What good will building a fence on the mexican border do?

Question

Its not hard to jump it or dig a hole under it, why are they complaining?

Answer 1

It will give border patrol agents more time to apprehend illegals.

Answer 2

These kind of things are more symbolic than anything else. For example, a flag does absolutely nothing, but it is a very important symbol. The fence only sends a message that we are actively trying to stop illegal immigration. The message goes for the U.S. and for Mexico.

Also, there is a saying in the military: "You cannot stop the enemy, you can only slow them down"

This saying may apply to the fence, if you need a more concrete explanation for the fence. We cannot stop people from crossing the border, we can only slow them down.

Answer 3

well I am assuming that it won't just be a 4 foot high chain length fence, it will probably have cement footings (stopping the digging under part) and barbed wire on top (stopping the going over part) and it will probably be solid so you can't break through. And if nothing else at least it is sending a message. At least someone is doing something , maybe it will get Congress moving to do somehting else.

Answer 4

It'll be prison time for people trying to tunnel under it, when caught, and there'll be a lot less people crossing it....and I think it will do a LOT of good, frankly, especially for those american communities adjacent to the border that've been directly and heavily impacted in some really negative ways by the influx of illegal aliens who've helped themselves to our borders previously. The people arguing against the border are pro-illegal, likely profiting from the whole situation also.

Answer 5

It will be a peice of sh**. The Soviets had a really tough time with a one mile fence in East Berlin until later on they build a concrete one which really did the trick. But the US govt. can't afford to do that across 1,000 miles so instead there's going to be a relatively cheap fence that won't stop anybody.

Answer 6

For example, over a 10 -mile stretch of the border near San Diego, arrests of illegal immigrants have plummeted from about 25,000 per year three years ago to 3,000 per year today. Violent crimes have virtually come to a halt in that area, according to the San Diego PD. [Valerie Alvord, “Border fence plan runs into a barrier,” USA Today, April 19, 2004

The reason? The government built a fence. Or more precisely, a complex of two 16-foot high steel fences separated by a wide road.

It takes so much time to climb the first fence and cut through the second that apprehension is practically inevitable. Illegals have simply stopped trying to enter along the fenced border.

Of course, the San Diego fence pushed the illegal influx eastward, into the desert. Which is good, because the desert is more difficult to cross. But Arizona apprehensions climbed from 160,000 in 1994 to 376,000 in 2003. Texas apprehensions rose slightly. [Table 1]. California apprehensions were cut in half.

So why not fence off the entire border?

This is what the project might cost:

The southern border is 1,951 miles long

The 14-mile San Diego fence cost $25 million, or $1.7 million per mile [Source: James Goldsborough, San Diego Union-Tribune, February 19, 2004].

The security fence Israel is building on the West Bank also costs about $1.7 million per mile. [Source: ParaPundit.]

Conclusion: At $1.7 million per mile, the entire U.S.-Mexican border could be sealed off for $3.3 billion dollars

Juxtaposed to other infrastructure projects, this border fence seems downright puny. The Federal interstate highway system, for example, is about 46,000 miles long. A 1,951-mile border fence would certainly not be more difficult to build than the equivalent length of eight-lane highway. All told there are about 4 million miles of public streets and highways in the U.S. [Bureau of Transportation Statistics, National Transportation Statistics 2003, March 2004.
And we could easily afford a fence. For perspective, remember that 3.3 billion dollars represents just:

3.2 percent of the $104 billion spent on highway construction annually [Source: National Transportation Statistics 2003,

0.7 percent of the defense budget for FY2004 ($452 billion)

0.14 percent of the entire U.S. Federal budget for FY2004 ($2.3 trillion) [Source: OMB, Budget of the U.S. Government FY2005, Historical Tables

Federal funding may not even be necessary. The state of California has only 140 miles of the U.S.-Mexican border. Securing that state’s border with Mexico would thus cost about $238 million. Theoretically, California voters could pass an initiative ordering the fence.

California taxpayers would save millions in social service costs currently incurred on behalf of illegal immigrants—I estimated in 2003 that nearly one quarter of the state’s annual budget deficit, i.e. over $9 billion a year, stemmed directly from immigration.

At the same time, a dwindling supply of illegal workers would raise incomes for native Californians—and boost tax revenues.

The fence would quickly pay for itself.

What are we waiting for?

Think about it maybe the fence is worth it after all.

Answer 7

Well, as a Mexican I can tell you that it will sure help us in not seeing many of our country people risking their lives to what they think is a better way of living. It will help us to make our government conscience that we have a huge need of jobs here and not only speeches.
I will help us to see that USA has no friends at all but only interest, so we have to turn our face to our Latin American brothers and try to make a Latin American united and strong.
Please build your wall and stop saying that people in Mexico is complaining about it.
I guess you agree that government not necessarily means all the people of a country.

Answer 8

I'm not sure what a fence will do. I just hope they will build a huge fence so that no one will be able to come over the border.

Answer 9

It will do no good,....unless we have an armed guard every 50ft! Even if we guard it, they will still find someway to get across.

Where there is a will, there is a way. Don't underestimate the desire to provide a better life for oneself and family.

This will also help cement our already negative image around the world ....I think to help counter act this negative image; in an attempt to be politically correct, we should build a wall along the Canadian & Us borders as well! We certainly would not want to appear prejudice or discriminatory against any one country!!

Answer 10

Hopefully if we fund the border patrol properly then it will slow down the flow on illegals into the U.S. I for one think that we could use the 15 Billion a year that illegals in this country are sending to Mexico.

Answer 11

they should make it very high so it would be hard to go over. Electrocute it too. as for under it, I don't know any solution for that except to dig deep and start the fence from there.