I live in an area with very few Mexicans. Our demographics are forcing school consolidations and shutdowns, as there simply aren't enough kids. In a town of under 5k people and a county under 35k, we have 5 private schools, 3 of them Christian and scads of homeschoolers. The ability of illegals to use the schools depends upon a SCOTUS ruling, which only Congress can overcome with a law that cannot be ruled unconstitutional. If every single illegal became a voter tomorrow, they would then be paying taxes. As it is, even if they are renting, they are paying property taxes. Being human, they will not be happy if their taxes increase and their children will not necessarily go on to have a lot of children. It seems to me that the public education system is already a mess. Perhaps overloading it with 1st generation citizens will bring it down, end it and Americans will continue to shift to homeschool and private school. Perhaps not, but it seems to me that neither scenario is a guarantee.

As of July 1, 2006, only citizens can receive Medicaid. While ERs still have to provide services to everyone who enters, that is a Federal law and applies to all of us, in every state. Perhaps food stamps and general assistance are extremely generous in the SW border states and in the blue cities. I know that here, in a blue state, the food stamp grant is about $80/month in our generous county and the amount varies from county to county. Full disability for people who did not earn above $15k/annually on the books is only about $500/month. Section 8 housing grants limit rent to 1/3 of income in any one month and are reviewed monthly. If the working recipient gets food stamps, they do not get the Earned Income tax credit. If someone on disability works on the books in any given month and earns over the minimum allowed, they get a bill from their Medicaid provider for the difference. I know families who had extreme medical problems and received these minimal amounts while their kids were under 18. They lose those benefits when the kids turn 19, if they go to college. No earned income at all once the kids are independent. Even SSI turns out to be a very small amount of money, about $250 or less a month for an impoverished senior last time I heard. The result of this is that many people are only on disability for a short period of time and have every incentive to get back into the workforce. Yes, some people have 4-5 kids and no marriage and receive entitlements until the last kid leaves. Many have generational dependency. Some communities are dysfunctional. But not all are and not every individual in these communities continues the pattern. Many die young. It just isn't a straight line increase into infinity and, of course, it cannot be, as those of us who work and pay taxes are also aging. Eventually, all cows go dry.

Polls I have seen show that legal voters of Hispanic origin still split their vote. There are Hispanic groups, such as You Don't Speak For Me, who do not support the illegals.

Bush can only use the bully pulpit. Congress makes the laws and the SCOTUS is the only branch that can overturn them. The trick is to pass constitutional laws and confirm constructionist judges.

JMO, but if Canada could elect a Conservative (by their standards) government, I doubt that true socialism will take hold here. I am not so sanguine about some of the border states and areas with large blue cities, but the NE blue states are losing more taxpayers than they are gaining illegals and dependents and will lose Electoral College votes by 2011. Notice that the left is trying to gin up support to dump the EC.

Our system is difficult to change, thanks to the wisdom of the Founders. People being people, there will not be a 100% support for anything in any demographic. We survived 8 years of Clinton. We survived FDR and 20 or so years of entrenched Soviets inside the government. We survived LBJ's Great Society. It is just as likely that we will survive whatever 2006 and 2008 bring, as difficult as it could become.

An easement is generally a comparatively narrow strip wide enough for laying any underground pipes or wires or erecting telephone poles or similar items.

The Bush wall will need a much, much wider buffer zone for patrol roads, installation of special electronics, lookout points, even wrestling mats for captures.

Now with eminent domain handed us by the liberals and mushies on the Supreme Court, it will be easy for the government to condemn and grab large pieces of private land from our American owners. The lawsuits that will emanate from this will be never-ending. The lawyers will again be handed a bonanza.

Ah, but the construction of the Wall will be so much fun to watch and will be such a visible structure of comfort.

During which time up to 20-30 million illegals already in this country will be granted amnesty while everyone is busy googling the Wall every night on TV.

One of the greatest sleights-of-hand in American history.

Reduce the welfare benefits to illegals gradually and set a time-limit on receiving them at all. Go after the greedy businessmen hiring the illegals. Eliminate the anchor baby scam.

Grant the illegals fare and a generous amount of money for sustenance for the trip back to their homes.

Watch a gradual exodus happen before our very eyes......without building an unworkable, exorbitantly-priced, pork barrel wall. The incentives for foreign hordes wanting to invade this country, jobs and welfare, must be removed. A wall will not accomplish this at all.

Yes, for a while the illegals will march across the border. However, no workee, no eatee..... then watch them decide to stay home and aggravate Senor Fox for a change.

Leni

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