Posted on 09/19/2015 9:16:38 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
In 2005 then-Governor of Arizona Janet Napolitano famously said that building a wall on the southern border of the United States to stem the flow of illegal immigration would be ineffective. “You show me a 50-foot wall and I’ll show you a 51-foot ladder at the border. That’s the way the border works,” she argued.
That deep seeded focus on domestic security was apparently enough for President Obama to eventually appoint her as head of the Department of Homeland Security, overseeing the safety of the American people.
An actual wall designed to keep unknown individuals and potential terrorists out of the country, however, was never part of the security infrastructure and was never effectively implemented in the years following.
Because, of course, walls don’t work.
Except when you are building them in foreign countries.
Though the broader mainline media refuses to touch this story, it shows just how politicized the debate over illegal immigration in the United States has become.
A wall is apparently good enough to stop Boko Haram terrorists in Africa, but would do little in the way of stopping the rising tide of undocumented immigration into the U.S.
The Diffa assembly proved to be a modest success not merely for its distrustful tribes but also to get a tiny team of fewer than 20 US Special Operations Forces running an experiment which is a part of President Barack Obama’s new counterterrorism strategy.
The soldiers, who helped supply a ring of security and supported the assembly, wear uniforms, as well as don’t go into battle.
They have been gently attempting to help Niger construct a wall against the incursions of Boko Haram and its own recruiting of the youth in Diffa.
In Niger, Nigeria, Chad and elsewhere, they may be performing Obama’s comparatively low-risk strategy of countering Islamic extremists by locating local partners prepared to fight as an alternative to deploying combat troops from the thousands.
To be fair, President Obama and Secretary Napolitano did build a border fence; part of it at least.
In fact, the President made it clear in 2011 that the multi-billion dollar border fence was “basically complete.”
Of course, it was a full year prior to Obama’s statement that DHS, acting under authority from Janet Napolitano and President Obama, actually halted the construction of said fence.
“Not only do we have an obligation to secure our borders, we have a responsibility to do so in the most cost-effective way possible,” wrote DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano in a press release Tuesday. “The system of sensors and cameras along the Southwest border known as SBInet has been plagued with cost overruns and missed deadlines.”
The reported cost of the failed fence was pegged to somewhere in the range of $6.5 billion.
Since then not much has been done to secure the Southern border because of the high-cost of such an initiative. However, it appears that spending billions of dollars on U.S. military personnel and supplies to help Niger secure their country from Boko Haram terrorists by, of all things, building a wall, is a cost-effective undertaking.
Meanwhile, back in the United States, illegal immigration through the completely wide open border with Mexico is reportedly costing American taxpayers some $100 billion per year – fully 15 times what it would have cost to build a border fence or wall.
Undocumented immigrants continue to flood in and the threat of real terrorists originating from the middle east and elsewhere remains at an all time high. In fact, just last year Congressman Jason Chaffetz reported that Federal agents captured four individuals with ties to the Islamic State attempting to cross into the United States.
“There were actually four individuals trying to cross through the Texas border, who were apprehended at two different stations, that do have ties to known terrorist organizations in the Middle East.”
Those are the ones we caught, but how many have slipped through?
According to a report from Atlanta’s WSB-TV2, there are literally hundreds of thousands of OTM’s, or Other-Than-Mexicans, making their way into the United States every year.
We, of course, have no idea who they are, where they are going, or what their intentions are.
People of means around the world seem to understand the concept of building a wall around their property and residence to provide for security.
Yeah we have a cinder block wall around three sides of our property with a decorative fence and gate on the front here and Guam is not a high crime place
Another Janet: American’t.
But it’s not that we can’t.
It’s because they won’t.
Show them all the door: go Trump.
https://www.facebook.com/erika.andiola?ref=br_rs
China built a wall once. They musta had a reason.
Bush helped Mexico build a wall between Mexico and Guatemala, with helos and tanks and IR cameras. So there is a precedent.
Show me a 50 ft. wall and I’ll show you a 51 ft. Mexican.
And uses to steal copper wire from power lines.
Note that the Founding States uniquely gave the House of Representatives the “power of the purse” (1.7.1) so that the House could stop unpopular spending of tax dollars by defunding a project.
Also note that Justice Joseph Story had indicated that Congress is not to use the General Welfare Clause (1.7.1) as justification for foreign aid.
“If the tax be not proposed for the common defence, or general welfare, but for other objects, wholly extraneous, (as for instance, for propagating Mahometanism among the Turks, or giving aids and subsidies to a foreign nation, to build palaces for its kings, or erect monuments to its heroes,) it would be wholly indefensible upon constitutional principles [emphases added].” — Justice Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution 2 (1833) .
So how did Obama get the funding to build a security wall in Africa, this funding not only seemingly beyond the reach of the House’s power of the purse, but unconstitutional as well?
The problem, imo, is that Obama’s first, corrupt Democratic-controlled Congress completely defeated the purpose of the purse clause by passing the unconstitutional Stimulus Package and Obamacare laws. By doing so, Congress gave Obama billions of unconstitutional federal tax revenues which Obama was unaccountable for, essentially making Obama financially independent of Congress.
The ill-conceived 17th Amendment needs to disappear, and corrupt senators who helped lawless Obama to become financially independent of the House along with it.
ping
Mexico was having a problem with illegal aliens.
Probably send our border patrol too!
Deport Obama and his clan
They are illegal aliens and Muslims
There Trump, said it for you
The Berlin wall worked, the Great Wall of China worked, the Israeli wall is working now.
Of course a wall will work.
Napolitano is full of beans. A 51 foot ladder will deter many from crossing, leaving the border patrol to have to deal with fewer illegals who do manage to cross. Too, getting over a high wall with a load of weapons or drugs is much more difficult than simply walking them across as is the situation now.
Show me a 51 foot ladder and I'll show you a long drop to the ground on the other side, hopefully into the mine field.
I call that 51-foot ladder and raise you a Barrett 50 cal, Janet.
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