Posted on 05/21/2006 4:58:16 AM PDT by ovrtaxt
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.
That's $568.18 per foot.
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.
The Senate this week voted to build 370 miles of barrier.
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.
But that estimate could be way off the mark.
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.
The San Diego experience points to even higher costs.
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.
Leni
So what? We have dumped over $700 billion into stupid Iraq, and for what? Let us spend $500 billion to detain, deport and defend. Whatever the hell it takes.
Listen folks, the cost is not the issue. If every state in the nation is spending 100 million each and every single year on noise abatement on highways that is 5 billion every year so that you don't hear traffic in your livingroom.
The cost of this proposed wall by comparison is minor compared to what we are doing for the cost of stopping noise.
The real issue of the wall is not the cost, its whether it is effective in stopping illegal immigration or whether it will simply redirect the traffic somewhere else.
How much will we SAVE per mile in
no illegal burdens on the eccomnoy?
no future amnesty BS?
few voters for the democrat party?
fewer police?
fewer illegals in the jails?
the left is fond of talking about environmental impacts, then lets talk about envioronmental impact of the illegal alien upon society.
I bet we save TEN TIMES the cost of the wall.
That's about $10.5M/mi in uncompensated health-care costs PER YEAR!
The government has the authority to rightfully invoke national security to trump any environmental nonsense.
How does the cost per mile compare to Boston's Big Dig?
GWB had to be dragged kicking and screaming to PARTIALLY do the right thing, and even that is not assured UNTIL ITS DONE.
If people like me, and others on FR hadn't raised holy hell, Bush would still be twiddling his thumbs inviting our southern borders to be invaded by leftist hoards intent on revolutionizing the US.
Signed:
--a former President Bush devotee who NOW sees him as the wrong man, in the wrong place, at the wrong time---
OKay- I see your point. I have listed a 7 point plan to fix the problem, and the wall is only one point. I need to put it on my home page so I can reference it easily. Hold on...
maybe $30-40 million per mile.
Don't forget, the wall will be loaded with hi-tech sensors. That alone will add significantley to the cost.
That being said, BUILD THE WALL!
maybe $30-40 million per mile.
Maybe they should build the wall with cheap, illegal immigrant labor. Wouldn't THAT be ironic! (SARCASM)
Okay, here it is:
1 end the anchor baby policy
2 end welfare benefits for non-citizens
3 end subsidized health care for non-citizens
4 swift and harsh jailtime for employers of illegals
5 build a 1951 mile wall from the Pacific to the Gulf
6 allow non-citizens to cross into Mexico with impunity
7 Pass the FairTax
8 overthrow the current Mexican regime and install a non-corrupt, capitalistic government
sorry, 8-point.
metalstorm area deniability sytem would be cheaper faster and more effective.
Houston didn't have any problem spending $10,000 a foot to build light rail.
Wrong comparison. Compare it to the annual cost of subsidizing health care and public education for the illegal population.
The wall, even at an extremely inflated price, is a no-brainer bargain- like 3%.
I would actually prefer a Minuteman built and staffed wall. Screw the politicians- we don't need them.
Now if we could just get our money back...
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