Border Wall is an Investment

Letters to the Editor
Palm Beach Post
Point of View
February 11, 2019

The U.S.-Mexico border wall is an investment with guaranteed return

President Donald Trump’s border wall will save American taxpayers billions of dollars every year, easily surpassing the project’s $5.7 billion price tag.

By providing the relatively modest funding the president needs to build a physical barrier along strategic portions of the U.S.-Mexico border, Congress will be making a true investment in border security -- one that will quickly pay for itself by slashing the staggering financial burden of illegal immigration.

A 2017 study conducted by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) concluded that illegal immigrants cost U.S. taxpayers around $116 billion every year — 23 times more than the cost of the proposed border wall.

Although a wall won’t directly address the 12 million or more illegal immigrants already residing in the country, each illegal immigrant that it stops will save taxpayers a little more than $8,000 per year, even after factoring in the taxes that they pay.

Since 2015, U.S. Border Patrol agents have apprehended about half a million people trying to enter the country illegally every year, on average, but at least that many manage to evade detection and slip through our porous southern border. In areas where we have already constructed border fencing, the rate of illegal immigration has plummeted by around 90 percent, suggesting that the new border wall could save taxpayers at least $3.2 billion every year.

The real cost of illegal immigration is likely far greater than what FAIR estimates, however, especially considering the role that border security plays in the drug trade and the ongoing opioid epidemic. During his Oval Office Address to the nation in January, President Trump revealed that the cost of the illegal drug trade is more than $500 billion per year.

An estimated 90 percent of the illegal narcotics smuggled into the U.S. come across the southern border, and while opponents of the president’s border security agenda often claim that the vast majority of illegal narcotics are smuggled in through ports of entry, it is impossible to know exactly how many drug shipments go through undetected along unguarded sections of the border. The argument also neglects to consider that additional border barriers will allow the Border Patrol to focus more of its resources on monitoring legal entry points.

“We need the agents to be able to respond when there is traffic to the area, and we need access and mobility,” Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost said last year while praising the president’s proposal. “A lot of the areas along the border are very difficult for us to access.”

Notably, a majority of Border Patrol agents support building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, agreeing that a physical barrier is necessary for them to effectively do their job of protecting American communities. According to a poll conducted by the National Border Patrol Council last year, 89 percent of agents think that a “wall system in strategic locations is necessary to securing the border.”

Sadly, obstructionist Democrats led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have chosen to ignore the immense savings that a border wall offers, ludicrously pretending that their uncompromising refusal to provide the necessary funding stems from some heretofore-undiscovered sense of fiscal responsibility.

The truth is, funding the border barriers President Trump has proposed is the most fiscally responsible thing Congress can do when it comes to border security.

JULIO GONZALEZ, WEST PALM BEACH