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Border Wall Needed for National Security, Counterterrorism | National Review

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America is needlessly vulnerable on the southern border. As the bench-clearing brawl over border security roars on, it would behoove wall advocates to broaden their pitch. A wall would slash illegal immigration on the southern frontier - a good thing. And it also would bolster U.S. national security and counterterrorism.

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Democrats know it, but they want President Trump to fail.

Of all the Democrats' arguments against a southern border wall, the shadiest is that it would not work.

According to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), President Donald J. Trump is "forcing American taxpayers to waste billions of dollars on an expensive and ineffective wall." As he joined Pelosi in rebutting the president's January 8 Oval Office address, Senate Democrat leader Chuck Schumer of New York decried Trump's "ineffective, unnecessary border wall." Schumer added: "We can secure our border without an expensive, ineffective wall."

In fact, walls work. Love them or hate them, their effectiveness is indisputable.

* "Part of our area is covered with some fencing on our east side. That accounts for about 6 percent of our traffic," Border Patrol chief Raul Ortiz told journalists during President Trump's January 10 visit to Rio Grande Valley, Texas. "Where we have no fencing, over 90 percent of our traffic occurs in those areas." A day earlier, Ortiz added, 450 people were apprehended in the unfenced sector, including 133 from such non-Latin nations as India, Pakistan, and Romania.

* Some 560,000 illegals were caught astride San Diego and Tijuana in Fiscal Year 1992, when a border wall was installed there. By FY 2017, the Border Patrol says it snared 26,086 - down 95.3 percent.

* A barrier between the Tucson, Ariz., sector and Nogales, Mexico, was erected in 2000. That year's 616,346 arrests plunged to 38,657 in FY 2017 - down 93.7 percent.

* A fence installed at the border between Yuma, Arizona, and Los Algondones, Mexico brought apprehensions from 138,438 in FY 2005 to 12,847 in FY 2017 - down 90.7 percent.

" Crime has significantly decreased in the Yuma area," then-acting homeland security secretary Elaine Duke wrote in USA Today in August 2017, "and smugglers now look for other less difficult areas of the border to cross - often areas without fencing."

* A 150-mile barrier between Israel and southern Egypt cut the number of illegal-alien entrants from 17,000 in 2011 to 43 in 2013, after the fence's completion, Israel's Ministry of the Interior states - down 99.7 percent.

This wall "has stopped all illegal immigration," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasts. But Esteban Flores of Harvard International Review argues that "other measures enacted by the Israeli government have also been of immense importance." He explains: "Israel has passed two laws targeting immigrants - one prohibiting immigrants from transferring money out of the country and another forcing employers to deposit 20 percent of an immigrant employee's salary into a bank account which can only be withdrawn upon exit of the country."

Flores unwittingly reinforces President Trump's argument that a wall is necessary, though not sufficient, to boost border security and hinder illegal immigration. Other protections include sensors, more Border Patrol agents, extra detention space, additional immigration judges, E-Verify (to confirm employees' legal status), and harsher penalties for employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens.

* Bulgaria erected a barrier on its Turkish perimeter in 2013. That year's 11,000 illegal crossings dropped to 4,000 in 2014 - down 63.6 percent.

* Just as British Gibraltar dangles from Spain's underside, Spanish Ceuta and Melilla surf atop Morocco. Multiple fences and barriers there sliced 2014's 2,100 arrests at the Spanish-territorial/Moroccan frontier to 2015's 100 - down 95.2 percent.

The strongest proof that walls work is that Democrats once loved them.

Former and current senators Joe Biden, Tom Carper, Hillary Clinton, Dianne Feinstein, Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, Debbie Stabenow, and Ron Wyden were among the 26 Democrats who voted for the Secure Fence Act of 2006. It authorized 700 miles of double fence. All 54 Senate Democrats voted unanimously in June 2013 for $46 billion in border security, including 350 miles of new steel fence.

"Between 2005 and 2015, polls show that nearly half of Democrats continued to support building a border barrier of some kind," Cato Institute scholar Emily Ekins wrote in The Federalist. "However, things changed in 2015 when Donald Trump announced his bid for the presidency," she continued. "Democratic support shifted more swiftly starting in the fall of 2015 onward. Now only about 12 percent of Democrats support a border wall or fence."

Meanwhile, Republicans consistently have endorsed a wall, Ekins reported: 73 percent in October 2015; 71 percent today.
Courtesy of the Cato Institute
So, Trump Derangement Syndrome actually causes Democrats' borderphobia.

Indeed, and amazingly, Ekins elaborated, "Reuter/Ipsos found that simply telling Democrats Trump supports a policy turns them against it - even universal health care." Normally, regarding health care, 68 percent of Democrats think "government should take care of everybody, and the government should pay for it." However, when told that Trump believes this, Ekins wrote, "only 47 percent supported government guaranteed health care - a 21-point drop." She concluded: "Thus, even on an issue as central to the Democratic policy agenda as government-guaranteed universal health subsidies, Trump can turn Democrats against it. So, certainly he can turn them against a border wall, too."

Walls work, and Democrats know it. But they want this president to fail. So, Democrats battle effective border protection so they can "resist Trump" - national security be damned. The Democratic party truly is America's arsenal of hypocrisy.
Michael Malarkey furnished research for this opinion piece.

Deroy Murdock - Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor and a contributing editor ofNational Review Online.

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Democrats know it, but they want President Trump to fail. Of all the Democrats' arguments against a southern border wall, the shadiest is that it would not work. According to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), President Donald J. Trump is "forcing American taxpayers to waste billions of dollars on an expensive and ineffective wall."

