Trump, Immigration, and bad ideas.

Trump, Immigration, and bad ideas.

A political Rant… You have been warned!

So, the Donald wants to be President of the United States. Fair enough. He meets the minimal requirements set forth in the Constitution. (Natural both citizen and 35 years old or older.) Why I think he is bad for this country will be in another rant. For now, let’s only look at the one policy that he has gone into detail. Immigration.

Trump has purposed three major points on this. First, to build a wall on the southern border. Secondly, to depot all illegal immigrates in the U.S. And finally to remove birth right citizenship for so-call “Anchor babies.”

First, the Wall. The idea for a wall can go back to the Great Wall of China. A modern belief is that the wall was built to keep the enemies at bay. And in certain sections that is indeed correct. However, it was mainly built to keep a sitting and bored army busy and not wanting to take over the country. The modern version of a border wall can be seen in the Berlin Wall (93.6 mile) or even the fence with Israel and the West bank (308.8 miles). These were designed to keep some people out and others in.

The problem here is the magnitude of cost and scale. The border with Mexico is slightly over 1900 miles long. Part of that border is a major river (the Rio Grande), harsh desert area, and private lands. The private lands would have be either bought or seized as emanate domain. Native American lands would be divided, animal habitat would be destroyed, and water rights would become an issue. (Ask the Israelis how much fun that is) That idea will go over well with small government southern conservatives. (Sarcasm intended) The cost to build such a wall is estimated at around 49 billion dollars. Naturally, there will be cost over runs. (Examples: the Big Dig in Boston and any of the Trump towers.) By the time it is completed, it could easily skyrocket to over $100 billion.

The other cost that is not being talked about is more long term. What is the cost to maintain and monitor this wall? It currently cost $6.5 billion for the 600 miles of fence that already exist. Simply math puts the minimum cost for the entire border at around $20 billion annually. And what about patrolling/monitoring? Finding solid figures for this is next to impossible. There is much talk about using tech and contractors for some of this. And currently there is a bill in Congress that would add just short of an additional 10,000 border agents at a cost of $600 million annually.

So, the cost of the Wall on the southern border is much higher than people want to talk about. Where will the monies to pay for this come from? The Donald like to say that he will get the Mexican government pay for it. Think again. They don’t care if the United States want to waste their monies. Hell, I’m betting they will find a way to make some money off of the whole thing. He talks about charging large fees to Mexican businessmen who want to come and make deals. Forget it. They will just go to one of the Caribbean islands and do their deals there. Heck, the Cayman Islands have a number of corporations claiming that is where they are based and it is all in one building.

The next part that Mr. Trump wants to do is deport all the illegal immigrants in the country. That is an estimated 11.4 million people, approximately 3.5 percent of the entire United States population. Why they are here is a topic for another conversation. But think about this. Some are here due to violence (criminal and political), economical, and still other came here as children with their families.

When asked how he planned on rounding up these people he stated that was going to keep families together and that it would be easy to find them. (He also stated that it would be done humanly. More on that later.) This shows a total lack of understanding of how illegals live in this country. They hide, they do nothing to get noticed and they do everything to look like normal citizens. (Including paying taxes, social security, and local government fees)

Think about this. Currently Congress has only budgeted (for deporting) somewhere in the neighborhood of 300,000 people. (This number could be wrong. If it is please provide correct information) Recent estimates for deporting 11.4 million people is somewhere around $285 Billion. This costs includes housing (room and board), processing, legal challenges, and transportation to home countries.

Here are some more numbers to chew on. The Migration Policy Institute gives the following demographics for illegal immigrates: about 8.1 million (71 percent of the total unauthorized population) were born in Mexico and other Central America countries. About 1.5 million (13 percent) were from Asia; 817,000 (7 percent) from South America; 455,000 (4 percent) from Europe, Canada, or Oceania; 317,000 (3 percent) from Africa; and 225,000 (2 percent) from the Caribbean. So, will Mr. Trump go after those from other countries or is he only interested in Mexico and Central America?

There is more to think about in this section, but ask yourself this: How they going to round them up? What will happen to all those nicely connected businesses that have hired them? What happens when Neighbors start report innocent people because some dispute? Where are they going to house all of them? And finally, what if a country does not want them back?

The final point is the end of Birth Right Citizenship. So let’s get it right out in the open. Here is what is says in Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment: “Section 1 - All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

So, there it is. A war was fought to bring this into being. Time and time again, the Supreme Court has ruled that being born here means you are a citizen!

The idea of natural born citizenship goes even further back than that. In Clause 5 of Article 2, it states that Qualification of a person to be President. (“No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”) So Birth Right citizenship was thought of long before the Fourteenth Amendment.

For Mr. Trump (or others in the GOP) to get the Constitution changed, they will need 290 members of the House, 67 Senators, and 38 States to want to make that change. Do you honestly expect this to happen? They can’t even agree on a budget to care for our returning Vets or repairs for the roads and Bridges!

But OK, we get rid of the Birth right Citizenship. Here is the hard question that nobody has asked but you need to start thinking about: What will be the new definition of citizenship? What do you have to do to be a citizen? In some countries, you have to trace to family back several generations. Think that will work well here in America? Birth Right Citizenship has been a staple of this country since its founding. The Fourteenth Amendment just codified it.

So, there it is. Things to think and talk about. Mr. Trump wants to spend $620 Billion annually for these policies and this doesn’t even deal with the starting of cost or time. There are other ways then the draconian ideas that the Donald has come up with. But again, that is for another rant and another day.