Killer's southern wall epitomizes his legacy to the nation: a porous boondoggle that cost 'Merika and NOT Mexico billions, and that wrecked fragile desert ecosystems during its construction. {14.02.18} When he touted his great southern wall would be"impregnable" as a panacea for illegal immigration he said, "I would build a great wall--and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me. And I’ll build them very inexpensively...I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will have Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.” As can be expected his rhetoric is far from reality, but then Killer does not deal in reality, only fantasy.
By the end of this term he built, using funds scavenged from other appropriations under "emergency" authorization ($14.97 billion), about 450 miles of barrier--not a wall--at a cost of at least five times that of existing border barriers. Mexico did not pay a dime. It is estimated that since barrier building began under the Secure Fence Act (2007) signed by a predecessor in office, illegal immigration was reduced about 0.4%.
Border barriers started to be erected in 1996 when 'Bubba' Clinton signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act. New barriers went up in urban areas where most illegal crossings take place, forcing illegals to cross in the desert where they could be more easily apprehended or die of exposure. Under previous administrations, about 652 miles of border barriers were built when Killer took office in 2016, mostly between El Paso and San Diego along a border 2,000 miles long. See, China, Britain and Berlin. On the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Killer said: “Let the fate of the Berlin Wall be a lesson to oppressive regimes and rulers everywhere: No Iron Curtain can ever contain the iron will of a people resolved to be free.” His pompous rhetoric did not stop him from building his own 'iron curtain'.
Truthfully the barriers do little to restrict illegal immigration since an estimated two-thirds of undocumented immigrants overstay their entry visas. Wisely, Joe Biden stopped funding wall construction when he took office. Now, conservationists are urging him to "tear down this wall" since it interferes with wildlife foraging and reproducion, as well as scarring a wildly beautiful desert landscape. No wall is truly impregnable as the photo of a cougar atop it demonstrates. Human immigrants have used homemade ladders, tunnels, and an angle grinder purchased at a local Home Depot to circumvent Killer's lunatic folly.
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| King no more.... |