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It's tough to keep up with the daily barrage of atrocities at our southern border. That's on purpose. We're not meant to absorb the details, as though we're tracking some benign policy debate. We're meant to experience the feeling of crisis, driven by a vaguely defined threat that requires extreme action by an unchecked power.

So let's just pause, here at the midway point of Donald Trump's administration, and tally a portion of the damage done, just over the past six months, in the name of the supposed crisis at our southern border.

At this writing, we are four weeks into the longest shutdown of the federal government in our history. Hundreds of thousands of civil servants and their families are facing life-altering ordeals as they go without a paycheck. Basic functions ranging from airport security to small-business lending have been upended. Trash and human waste are piling up inside our national parks, to say nothing of the potentially irreversible damage being done by poachers and others roaming unmonitored in protected lands. But that's just the past few weeks.

In December, 8-year-old Felipe Gómez Alonso and 7-year-old Jakelin Caal Maquín died while in the custody of the US Border Patrol. (Imagine if we all repeated their names as often as we chant Donald Trump's.) Their deaths revealed just how brutally our government greets migrants who come to us seeking the barest of help. Felipe had bounced between four holding facilities in six days. Migrants sleep on mats with foil Mylar blankets, in conditions that echo prison camps; some have called the holding facilities hieleras ("iceboxes"). People arriving to these conditions, after completing dangerous, months-long journeys, receive only cursory health screenings.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen responded to the news that little kids are dying in this kind of custody by declaring, "Our system has been pushed to a breaking point by those who seek open borders." Let this grotesquely cynical statement sink in. The unnecessary deaths of two children in American custody are being used as evidence of a border crisis-one that our government actually manufactured itself by making the process of claiming asylum impossibly difficult. Apparently, whatever depravity the Trump administration dreams up is itself proof of the need for more depravity. It's enough to leave Kafka tongue-tied.

But that gets us only as far back as the holidays.

The fall of 2018 was peppered with militaristic pageantry. Border Patrol agents rained tear gas down on hundreds of protesters in Tijuana after a group of frustrated migrants scaled the border fence from the Mexican side (which suggests the futility of a wall, but anyway...). Nearly 6,000 active-duty troops were forced to spend Thanksgiving camped out in the desert, part of a months-long deployment with no meaningful mission beyond creating B-roll for Fox News programming. The White House also made a show of authorizing the troops to use lethal force-presumably because, after blowing an estimated $483 million in various military deployments to the border this fiscal year, it's hoping for better footage than a bunch of bored, homesick soldiers stringing concertina wire. A good crisis does demand strong images, after all; this administration learned at least that much from George W. Bush.

Current Issue

But still, we're only as far back as late summer.

In June, a federal judge ordered the administration to reunite the thousands of migrant families it had ripped apart-again, in the name of a supposed crisis at the border. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which took custody of the migrant children as the Department of Homeland Security prosecuted their parents and guardians, identified 2,737 kids-including infants and toddlers-who had been separated from their families.

That alarming number is actually a vast undercount, however. Homeland Security had been separating families for a full year before the court order came down, according to a new federal audit, meaning that "thousands" more kids were sent to HHS than previously reported. "The total number is unknown," an official from the HHS inspector general's office told reporters earlier this month. "It is certainly more than 2,737." Even worse, this problem is ongoing, in open violation of the June court order: The audit found at least 118 kids who have been separated from their families since the court told the administration to end the practice.

All of this human damage, in just the past six months.

And that's before even considering our national moral erosion, as we begin to question the basic principles we so painfully came to agree upon in the course of the 20th century: that we reject a race-based system for parceling out visas; that we embrace family reunification as a legitimate reason to migrate to the United States; that we abide by the simple constitutional rule that if you're born in America, you're American. In the first two years of Trump's presidency, the white-nationalist wing of American politics has reopened the fight over these principles, and it has done so by using a battle-tested strategy for introducing radical ideas to the mainstream: Orchestrate crisis.

So let us remember the stakes. This is not just a conservative administration. It does not represent the political pendulum swinging between neoliberal Democrats and warmongering Republicans. And its primary players have no real interest in the normal debates over whether, how, and at what size government should function-at least not beyond protecting their personal ability to profiteer. Instead, the Trump administration is a group of racist ideologues, intimately affiliated with an avowed and growing white-supremacist movement, whose primary political mission is to preserve a white majority in American citizenship. Their strategy is to create a feeling of constant crisis around brown immigrants so that they may offer extreme solutions to the supposed threat. Thus far, they have been enormously successful in their efforts.

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Let's Tally the Damage of the Past Six Months

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It's tough to keep up with the daily barrage of atrocities at our southern border. That's on purpose. We're not meant to absorb the details, as though we're tracking some benign policy debate. We're meant to experience the feeling of crisis, driven by a vaguely defined threat that requires extreme action by an unchecked power.

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If, on the other hand, Chief Justice John Roberts and his colleagues give their blessing to Trump's maneuver, then Democrats would gain new tools to advance their agenda next time they control the White House. It's not impossible to imagine a President Elizabeth Warren or a President Kamala Harris declaring that climate change is a national emergency, and diverting military funds toward civil works that would mitigate it. Declaring an emergency probably wouldn't allow Democrats to enact the entire Green New Deal or Medicare for All. But it could be a useful way to get around the threat of a Senate filibuster.

