Trump's Plan to Make Mexico Pay For the Wall

[Bloodworth]

96 actually had much higher inflation than this year.
http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/

Most of the rest of that was subjective, Detroit for example has been a shit hole for awhile. Infrastructure issues are not new problems. Patriotism levels? Dont even know what the hell that means. We certainly didnt have asinine candidates based on " 'Murica" back then. Innovation was mostly in the tech sector in silicon valley...... kinda like how most innovation is now from the tech sector in silicon valley.

What about the people? Big changes in demographics. That is why trump said wall and ameicans lit up because they are fed up.

 

[PainIsLIfe]

I, and Donald Trump, say we should do both.

We can put measures in place to prevent businesses from hiring illegals and that would put a stop to a lot of illegal immigration. But what happens after 10 yrs or so when politicians inevitably start working to repeal those laws in an effort to secure votes and donors? Now we're back to a wide open border.

You put up the wall tho and it forever cuts down on illegals no matter what immigration/economic policies we have.

Come on home Pain...stop fighting it.

Donald also said that Obama was born in Kenya and his investigators were finding all the proof; That a picture that clearly isn't R. Cruz was him; And that it wouldn't be a bad idea to pull out of NATO.

Do you really want to appeal to the authority of Trump?

 

[PainIsLIfe]

What specifically isn't practical and why?

Others have pointed out that transactions can be made using ebay for starters, Money and prepaid cc's can be mailed, and finally nearly all the illegals that I've met already have the documentation needed for the I9 - meaning that they're going to have the documentation that Trump's plan asks for to wire money.

 

[TheComebackKid]

Donald also said that Obama was born in Kenya and his investigators were finding all the proof; That a picture that clearly isn't R. Cruz was him; And that it wouldn't be a bad idea to pull out of NATO.

Do you really want to appeal to the authority of Trump?

Where am I appealing to the authority of Trump? And if I am would you rather have me appeal to the authority of Cruz or Hillary?

I'm noticing a pattern with you Pain...instead of addressing a claim, position, or topic on substance you just discredit the person making the claim or holding the position.

 

[TheComebackKid]

Others have pointed out that transactions can be made using ebay for starters, Money and prepaid cc's can be mailed, and finally nearly all the illegals that I've met already have the documentation needed for the I9 - meaning that they're going to have the documentation that Trump's plan asks for to wire money.

And others have pointed out that it still cuts down on the amount being sent back. I suppose we should outlaw anything if someone can potentially get around it.

 

[therealdope]

So a background check on every wore transfer. That will certainly be easy and cost nothing.

That already happens.

 

[therealdope]

and finally nearly all the illegals that I've met already have the documentation needed for the I9 - meaning that they're going to have the documentation that Trump's plan asks for to wire money.

What box are they checking on the I-9. Things are shifting quickly to eVerify and forged documents aren't going to cut it anymore. I'm not saying there won't be fraud in the future, but it will get much tougher.

 

[Jesus Freak]

Here is Trump's plan to make Mexico pay for the wall from his website....



I'm always hearing about how Trump never offers details...this seems pretty detailed to me. What does the war room think...would any of this work?

Walls...are...useless!

You moops eat it right up, too!

All someone has to do these days is show up to the border and say "asylum". Screw jumping walls...that's so 90's!

Welcome to America!

 

[panamaican]

Granted, a candidate can always try empty promises and platitudes to influence support, but it will be practically impossible to tear it down any time soon after it is built. Most people who aren't in favor of a wall will understand that.


If Obamacare wasn't implemented before Obama left office it would be much easier to repeal or change. I'm sure all the gop candidates would be promising to renege on that deal before it could ever happen. As it was it took well into Obama's second term just to get the website working. A wall project would go on forever.

But ending it would dry up money that's paying Americans to do the work. States along the border would be losing revenue. Almost no politician ever endorses anything that would essentially unemploy Americans, no matter how pointless the venture. And once the project is started and Americans are hired to do the work, the politics of defunding the project and firing those Americans suddenly get much more difficult.

