Re BITMAP - there are benefits best not discussed in a public forum.
A tourniquet stops all blood flow while it is in place. A wall WILL NOT do that. That is the lie in the sound bite that is “build the wall”
Like trying to stop bleeding with a towel instead of a TQ, it’s better than nothing and might buy you some time but the hemorrhage will continue.
I’m not opposed to walls in places they make sense but they are no panacea and there are better uses for the rest of that money.
Put another way I am all for spending an extra $$5 billion on border security but dumping it all into building a wall is a losing proposition.
An overlooked factor is even if you built a “proper wall” along the entire border it will take years to do so. The sections of fence being built right now in TX are being built using funds appropriated during the Obama administration.
In the past we had large numbers of single Mexican males, most were quickly turned around the same day and many were repeat customers, a 170,000 mexican apprehensions in the old days might represent 50,000 individuals being apprehended 2, 3, or 4 times. And when they were apprehended, they were run for warrants and criminal history, given a sack lunch and returned via a land border ports within 24 hours with no additional paperwork.
The 170,000 you are talking about are mostly OTM and are mostly family units and kids. Since the SF judge predictably blocked implementation of the 1996 Act’ s provisions for asylum seekers waiting in Mexico pending adjudication of their claims, even if you built an impenetrable wall, all they have to do is walk across the bridge at a port of entry and say I want asylum and they get in. They may get detained for a bit (20 days max if they have a minor kid) but they cannot legally and therefore will not be force to go back into Mexico. These people aren’t stupid and the word got out a long time ago that a kid with you is a get out of jail free card. Why do you think we’re are seeing kids being rented and recycled with different illegal crossers ?
The catch 22 is if the remain in Mexico provisions are finally placed in effect, those people who were walking across the bridge will now cross illegally because once they are US soil they have a statutory and treaty obligation right to make a claim for asylum. Most of those are denied after long, expensive and pointless litigation, but we signed a treaty and passed a law making it that way so we are stuck with it for the moment. when that happens, they will do anything necessary to go over, under, through or around that wall. We already see in it section with walls. Trucks with ramps, ladders, to go over, cutting torches and jacks to go through etc. )
Then you are back to the real problem we have now which all come back to a lack of consequences for illegal entry and false claims or a consequences so delayed they are meaningless.
logistical issues include
- inability to detain family units and minors
- lack consequences for false fear claims encouraging false and frivolous fear claims which negate the expedited removal processes put in place in 1996 to alleviate the overburdened immigration court system
- Low bar for “credible fear” encouraging false claims and shoving 80% of claims into the already overburdened court system
- An 800,000 case backlog in the immigration courts and only 394 immigration judges to handle it. This is actually an increase of over 100 judges from the Obama era.
- Due to th backlog, the current wait for a non-custody immigration hearing is now 3 years and it takes more than one hearing to adjudicate most cases so it can take 5-10 years of litigation to complete cases.
- many never show up or their hearings - they are then ordered deported in absentia (or at least they are supposed to be) but they can and often do request reopening of their cases.
-if they do show up they are not taken into custody at their hearing if ordered deported.
- Even if the OTMs are denied asylum and ordered deported they must be held for weeks in order to obtain travel documents from their home country and fly them back. We literally have multiple charter flights a week going to each of the northern triangle countries but it all takes, time, money and man power. They old days of a BP Agent grabbing a van and taking people back to the bridge the same day are over.