Pelosi hinted at such opportunities in her comments to reporters on Thursday. "Let's talk about today, the one-year anniversary of another manifestation of the epidemic of gun violence in America," she said, referencing the school shooting in Parkland, Florida last year. "That's a national emergency. Why don't you declare that emergency, Mr. President? I wish you would. But a Democratic president can do that. Democratic presidents can declare emergencies as well. So the precedent that the president is setting here is something that should be met with great unease and dismay by Republicans."

Indeed, unease and dismay is an apt description for how some Senate Republicans have responded to the news. "I don't believe that's the way we should do these sorts of things," Florida Senator Marco Rubio told reporters on Thursday. "I actually think there's a real constitutional question about it." Maine Senator Susan Collins complained that the move "undermines the role of Congress," while Kentucky Senator Rand Paul said he was "not in favor of operating government by national emergency."

They'll have a chance to demonstrate their views more directly soon. Thanks to the National Emergencies Act, House Democrats can put Senate Republicans on the spot: T he House has the power to pass a resolution overriding the president's declaration, and the Senate must approve or reject it; even a vote to not consider the motion would count as de facto approval of it. These complications are why Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell previously urged Trump not to declare a state of emergency. An override may well pass the Senate, and if so, Trump would be forced to issue his first veto as president-overruling some prominent members of his own party in order to build an unpopular wall.

So why did McConnell relent and declare his support for the president's plan to declare a national emergency? Trump reportedly had last-minute apprehensions about signing the compromise spending bill, even though a veto would have triggered another partial government shutdown for which Republicans would bear the blame. McConnell could not risk that, and likely was unable to change Trump's mind about the emergency declaration. This is the perfect encapsulation of the ruling Republican Party today: an uncompromising president who inflicts long-term damage to avoid the short-term humiliation, and a spineless leader of the Senate who stands by him every step of the way.

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If, on the other hand, Chief Justice John Roberts and his colleagues give their blessing to Trump's maneuver, then Democrats would gain new tools to advance their agenda next time they control the White House.

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Trump Repeated Many of His Old Claims About the Border to Justify the State of Emergency. Here Are the Facts

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As President Donald Trump declared a state of emergency Friday, he called assertions that most drugs that cross the U.S.-Mexico border come in through legal points of entry and that a wall wouldn't stop the flow of illegal drugs "all a lie."

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Lawmakers Reach 'Agreement in Principle' to Avoid Shutdown

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Congressional negotiators announced an agreement Monday to prevent a government shutdown and finance construction of barriers along the border

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President Trump Criticizes California Over Lawsuit Against his Emergency Declaration

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President Trump criticizes California leading a multi-state lawsuit against his emergency declaration to pay for a U.S.-Mexico border wall.

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President Trump Declares Emergency to Get Billions for Border Wall

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President Trump declared a national emergency in Friday morning remarks from the Rose Garden at the White House

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In historic first, Congress will try to cancel an emergency declaration - The Washington Post

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Resolution is expected to pass in the chamber, but Republicans want to be sure the margin isn't veto-proof.

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Pros - Arguments For Building a Mexican Border Wall

1. The financial costs of illegal immigration (government benefits, litigation, education, etc.) far outweigh the cost of building the wall.

2. Drug cartels use border weakness to pour drugs into the country.

3. Thousands of construction jobs will be created by building the wall.

4. It adds to the cost and risk of hopping the border; thus, it discourages many illegals from even trying to enter the country.

5. It prevents large-scale transportation of illegals, such as "coyotes" hauling trucks of people.

6. Patrolling the border is much easier, which lessens the number of guards that are needed.

7. Illegals crossing the border are more likely to be apprehended, so stronger actions can be taken against those who've already been deported or committed some other crime.

8. Immigrants take jobs from American citizens, and since they work for less money, the average wage rate of the American worker falls.

9. National security is increased as terrorists and other enemies have a more difficult time entering the country.

10. Sex trafficking and other immigrant abuse is reduced.

11. We are a nation of laws. If we fail to enforce them, what other laws will be ignored?

12. Immigrants are more likely to use legitimate means to enter the country, resulting in more people paying taxes and entering American society rather than staying in the shadows.

Cons - Arguments Against Building a Mexican Border Wall

1. Construction costs are prohibitive when the U.S. government already has trillion dollar annual deficits.

2. Symbolically, it doesn't represent America, a nation built on immigrants.

3. It gives a false sense of security, as taller ladders and digging under the fence can allow illegals to get past the wall.

4. Low unemployment rates and rising minimum wages has created a shortage in labor-intensive jobs that American citizens don't want to do.

5. Building a wall on the Mexican border but not the Canadian one creates the perception of discrimination and racism.

6. Animal wild life habitats would be disturbed where the wall is built.

7. It could strain Mexico-U.S. relations even further.

Recommended Solution

Build the wall at strategic places across the border using cost/benefit analysis of each major location.

Make the barriers extra difficult for high-traffic areas; for example, greater height, more barbed wire, more motion sensors, etc.

Combine the wall construction in a bill that raises fines for companies that hire illegal immigrants.

Increase the numbers of legal immigrants allowed to come into the country, and lessen barriers to legal status for those who follow the rules.

Create a series of citizenship requirements that bring legal immigrants more into American culture and society; for example, passing basic history and English tests.

Take politics out of the immigrant issue by preventing any new immigrant citizens from voting or collecting benefits for at least 15 years.

Related Links
Immigration Meme Gallery
Written by: Joe Messerli
Last Modified: 1/5/2019

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What are the Pros and Cons of Building a Mexican Border Wall? - Politically Incorrect Humor

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Pros - Arguments For Building a Mexican Border Wall The financial costs of illegal immigration (government benefits, litigation, education, etc.) far outweigh the cost of building the wall. Drug cartels use border weakness to pour drugs into the country. Thousands of construction jobs will be created by building the wall.