I don't know why you're buying into the idea we have so much leverage over Mexico, and I certainly don't see the creative negotiation tactics you're talking about. I see some lame ideas that will be easy to circumvent or impossible to make happen. The very first item in the plan, the wire transfer fee, is laughable. Nobody would pay that with all the obvious ways to get around it.

I'm fine with others not seeing the leverage but I wonder if they're actually thinking it through because most of the argument is that it just won't happen, not a real investigation into either the numbers or the politics. First, we're not negotiating with the illegal immigrants. We're negotiating with the nation of Mexico. Whether or not, the illegals in the U.S. can circumvent the law isn't set in stone. In other threads, I already pointed out things like fake ebay auctions, Paypal, using legals for that purpose, etc. The point isn't if you can completely stop it. The point is that just by increasing the difficulty you reduce it's frequency. Let's take underage smoking/drinking for example. We're never going to eliminate them but because of the barriers in place, fewer people are willing to jump through the hoops necessary to avoid the law. Even a 10-20% decrease has real economic ramifications (as cigarette companies know quite well). The cost per transaction will go up as people engaged in facilitating the illegal activity will ask for a bigger fee for the risk. The risk of being cheated will make some illegals reduce how much they send through illegal back channels. You hope they buy gift cards and prepaid anything....because that becomes money first spent in the U.S., even if the ultimate product acquired is in Mexico. Just increasing the difficulty will decrease the frequency and that means fewer dollars into Mexico.

Like I said earlier, most people just assume the economic impact would be irrelevant and thus have no impact on the negotiation and I think they're wrong. I travel to India semi-regularly. If the cost suddenly increases because the U.S. does something to piss off India then I might start asking my politicians to do something about it. Depending on how many people feel the same way I do, my politicians might work hard to resolve the problem. Here we're talking about increasing the costs on Mexicans who have done nothing illegal to punish the Mexicans who have done something illegal - do you think that the guys who haven't broken the law will willingly swallow greater costs to protect the ones who did break the law?

It's not that a wall can't be a good deterrent, it is that there are too many other ways to skin that cat that aren't as divisive or hard to implement yet are probably more effective. It's also that in reality illegal immigration is hardly an issue at the moment. The juice is not worth the squeeze.

That's a matter of opinion. There are plenty of Americans who obviously think the juice is worth the squeeze. Pretty much every GOP candidate ran on some version of dealing with illegal immigration so that voting bloc cares, even if the left doesn't. And, imo, most of the soft solutions like penalizing businesses aren't real solutions either. We're not talking about Fortune 500 companies filling their ranks with illegal aliens that have HR files. We're talking mostly about farmers or contractors who are subcontracting to another contractor, gig work where the employee is only there for a few months at a time. Tracking down those guys and prosecuting the crime is not cheap and far easier to avoid.

Well you might feel a negotiating position can be strong when the deal you're trying to make is for something half the country doesn't want, but I don't. Mexico will be aware of the political pressure to stop the wall ... because it is such a dumb idea ... and they'll just wait out the 4 year term. Time is on their side.

No, it's not on their side and it's really not a dumb idea. I don't even know where the idea that a wall is a dumb idea (as opposed to an expensive one or a time consuming one) began. If you want to stop people from illegally crossing a border, you need to put a barrier at the border. Almost every nation has some form of border barrier in place, even if it's just a checkpoint. Clearly, a barrier is not a dumb idea. We already physically patrol the border to prevent people from physically crossing it. Clearly, addressing the physical act of crossing the border isn't a dumb idea either. A wall accomplishes the same task - it impedes the physical crossing of the border with a barrier. If prevention of that specific problem is your goal (people physically crossing the border) what is a better idea than a wall?

As for time, for a country with Mexico's budget and levels of reliance on the U.S. market, even a few years of disruption can be significant. Plus there's no guarantee that an incumbent Trump doesn't win a 2nd term. People said the same thing about Bush, Jr. and Obama and they were both 8 year Presidents.

