Can Trump really "close the border?"?

Trump is ridiculous.

There is always a way in (or out), even if you built a wall. Ask the Germans in Berlin. What you need to do is eliminate the reason for illegal immigration by improving conditions in Mexico, or cracking down on employers that take advantage of cheap labor. The US seems to be using a third approach, kill off the economy, lower wages and benefits. Keep it up and one day illegal immigration may switch direction.

Any type of wall or fortification can be overcome by a determined adversary.

The border remains porous for the simple reason that it is an extremely effective method of depressing wages in the United States, once more facilitating the transfer of wealth and assuring the maxim that the rich get richer.

No one can close it completely, but probably it can be improved. It’s much better than it used to be. I agree with @stanleybmanly that it was left porous on purpose, and that the government and many businesses looked the other way about illegal immigration, because they were making money.

China once built a huge wall to keep the barbarians out. It didn’t work then ether.

Take whatever Trump says and believe the opposite.

I love it when these Rep/con blow hards sound off, they show the world what they really are ,spoiled rich kids that want to play God.

Somebody should.

Easier to just go under it. They dug a mile long tunnel to get a guy out of jail. I wouldn’t be shocked if there wasn’t already hundreds of undiscovered tunnels to get drugs across.

@johnpowell

You’re right about the tunnels for drugs. That was El Chspo’s specialty in the drug trade, so it’s no wonder that’s the method he chose to get out of jail.

I don’t know if there are literally hundreds of them but there are plenty enough to keep the drug business alive and well.

Trump brags about his wall building capabilities but hasn’t said anything about anti-tunnel efforts. But people love the sound of his bragadoccio rhetoric because he knows how to make it sound as if something will be getting done while, in reality, things will remain essentially unchanged.

The border is very long. I would bet that some drug lords have bought a few hundred acres on both sides of the border. Trucks go into what looks like a warehouse, tunnel, come out in what looks like a barn on a cattle ranch. That is what I would do if I wasn’t so lazy and really cared about money.

Anybody could.

It should be closed.

No.

“Israel has another fence along its western border with Egypt, which was built to stem the “unfettered flow of illegal infiltrators, the smuggling of drugs and weapons” into Israel, according to the Defense Ministry, and to keep African migrants out of the country. Construction on the $400 million fence began in 2011 and took two years. Stretching 140 miles along the border, it stands between 15 and 20 feet high and is topped with barbed wire. The wall was a success: 43 African migrants entered Israel in 2013, compared to 17,000 in 2011.” All other walls of which there are several , have mostly failed.

Walls protecting borders work. A nation without borders is not a nation.

A wall that is needed minimally may only be as good as any lock: It keeps honest people, or those not willing to go to too much trouble, out. I think the wall should be built like the Berlin wall was.

It might be worth noting that the Berlin Wall wasn’t built to keep anyone out, but rather to keep people in. No one in East Berlin wanted to remain in East Berlin so the communist authorities had to build a wall (and shoot anyone who tried to scale it) to keep people from leaving.