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Washington (CNN) Over the course of a few months, President Donald Trump's core campaign promise of building a border wall has led to the longest government shutdown in US history and a national emergency declaration that's received pushback from both Democrats and Republicans.

But other critical immigration components are floundering, leaving the nation's immigration system in a vulnerable position at a time of need, several administration officials told Congress this month.

Despite the administration's unrelenting push for physical barriers and aggressive immigration policies, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said the US is on track to apprehend approximately 900,000 people along the southern border this year, nearing levels not seen since 2006.

Trump argues that erecting additional barriers along the US-Mexico border would stem the flow of migrants. Last Monday's White House budget proposal includes $8.6 billion for a border wall -- higher than his $5.7 billion demand that led to the government shutdown.

Among the problems: an overall decline in the number of Border Patrol agents over recent years and severe challenges in attracting new people to remote locations along the border. A historic backlog in the nation's immigration courts was made worse during the government shutdown. And the dramatic increase in the number of families crossing the US-Mexico border means new challenges and costs to house migrants.

"The projections are dire," Nielsen told lawmakers earlier this month. "Our capacity is already severely strained, but these increases will overwhelm the system entirely. This is not a 'manufactured' crisis. This is truly an emergency."

Border Patrol agent shortfall

The first contact that most migrants have when arriving in the US is with Customs and Border Protection personnel -- whether at a legal port of entry or when crossing illegally.

But while the Trump administration has tried to hire more Border Patrol agents, it has fallen woefully short.

In 2017, the year Trump took office, there were 19,437 Border Patrol agents patrolling the nation's borders. The administration wanted to hire an additional 5,000 agents on top of already-established hiring goals.

But that hasn't happened, and as of early February 2019, there were 19,443 Border Patrol agents, according to CBP data provided to the US Government Accountability Office.

Despite some recent small gains in both retention and hiring speed, Border Patrol is still nearly 7,000 agents below the target set by Trump, according to Rebecca Gambler, director of GAO's Homeland Security and Justice Team, who testified earlier this month.

High attrition, a long hiring process and competition with other law enforcement agencies are reasons CBP cited for its staffing troubles, Gambler said. Additionally, there are a limited number of qualified and interested candidates to live and work in remote locations along the borders, CBP officials say.

"While CBP has the ability to offer incentives for individuals to apply for, relocate to, or remain at these locations, incentives cannot solve basic, fundamental needs of our workforce and their families, such as readily accessible medical facilities, schools, and potable water," said CBP's Acting Executive Assistant Commissioner Carry Huffman and Border Patrol Rio Grande Valley sector chief Rodolfo Karisch in congressional testimony earlier this month.

One example is Lukeville, Arizona, an isolated outpost in a community of fewer than 50 people, which is a "particularly challenging" post to fill. The closest school and medical clinic is 39 miles away and the nearest metropolitan area -- Phoenix -- is 150 miles away.

The groundwater in Lukeville also requires significant treatment to make it potable due to traces of arsenic, according to Huffman and Karisch.

In February, a group of 325 Central American immigrants was arrested near Lukeville after illegally entering the country and surrendering to agents. Increasingly, CBP has been encountering large groups -- more than 100 -- of migrants crossing the southern border illegally.

Tony Reardon, National Treasury Employees Union president, whose union represents 27,000 CBP officers, agriculture specialists and trade enforcement personnel working at ports, told lawmakers earlier this month that the partial government shutdown had hurt efforts to improve retention and recruitment.

He said that the 35-day shutdown was hard on all employees, but especially so for those with the least means. He called it an "unconscionable way to treat" the agency's " dedicated employees."

"The employees I represent are frustrated and their morale is indeed low. These employees work hard and care deeply about their jobs and their country. These men and women are deserving of more staffing and resources to perform their jobs better and more efficiently," he said.

Although Customs and Border Protection for the first time in six years hired more employees than it lost to attrition, Huffman said," there is much more work to do."

"We enforce hundreds of US laws and regulations on issues from immigration to trade. This is noble and vital work, but there is one serious problem. There are not enough of us," he said during the House Homeland Security Committee hearing.

He even made a hiring pitch during the hearing.

"CBP is hiring. If you have friends, relatives or constituents of higher morale character and are looking a way to serve the greater good, there's no better organization in the federal government to do so than for US Customs and Border Protection," he said.

Accenture and polygraphs

In December, the Department of Homeland Security inspector general found "serious performance issues" with a CBP hiring contract with Accenture. At the time of the watchdog report, Accenture had only processed two employees that accepted job offers. That number is now 56, according to John Goodman, chief executive of Accenture Federal Services.

Goodman said the report ignored the progress made but acknowledged that CBP had pressed "the pause button" on the contract to "determine how the program can move forward most effectively."

He said the most "significant challenge" the company faced was with polygraphs, calling it a "major choke point in the hiring process."

In addition to certifications and federal experience, there are training, monitoring and testing requirements that CBP uses "that makes it significantly harder to bring on new polygraphers," Goodman said.

A CBP spokesperson, who asked not to be named, said the agency is "constantly working to strengthen its hiring capabilities to ensure staffing for critical frontline operations, while maintaining our high personnel standards."

Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Generally, once migrants are processed, they're handed over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has a limited capacity of how many migrants it can hold at a given time.

The shutdown-ending spending bill last month included funding for an average 45,274 detentions beds per day, with the intent to return to 40,520 by the end of the fiscal year.