Like I said earlier, I'm fine with people not seeing the leverage. If this was 2 corporations fighting it out to decide if one company would pay a settlement, I think it would go the same way. The cost of fighting is always a relevant part of the conversation and if fighting something costs more than paying a settlement over the long run then the smart decision is to pay the settlement. There's no point in costing yourself $500 fighting something that could be settled for $100. The cost of a wall is a one time payment. The cost of fighting the wall might be more. When people say there's no leverage in Trump's plan, the question is how are they calculating the costs of fighting and most people aren't bothering to do so.

 

[Rod1]

But ending it would dry up money that's paying Americans to do the work. States along the border would be losing revenue. Almost no politician ever endorses anything that would essentially unemploy Americans, no matter how pointless the venture. And once the project is started and Americans are hired to do the work, the politics of defunding the project and firing those Americans suddenly get much more difficult.



I'm fine with others not seeing the leverage but I wonder if they're actually thinking it through because most of the argument is that it just won't happen, not a real investigation into either the numbers or the politics. First, we're not negotiating with the illegal immigrants. We're negotiating with the nation of Mexico. Whether or not, the illegals in the U.S. can circumvent the law isn't set in stone. In other threads, I already pointed out things like fake ebay auctions, Paypal, using legals for that purpose, etc. The point isn't if you can completely stop it. The point is that just by increasing the difficulty you reduce it's frequency. Let's take underage smoking/drinking for example. We're never going to eliminate them but because of the barriers in place, fewer people are willing to jump through the hoops necessary to avoid the law. Even a 10-20% decrease has real economic ramifications (as cigarette companies know quite well). The cost per transaction will go up as people engaged in facilitating the illegal activity will ask for a bigger fee for the risk. The risk of being cheated will make some illegals reduce how much they send through illegal back channels. You hope they buy gift cards and prepaid anything....because that becomes money first spent in the U.S., even if the ultimate product acquired is in Mexico. Just increasing the difficulty will decrease the frequency and that means fewer dollars into Mexico.

Like I said earlier, most people just assume the economic impact would be irrelevant and thus have no impact on the negotiation and I think they're wrong. I travel to India semi-regularly. If the cost suddenly increases because the U.S. does something to piss off India then I might start asking my politicians to do something about it. Depending on how many people feel the same way I do, my politicians might work hard to resolve the problem. Here we're talking about increasing the costs on Mexicans who have done nothing illegal to punish the Mexicans who have done something illegal - do you think that the guys who haven't broken the law will willingly swallow greater costs to protect the ones who did break the law?




That's a matter of opinion. There are plenty of Americans who obviously think the juice is worth the squeeze. Pretty much every GOP candidate ran on some version of dealing with illegal immigration so that voting bloc cares, even if the left doesn't. And, imo, most of the soft solutions like penalizing businesses aren't real solutions either. We're not talking about Fortune 500 companies filling their ranks with illegal aliens that have HR files. We're talking mostly about farmers or contractors who are subcontracting to another contractor, gig work where the employee is only there for a few months at a time. Tracking down those guys and prosecuting the crime is not cheap and far easier to avoid.



No, it's not on their side and it's really not a dumb idea. I don't even know where the idea that a wall is a dumb idea (as opposed to an expensive one or a time consuming one) began. If you want to stop people from illegally crossing a border, you need to put a barrier at the border. Almost every nation has some form of border barrier in place, even if it's just a checkpoint. Clearly, a barrier is not a dumb idea. We already physically patrol the border to prevent people from physically crossing it. Clearly, addressing the physical act of crossing the border isn't a dumb idea either. A wall accomplishes the same task - it impedes the physical crossing of the border with a barrier. If prevention of that specific problem is your goal (people physically crossing the border) what is a better idea than a wall?

As for time, for a country with Mexico's budget and levels of reliance on the U.S. market, even a few years of disruption can be significant. Plus there's no guarantee that an incumbent Trump doesn't win a 2nd term. People said the same thing about Bush, Jr. and Obama and they were both 8 year Presidents.

Like I said earlier, I'm fine with people not seeing the leverage. If this was 2 corporations fighting it out to decide if one company would pay a settlement, I think it would go the same way. The cost of fighting is always a relevant part of the conversation and if fighting something costs more than paying a settlement over the long run then the smart decision is to pay the settlement. There's no point in costing yourself $500 fighting something that could be settled for $100. The cost of a wall is a one time payment. The cost of fighting the wall might be more. When people say there's no leverage in Trump's plan, the question is how are they calculating the costs of fighting and most people aren't bothering to do so.