Given the influx of migrants at the border, the agency has to reckon with an increased demand for beds. As of March 4, for example, the average number of ICE detainees was 46,496 -- the highest on record since the beginning days of the agency in 2003, according to ICE.

"There's no beds," said John Sandweg, who previously served as the acting director of ICE under the Obama administration. "They're definitely strained right now."

That's based on the perception on that all migrants need to be detained, Sandweg added. Trump has decried the alternative of releasing migrants until their immigration court dates. At the current rate of apprehensions, detention beds are likely to get filled faster. In February alone, more than 76,000 people were apprehended crossing illegally or without proper papers, the highest number of "encounters" in any February in the last 12 years, according to CBP.

Of the 76,000, 7,250 were unaccompanied children and 40,385 were people who came with family members, marking a significant shift in the migrant population and as a result, posing a unique set of challenges. In previous years, single adult males from Mexico who could quickly be returned made up the majority of apprehensions.

The Health and Human Services Department is responsible for the care of unaccompanied children and as a result, they, too, are feeling the pressures of the influx of migrants. HHS Secretary Alex Azar said the agency plans to move $385 million in fiscal year 2019 funding for the unaccompanied alien children program.

The President's latest budget proposal includes $2.7 billion for 54,000 beds, setting up a confrontation between Republicans and Democrats, who pushed back against the administration's previous request of 52,000 beds.

Massive backlog in immigration courts

The US has a separate court system within the Justice Department -- which is overseen by the Executive Office for Immigration Review -- for adjudicating immigration cases. In recent years, the office has had to contend with a historic backlog of pending cases.

EOIR Director James McHenry told lawmakers earlier this month that there are around 850,000 pending cases, marking what appears to be the largest backlog since the creation of the agency in 1983.

And the shutdown over the border wall only made things worse. Roughly 60,000 hearings had to be postponed during the shutdown, McHenry said.

During that time, immigration courts that handle non-detained dockets -- the cases of people who are not in immigration detention -- were closed. As a result, those cases were postponed. The only cases that moved forward during the shutdown were those of immigrants in detention.

Immigrants fighting deportation generally have a chance to make their case in court, where they can ask a judge to allow them to stay in the US by arguing they qualify for asylum or another legal option.

An uptick in asylum claims is among the factors straining resources.

"Our challenge going forward is with increased amounts of immigration, EOIR sees most of the downstream effects of that," McHenry said. "Many individuals come here and make asylum claims and are placed in immigration proceedings, so they end up in our court system."

In an acknowledgment of the challenges facing the immigration court system, the administration has sought to bulk up resources to resolve cases quickly. Under former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Justice Department also implemented an annual quota that judges were required to meet -- a move that received criticism from the National Association of Immigration Judges.

A spending bill passed by Congress last month included funding for 75 new immigration judges, which is in line with the administration's ask and allocates $7.4 million for additional attorneys and for courtroom expansion to assist with cases currently in the system. Trump's budget proposal ups the request to 100 new "immigration judge teams."

As of March 5, there are 427 immigration judges nationwide, according to EOIR. That is expected to increase to roughly 450 next month.

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Trump keeps pushing for his border wall. But the nation's immigration problems extend well beyond that.

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Over the course of a few months, President Donald Trump's core campaign promise of building a border wall has led to the longest government shutdown in US history and a national emergency declaration that's received pushback from both Democrats and Republicans.

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President Trump recently signed an $854 billion spending bill to prevent a government shutdown. He stated that the plan ought to "rebuild our military, protect our communities, and deliver a better future for Americans." Sounds phenomenal, except for the fact that a crucial component is absent from this piece of legislation: Funding for the border wall.

The president has long promised, in Trumpian fashion, to build a grand and beautiful wall along the U.S. southern border designed to clot Central America's hemorrhaging of illegal immigrants into the United States like the bleeding of money from President Obama's economy. In essence, America is suffering from an illegal infestation like never before. It's costly and it's dangerous. The president has pledged to fix it.

Trump expressed his dismay at the failure to secure funding for the wall, venting, "I want to know, where is the money for Border Security and the WALL in this ridiculous Spending Bill."

America needs the wall, and consequently, sufficient funding.

The United States of America is a sovereign nation, meaning that it has the right to build and maintain borders. I have news for Democrats advocating for the abolishment of ICE and open border policy: America will have borders and security will be enforced for the sake of American citizens, including those Americans who have invested the time and money to immigrate here legally.

America has been invaded by approximately 12.5 million illegal immigrants, costing taxpayers an estimated $134.9 billion per year, according to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). The burden on taxpayers is only mounting, having increased by nearly $3 billion over the past four years.

Many Democrats deny that illegal immigration is a problem, even purporting that Trump's desire for a wall borders on racism.

Congressman Beto O'Rourke declared that the wall is racist and scoffed at the notion that illegal immigrants, the law-abiding saints they are, could possibly be committing crime. He argued, "[w]hen you begin with the premise that Mexico is sending rapists and criminals to the U.S. and you meet that with a wall, that wall in itself is a racist reaction to a racist myth that does not reflect the reality of this country at all."

Aside from sneaking across the border, which is a criminal act in and of itself, illegal immigrants are far likelier to commit violent crimes in America than their legal counterparts. Upon studying the statistics presented by the Cato Institute it is evident that, in the state of Texas, which suffers from among the highest rates of illegal immigration, illegal aliens are "568 percent more likely to be convicted of the same crime than legal immigrants." In addition, "[i]llegal immigrants are 532 percent more likely to commit sexual assaults than legal immigrants."

A central defense among the left is the fact that illegal immigrants commit a lower percentage of crime than American citizens. Duh. There are 25 times as many Americans as illegal aliens. The left's flawed logic is damaging to its midterm hopes, but more so to legal immigrants, good people who come here the right way.

On average, the United States grants citizenship to nearly one million immigrants per year. These individuals, in claiming their rightful share of the American dream, incur unimaginable costs. According to Elizabeth Ricci, a prominent immigration attorney, "a 'Petition for Alien Relative' comes with a filing fee of $535, an 'Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status' costs $1,140 in fees, and an 'Immigrant Petition by Alien Entrepreneur' is the most expensive at $3,675 in filing fees." In addition to these payments, legal immigrants and their families incur a host of other expenses for various applications and statuses.

Democrats argue that the wall is an unnecessary burden on the American taxpayer, but I would argue that it's actually a blue-chip investment.

As you know, illegal immigration costs taxpayers nearly $134.9 billion per year. President Trump, the real estate mogul notorious for coming in early and under budget, can deliver for $21.6 billion, according to the DHS. What a deal, folks, believe me.

Trump's border wall is a necessity and must receive funding. Illegal immigration is not only unfair to those waiting in line, but incredibly unethical. If you want to see the show, you have to buy a ticket.

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President Trump recently signed an $854 billion spending bill to prevent a government shutdown. He stated that the plan ought to "rebuild our military, protect our communities, and deliver a better future for Americans." Sounds phenomenal, except for the fact that a crucial component is absent from this piece of legislation: Funding for the border wall.

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If there is only one thing people know about Donald Trump, they know he wants to build a border wall. And if there's only one thing people know about Democratic lawmakers, it's that they rarely turn down multibillion-dollar infrastructure projects.

Averaging national public opinion polls conducted in 2018 reveals that 6 in 10 Americans oppose building a border wall. But just a few years ago, at least that many supported a wall.

Yet since December 22, the federal government has been partially shut down after President Trump and Democratic congressional leaders were unable to compromise on $5.7 billion in funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has called the border wall "immoral, ineffective, and expensive," and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said it was "wasteful" and "doesn't solve the problem." Democratic leadership may feel confident holding their ground against Trump during the shutdown in part because public opinion is on their side.

Averaging national public opinion polls conducted in 2018 reveals that 6 in 10 Americans oppose building a border wall. For instance, a CBS News poll conducted in October 2018 found that 60 percent oppose "building a wall along the US-Mexico border to try and stop illegal immigration," while 37 percent favor building a wall.
Americans Used to Support a Border Wall
But just a few years ago a majority of Americans supported building a border wall or fence. In 2013, an ABC News/Washington Post survey found that nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of Americans supported building a 700-mile fence along the border with Mexico and adding 20,000 border patrol agents.

The same survey found a slim majority (52 percent) still favored building a wall even when told it would cost $46 billion-much higher than Trump's current request. Similarly in 2011, a majority (57 percent) supported building a security fence, even without additional patrol personal, a Quinnipiac poll found.

Not only that, but in early 2006 a Time/SRBI poll found that a slim majority (52 percent) of Democrats also favored "building a security fence along the 2,000-mile US-Mexican border." Sixty-one percent (61 percent) of Republicans also agreed. Between 2005 and 2015, polls show that nearly half of Democrats continued to support building a border barrier of some kind.

However, things changed in 2015 when Donald Trump announced his bid for the presidency. Since then opposition rose upwards among the general public. Analyzing more than 150 polls conducted between 2007 and 2018 from the Roper Center iPoll Databank reveals that an average of 43 percent of Americans opposed building a border wall between 2007-2014. Opposition increased to 48 percent in 2015, 58 percent in 2016, and 61 percent in 2017, and then back to 59 percent in 2018.

Democratic support shifted more swiftly starting in the fall of 2015 onward. Now only about 12 percent of Democrats support a border wall or fence. As the charts above demonstrate, Trump's entry into politics (and making immigration issues salient) played a major role in turning the public against the border wall.
Why Did Americans Change Their Minds About the Wall?
Here I offer four reasons that may explain why Americans turned against building a border wall.
1) Harsh Rhetoric Makes People More Sympathetic to Immigrants
First, Americans may become more sympathetic of immigration when public figures who want to reduce it, like Trump, Steve Bannon, or Pat Buchanan, are on the offensive. Rhetoric from all sides becomes emotional, the media weighs in, people make statements that give the impression they do not like immigrants, and voters get upset.

Available survey data reveals two such instances, first in the mid-1990s and next in the mid-2000s. Both were periods when the nation debated immigration reform, with skeptics leading the charge.

In the mid-1990s, immigration became a hotly contested issue with California's Prop 187, which sought to restrict unauthorized immigrants' access to social services, and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act President Clinton signed in 1996. Debate during this time centered on expanding border security, cutting legal immigration, and preventing unauthorized immigrant children from accessing public schools.

Emotions ran hot. For instance, in a televised interview in 1991 Buchanan argued "there is nothing wrong with us sitting down and arguing that issue that we are a European country" and in 1995 he described illegal immigration as a "foreign invasion."

Gallup surveys conducted in 1993 and 1995 found about two-thirds of Americans opposed a border wall or fence at that time. However, by the mid-2000s, support for a border wall bounced back. A Time survey conducted in early 2006 found 56 percent supported building a 2,000-mile security fence.