So you are actually being serious? i thought you were simply being the devil's advocate, lol. Its not gonna happen, simple as that, i doubt Trump even believes on the idea of a wall, he is just pandering.

You pointed out there is no point in costing yourself $500 for settling something over $100, well guess what the economic cost to America would cost far more than the wall is ever going to cost.

So how do you justify that?

Also comparing tiny walled borders to one as big as the Mexico-US one is a joke, not only is the shared border huge, it also has massive traffic both economic and human.

You are also circling around the issue of the TPP and NAFTA, how does the US unilaterally retreats from those? how does the US retreats from the WTO? You simply said, lawyers will do something about it.

Well, you are a lawyer isnt? you must have an idea of what could be done about it, explain.

 

[BOWHUNTER]

This is too good to be true.

 

[Space]

Donald also said that Obama was born in Kenya and his investigators were finding all the proof; That a picture that clearly isn't R. Cruz was him; And that it wouldn't be a bad idea to pull out of NATO.

Do you really want to appeal to the authority of Trump?

To be fair, Hillary's supporters started the birther movement back in 2008 when Obama was schlonging her.

 

[panamaican]

So you are actually being serious? i thought you were simply being the devil's advocate, lol. Its not gonna happen, simple as that, i doubt Trump even believes on the idea of a wall, he is just pandering.

You pointed out there is no point in costing yourself $500 for settling something over $100, well guess what the economic cost to America would cost far more than the wall is ever going to cost.

So how do you justify that?

Also comparing tiny walled borders to one as big as the Mexico-US one is a joke, not only is the shared border huge, it also has massive traffic both economic and human.

You are also circling around the issue of the TPP and NAFTA, how does the US unilaterally retreats from those? how does the US retreats from the WTO? You simply said, lawyers will do something about it.

Well, you are a lawyer isnt? you must have an idea of what could be done about it, explain.

No offense but at this point it's become obvious you haven't read much on it. And you keep going back to points I addressed but rather than responding you repeat your first point as it's new again. But for the sake of education, I'll try again.

Let's start with trade agreements. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO WITHDRAW FROM TRADE AGREEMENTS TO DO 90% OF THE THINGS TRUMP IS PROPOSING. You can build the wall, block visas and seize remittances and never leave the TPP, NAFTA or the WTO. The only area where you might have problems is tariffs and the agreements already allow for tariffs, even if they're not always enforced. Seriously, how many times are you going to type the same thing without responding to what I wrote? You do not have to leave the trade agreeements to do what Trump is proposing. I've typed it 2x, I hope it sticks.

As for various ways to punish under the trade deals, moratoriums and retaliatory tariffs are both within the rights of either coutry under the trade rules. A simple method (from a past event) would be to claim that certain Mexican products or services don't meet new U.S. guidelines and freeze them from operating in the U.S. Mexico could challenge but it would cost time and money. The same with retaliatory tariffs (something Mexico has employed in the past), which can be unilaterally applied and then time and money is spent fighting them. While that's happening the companies/economies affected are losing money.

As to the economics of the wall - read anything on the idea of remittances and one of the common criticisms is that crushing Mexico's economy by withholding remittances would send more illegals towards us. Everyone basically realizes that we could significantly harm your economy and the fallout to us would not be a similarly harmed economy. It would be more illegals. So, it will always cost you more than it will cost us. We might lose more than the cost of the wall...you might lose an entire period of prosperity. That's not even remotely close. We waste more on empty programs than this would cost us. Mexico can't afford to waste an entire economy. Just read some stuff because even the critics of the wall acknowledge the massive economic damage that would happen to Mexico.

This is how I know you're not informing your arguments. You're claiming that things won't happen that even people who are against the wall claim will happen.

 

[Deleted member 159002]

It's strange to hear Democrats complain that Americans performing produce-picking jobs would demand higher pay. All the talk about inequality being a problem (which I agree with), but then advocating bringing in foreigners who will work for less.