Polls reveal another period where the nation intensely debated immigration and support for a border wall plummeted. Starting in the spring of 2006, majorities once again came to oppose a wall. For instance, a Gallup survey found 56 percent opposed a border barrier by May 2006, just a few months after the Time survey. This was precisely the time Congress debated immigration reform, particularly in relation to H.R. 4337, which sought to build a 700-mile border fence and classify unauthorized foreign citizens and those who provide them assistance as felons.

To give a taste of the rhetoric of the time, Buchanan lamented in his book "State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America," that white people would become the minority by 2050 and that by then "America will be a Third World country."

One could see how many people were offended. Unauthorized foreign citizens and their supporters organized mass protests across the country, "A day without an immigrant," to demonstrate what the economy would be like without their contributions.

But once the debate subsided, support for the border wall bounced back and majorities supported it again. That is, until Trump entered the presidential race and made the border wall a centerpiece of his policy agenda.

Like in the mid-1990s and 2000s, the public today has turned against building a border wall. The more immigration restrictionists push for building a border wall, the more impassioned the rhetoric, and the more salient it becomes in the news, the more people get offended, and voters turn against it.
2) People Feel Differently About a 'Wall' than a 'Fence'
Second, some people make a distinction between building a border "wall" and a border "fence." Indeed, analyzing 150-plus polls conducted over the past 13 years available in the iPoll Databank archive shows that 49 percent supported a border "fence" while 38 percent supported a border "wall"-an 11-point difference. However, Trump has emphasized building a wall rather than a fence, whereas lawmakers in the past largely discussed erecting fences.

Why do people make the distinction between a fence and a wall? People may simply think a wall means no one can cross it and thus it would completely halt all immigration across the Southern border.

Furthermore, people may perceive nefarious motives from people who wish to build a border "wall" rather than a "fence." You might not care much if your neighbor built a fence between your house and theirs. But what would you think if your neighbor erected a large, tall, thick concrete wall between your house and theirs? You might think they don't like you or want to interact with you. You probably wouldn't be inviting them over for dinner any time soon either.

Walls give the impression of exclusion and that they cannot be crossed, even legally. Fences, on the other hand, often have gates and give the impression that they can be crossed using the proper channels.

Many supporters of building a border wall may think that a wall can also be crossed if done legally. However, in the minds of the median voter, a wall may sound permanent and impermeable. For some voters this is a feature, but for others it's a bug.

This conception of what a wall means is demonstrated through a very poorly written survey question from pollsters Greenberg Quinlan and Rosner Research, when they asked voters if they favored or opposed: "Building a fence along the Mexican border to keep Mexicans from entering the country." No serious Republican lawmakers are calling for a wall to prevent all Mexicans from immigrating to the United States. The fact that these pollsters misinterpreted the intentions of the wall show that many Americans believe the wall is motivated by animus toward Hispanic migrants and their descendants.
3) The Border Wall Has Become a Symbol
This leads to the third likely reason for the recent shift against building a border wall: In the minds of many Americans-although not all-the wall has become symbolic of attitudes toward immigrants and racial minorities. As political scientists may put it, the wall has become "racialized."

Particularly Democrats have come to believe that support for a border wall indicates animus toward immigrants and people of color more generally. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's contention that the border wall is "immoral," not just cost-ineffective, demonstrates that for many the wall is about values, not number-crunching.

This clearly wasn't the case several years ago when majorities of Americans, as well as Democrats, supported erecting a border wall or fence. How did framing of the border wall shift from being about security to being about race?

When Trump announced his bid for the presidency, he declared Mexico is "sending people that have lots of problems...They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."

Many people interpreted Trump's remarks to mean that he thinks a majority of immigrants from Mexico are criminals while the minority, or only "some," are law-abiding. This led many to conclude that Trump's motivation for building a border wall was driven by animus toward a majority of Mexican and Latino immigrants.

Trump further fueled this impression when he claimed that the "Mexican heritage" of the judge presiding over Trump University lawsuits was incapable of impartiality because of his Mexican heritage. Even if Trump didn't mean to give this impression, it's understandable how millions concluded that a dislike of Mexican immigrants-here legally or otherwise-motivated Trump's promise of a border wall.

Surveys show that many Americans reacted negatively to Trump's comments. An NBC/WSJ poll conducted soon after Trump's presidential campaign announcement found 37 percent thought his comments were "insulting" and "racist." Even in 2018, a Quinnipiac poll found that 41 percent believe the "main motive behind President Trump's immigration policies" is "racist beliefs."

To be clear, many Americans who support the border wall do not view it as exclusionary or symbolic of animus toward immigrants. However, many people did come to view it this way, and that has significantly contributed to the public turning swiftly against it.

Further evidence that the wall has become a symbol is the fact that Hispanics have consistently opposed building a wall or fence along the border with Mexico for at least the past decade, even though most are U.S. citizens born in the United States or are legal residents. In 2008 only 11 percent supported "building a fence along 670 miles of border between the United States and Mexico," an AP/Ipsos poll found.

This shows that Latino attitudes about the border wall are not about Trump, because this survey was conducted seven years before Trump ran for president. Latino attitudes have persisted, with only 13 percent in support of a wall in 2018, according to a Washington Post/ABC survey. The fact that most Hispanics are U.S.-born citizens yet still oppose the border wall indicates they view it as a symbolic gesture saying they and people like them aren't wanted.
4) Democrats Will Oppose What Trump Supports
Trump is a polarizing figure, particularly for Democrats. Survey experiments conducted by Reuter/Ipsos found that simply telling Democrats Trump supports a policy turns them against it-even universal health care. For instance, 68 percent of Democrats ordinarily would agree that when it comes to health care "government should take care of everybody and the government should pay for it." But among another sample of Democrats who were told Trump made that statement, only 47 percent supported government guaranteed health care-a 21-point drop.