 

[Renard]

Roughly 40% of the illegal immigrants are from visa overstays. Clearly that needs to be tackled, Trump doesn't really bring it up.

Looking at the statistics, illegal immigration peaked in 2007 and has been low, even negative, since. The focus should be on deportation, not a wall. The wall could be a deterrent for future illegals, in case Mexico's economy crashed again.

Nothing wrong with wanting criminals out. But I'm not sure I trust Trump to be intelligent enough to actually deliver a solution beyond the symbolism of a wall.

 

[Rod1]

No offense but at this point it's become obvious you haven't read much on it. And you keep going back to points I addressed but rather than responding you repeat your first point as it's new again. But for the sake of education, I'll try again.

Let's start with trade agreements. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO WITHDRAW FROM TRADE AGREEMENTS TO DO 90% OF THE THINGS TRUMP IS PROPOSING. You can build the wall, block visas and seize remittances and never leave the TPP, NAFTA or the WTO. The only area where you might have problems is tariffs and the agreements already allow for tariffs, even if they're not always enforced. Seriously, how many times are you going to type the same thing without responding to what I wrote? You do not have to leave the trade agreeements to do what Trump is proposing. I've typed it 2x, I hope it sticks.

As for various ways to punish under the trade deals, moratoriums and retaliatory tariffs are both within the rights of either coutry under the trade rules. A simple method (from a past event) would be to claim that certain Mexican products or services don't meet new U.S. guidelines and freeze them from operating in the U.S. Mexico could challenge but it would cost time and money. The same with retaliatory tariffs (something Mexico has employed in the past), which can be unilaterally applied and then time and money is spent fighting them. While that's happening the companies/economies affected are losing money.

As to the economics of the wall - read anything on the idea of remittances and one of the common criticisms is that crushing Mexico's economy by withholding remittances would send more illegals towards us. Everyone basically realizes that we could significantly harm your economy and the fallout to us would not be a similarly harmed economy. It would be more illegals. So, it will always cost you more than it will cost us. We might lose more than the cost of the wall...you might lose an entire period of prosperity. That's not even remotely close. We waste more on empty programs than this would cost us. Mexico can't afford to waste an entire economy. Just read some stuff because even the critics of the wall acknowledge the massive economic damage that would happen to Mexico.

This is how I know you're not informing your arguments. You're claiming that things won't happen that even people who are against the wall claim will happen.

1.- Actually you do, because the remittances are not going to break Mexico, the low oil prices for which Mexico depended, didnt broke Mexico at all. Because Mexico has a free floating currency, so it balances itself quite quickly, the peso went from 13 a dollar to 17.5 a dollar and it has remained there for quite a while with inflation still remaining low (under 3%).

I would assume that losing remittances (again ridiculous, there will always be ways to send money abroad, losing western union is nothing compared to the time where there werent even wired transactions to begin with), would simply jump the peso back a few more units up, that would mean less imports from China and more exports to the USA.

You also talk about the risk of straw remittances, how does that even works? how does that even gets coded into the law? You cant send money abroad if you are sending it for an illegal, how does that gets worded in the law to begin with? pretty much every illegal has tons of relatives who are legal, these guys would simply go to western union instead of the illegal with absolutely zero risk whatsoever.

You try to draw a crappy analogy with straw purchases, but those can actually be proven in a court of law.

2.- You keep claiming that the US can impose tariffs at will, no it cant. Not without leaving NAFTA, TPP and the WTO.

3.- Those guidelines work mainly on the food industry, which is just a tiny part of the US exports, if we are talking about manufacturing, there is no leg to stand on, because of once there is no manufacturing guidelines for making a shirt, and because most US based companies are already certified.

4.- Again, your whole argument is that Mexico depends entirely on remittances, which is a joke, it doesnt. And forbidding Mexicans from visiting the US would actually strengthen the peso.

So yes, the US could do whatever it wanted to Mexico, but your ideas are far-fetched and not politically feasible, at this point you could be very well arguing that the US would threaten to bomb Mexico in order to extort money, and thats not going to happen. Your view on the world is infantile at best.

And please, im the less patriotic mexican in the world and so is my dad, but if the US tried to extort money out of Mexico i would stand by the politician who doesnt caves, i lived the 1994 crisis as a teen which nearly left my family on the streets, you cant possibly speak to me about economic hardship and what can we take or not.

 

[Rod1]

It's strange to hear Democrats complain that Americans performing produce-picking jobs would demand higher pay. All the talk about inequality being a problem (which I agree with), but then advocating bringing in foreigners who will work for less.

The problem is not payment, the problem is motivation, and American doing that kind of job is conditioned by society to feel like a loser, when its a well paying job if you work hard.

As to democrats being pro-free trade and capitalism, why does it suprises you? Clinton passed NAFTA, Obama passed the TPP.

 

[sickc0d3r]

But ending it would dry up money that's paying Americans to do the work. States along the border would be losing revenue. Almost no politician ever endorses anything that would essentially unemploy Americans, no matter how pointless the venture. And once the project is started and Americans are hired to do the work, the politics of defunding the project and firing those Americans suddenly get much more difficult.

If this is your opinion then what made you think the dnc could run on tearing it down? The creation of demolition jobs to replace the steady jobs for wall maintenance and surveillance would be a poor trade. You're only reinforcing my opinion that the wall is permanent if it ever gets built.

And I'm not saying a wall in progress would be shut down by future administrations (though it could be stopped in place), I'm saying the idea won't survive past his presidency because it won't even break ground by then, since we'll be sitting around waiting for the great Mexican squeeze-play to bear fruit.

I'm fine with others not seeing the leverage but I wonder if they're actually thinking it through because most of the argument is that it just won't happen, not a real investigation into either the numbers or the politics. First, we're not negotiating with the illegal immigrants. We're negotiating with the nation of Mexico. Whether or not, the illegals in the U.S. can circumvent the law isn't set in stone. In other threads, I already pointed out things like fake ebay auctions, Paypal, using legals for that purpose, etc. The point isn't if you can completely stop it. The point is that just by increasing the difficulty you reduce it's frequency. Let's take underage smoking/drinking for example. We're never going to eliminate them but because of the barriers in place, fewer people are willing to jump through the hoops necessary to avoid the law. Even a 10-20% decrease has real economic ramifications (as cigarette companies know quite well). The cost per transaction will go up as people engaged in facilitating the illegal activity will ask for a bigger fee for the risk. The risk of being cheated will make some illegals reduce how much they send through illegal back channels. You hope they buy gift cards and prepaid anything....because that becomes money first spent in the U.S., even if the ultimate product acquired is in Mexico. Just increasing the difficulty will decrease the frequency and that means fewer dollars into Mexico.

Like I said earlier, most people just assume the economic impact would be irrelevant and thus have no impact on the negotiation and I think they're wrong. I travel to India semi-regularly. If the cost suddenly increases because the U.S. does something to piss off India then I might start asking my politicians to do something about it. Depending on how many people feel the same way I do, my politicians might work hard to resolve the problem. Here we're talking about increasing the costs on Mexicans who have done nothing illegal to punish the Mexicans who have done something illegal - do you think that the guys who haven't broken the law will willingly swallow greater costs to protect the ones who did break the law?

I don't really disagree with the point your making here about Mexico feeling the impact, I am just not seeing enough to make them capitulate and offer up $20-$30 billion. And you're discounting our own impact (more on that later). We probably aren't going to agree on this point and neither of us can claim to know for sure, but that plan seems like a real long shot.

Also, it's not like Mexico is building a nuke or something. What we are talking about is a segment of people that only come here illegally because there's a market for them. We are complicit. If we want to put pressure on Mexico why not try reforming immigration policy and stopping businesses from hiring illegal immigrants? Of course if we do that, there won't be any need for a big expensive wall to be planted in American citizens' back yards.

That's a matter of opinion. There are plenty of Americans who obviously think the juice is worth the squeeze. Pretty much every GOP candidate ran on some version of dealing with illegal immigration so that voting bloc cares, even if the left doesn't. And, imo, most of the soft solutions like penalizing businesses aren't real solutions either. We're not talking about Fortune 500 companies filling their ranks with illegal aliens that have HR files. We're talking mostly about farmers or contractors who are subcontracting to another contractor, gig work where the employee is only there for a few months at a time. Tracking down those guys and prosecuting the crime is not cheap and far easier to avoid.

You wouldn't have to track companies down, you'd just have to implement a system and make every one comply. Non-compliance will pop them right into view and they'll be penalized. The IRS is very adept at mailing fines to businesses.

No, it's not on their side and it's really not a dumb idea. I don't even know where the idea that a wall is a dumb idea (as opposed to an expensive one or a time consuming one) began. If you want to stop people from illegally crossing a border, you need to put a barrier at the border. Almost every nation has some form of border barrier in place, even if it's just a checkpoint. Clearly, a barrier is not a dumb idea. We already physically patrol the border to prevent people from physically crossing it. Clearly, addressing the physical act of crossing the border isn't a dumb idea either. A wall accomplishes the same task - it impedes the physical crossing of the border with a barrier. If prevention of that specific problem is your goal (people physically crossing the border) what is a better idea than a wall?

A barrier is a fine way to keep things in or out, in general. Thinking we need one bad enough to put forth the effort is dumb. Passing on lower hanging fruit to go after something that may never be finished is dumb. Over 40% of illegal immigrants came here legally. The flow of illegals has leveled off to net zero over the last 8 years. The bigger problem is the 11M that are already here.

But sure, if we could magically place a wall on our border without a massive undertaking, and without planting it in citizen's backyards, and without killing off species of animals, then maybe it would be better to have it then not have it. No risk, probably some reward, that sounds fine. That's not reality, though.

As for time, for a country with Mexico's budget and levels of reliance on the U.S. market, even a few years of disruption can be significant. Plus there's no guarantee that an incumbent Trump doesn't win a 2nd term. People said the same thing about Bush, Jr. and Obama and they were both 8 year Presidents.

Like I said earlier, I'm fine with people not seeing the leverage. If this was 2 corporations fighting it out to decide if one company would pay a settlement, I think it would go the same way. The cost of fighting is always a relevant part of the conversation and if fighting something costs more than paying a settlement over the long run then the smart decision is to pay the settlement. There's no point in costing yourself $500 fighting something that could be settled for $100. The cost of a wall is a one time payment. The cost of fighting the wall might be more. When people say there's no leverage in Trump's plan, the question is how are they calculating the costs of fighting and most people aren't bothering to do so.

My calculations are based on logic. The resolve for squeezing Mexico out of wall money is going to last only as long as our elected officials support the idea, and then only if it appears to be working.

What happens if visas are cancelled, applications cost more money, and we place tariffs on trade? We encourage illegal immigration. You think wire transfer restrictions will put a significant dent in that? We'd be exacerbating our own problem. Our need for border security would increase, our citizens would be more pissed off, they'd want to know why the hell it is happening, and we'd have to say "Oh, it's our stellar negotiating tactics!" We'd create a political shit storm and we'd either end up paying for the wall ourselves or addressing the illegals another way.
Never forget, Mexicans invented the Mexican stand off.

 

[Deleted member 159002]

The problem is not payment, the problem is motivation, and American doing that kind of job is conditioned by society to feel like a loser, when its a well paying job if you work hard.

As to democrats being pro-free trade and capitalism, why does it suprises you? Clinton passed NAFTA, Obama passed the TPP.

I don't think Americans view garbage men and bus drivers in higher esteem than produce pickers. Employers need to pay Americans wages they're willing to break their back for.

Many Dems oppose NAFTA and TPP. But the point is that if you think inequality is a problem, it's strange to support placating employers with workers that they can pay less.

 

[Rod1]

I don't think Americans view garbage men and bus drivers in higher esteem than produce pickers. Employers need to pay Americans wages they're willing to break their back for.

Many Dems oppose NAFTA and TPP. But the point is that if you think inequality is a problem, it's strange to support placating employers with workers that they can pay less.

Garbage men and bus drivers are government employees, they get paid more because they are on government dime.

That being said, they are not being paid less, they are being paid quite well for the kind of job they are doing.