Republicans given the same treatment moved only by 6 points. A third (33 percent) of Republicans supported government-guaranteed health care when they were not told that Trump once supported it. But among those who were told Trump made that statement, 39 percent supported it.

Thus, even on an issue as central to the Democratic policy agenda as government-guaranteed universal health subsidies, Trump can turn Democrats against it. So certainly he can turn them against a border wall too.

But one of the reasons Democrats and the media turned against Trump so intensely was because of the language he chose to use to talk about immigrants. Partisanship alone can't explain why more than just Democrats, but the median voter also turned against a border wall. In a world where Trump had not gone on the offensive to curb both legal and illegal immigration and had not used inconsiderate language in the process, it's likely that fewer people would oppose him with such zeal.
Democrats Will Resist Compromise
Democrats talk a lot about the benefits of compromise. In fact 75 percent of Democrats in a 2016 VOTER Survey said they'd rather lawmakers "compromise to get things done" rather than stick to principles. Yet Democratic leadership hasn't shown signs of budging on building a wall, at least for now.

It's not particularly credible for Democrats to say they oppose the wall because it's not "cost-effective." If they opposed it for that reason, why did many support a border barrier just a few years ago? It's equally cost- ineffective today as it was then.

But Pelosi calling the wall "immoral" is a more credible explanation for why Democrats oppose the wall now but not before. It's also indicative that she doesn't view the wall like other public policy disagreements. As Democratic constituents have come to see the border wall as a symbol of animus toward immigrants, they can't allow leadership to compromise without violating deeply held values.
What All This Might Mean
There are useful lessons here about how Americans changed their minds on the border wall. Facts and numbers about the cost- ineffectiveness of building a 2,000-mile wall across diverse geological terrain were available before 2015 and did not change many minds. Telling people that it costs money the country doesn't have didn't work. Explaining that unauthorized immigration will still continue despite a tremendous amount of money spent also hasn't been particularly persuasive.

Instead, many people changed their minds about a border wall when they came to view it as a symbol of exclusion and animus toward immigrants and racial minorities and thus immoral. While many advocates of the border wall insist the wall is a humanitarian cause and is necessary for border security, they are talking past those who view it as a racialized symbol.

Perhaps there's something to be learned here. Sometimes persuasion requires more than simply facts and reason. But persuasion needs the flavor of righteousness for people to care enough to change their minds and for it to stick.

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Americans Used to Support a Border Wall. What Changed Their Minds?

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If there is only one thing people know about Donald Trump, they know he wants to build a border wall. And if there's only one thing people know about Democratic lawmakers, it's that they rarely turn down multibillion-dollar infrastructure projects. Averaging national public opinion polls conducted in 2018 reveals that 6 in 10 Americans oppose building a border wall.

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President Donald Trump's frequent claims that unprecedented numbers of undocumented migrants are streaming into the country remain untrue. | Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Getty Images

The border crisis that President Donald Trump used to justify declaring a national emergency was never real, but a different crisis at the border is now starting to escalate as immigration officials hold hundreds of parents and children in makeshift facilities, including a parking lot.

During a press conference in El Paso, Texas, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan argued Wednesday that a surge of incoming Central American migrants has pushed the U.S. immigration system to a "breaking point" and that all available resources should be devoted to manage it.

Story Continued Below

But Democrats and advocates contend that the Trump administration's response is exacerbating the problems.

Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), a freshman lawmaker who represents El Paso, fumed Thursday over the border situation - which she also described as a crisis - during an interview after leaving the House floor.

"They knew that the numbers would increase," she said. "Why were they not planning?"

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Here's what's really happening now at the border:

The president's frequent claims that unprecedented numbers of undocumented migrants are streaming into the country remain untrue. (Twice as many came during the 1990s and early 2000s.) And President Trump's caricature of border-crossers as violent criminals is still belied by study after study showing that immigrants in general, and undocumented immigrants in particular, commit fewer crimes than the native-born.

But with border arrests at a ten-year high, Border Patrol's resources are getting stretched. Meanwhile, the changed composition of the border-crossers - Central American families rather than Mexican males - creates unfamiliar new problems.

"We have a capacity crisis, if you want to think of it that way," Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) told POLITICO. "We don't have capacity to deal with the populations that they're getting at the border right now."

Border Patrol anticipates that it will apprehend more than 55,000 family members in March, by far the highest monthly total since such record-keeping began in fiscal year 2012. The warmer spring and summer months ahead will likely bring even higher numbers.

The adult men from Mexico who a decade ago constituted most border migrants were able to be returned more swiftly, often simply by walking them across the border. While they were detained, the men required comparatively little in the way of social or medical services.

Furthermore, a 2008 federal law and related bilateral agreement allowed the U.S. to repatriate Mexican unaccompanied minors rapidly. The law, called the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, does not similarly authorize quick deportation for children from Central America.

By contrast, the greater volume of children among the new Central American migrants imposes on immigration agencies a need for more psychologists, nutritionists, educators and a host of others. Border officials contend that with the rise in families and children, more migrants have health issues than in the past.

"We are doing everything we can to simply avoid a tragedy," McAleenan said at the border Wednesday. "But with these numbers, with the types of illnesses we're seeing at the border, I fear that it's just a matter of time."

Federal court orders in recent years have limited to 20 days the time children can be kept in detention, which means border agents often must release families into the interior. Such releases speed up processing, but demoralize agents and may encourage more migration, McAleenan argued.

Another option - splitting them apart - caused a broad uproar last summer and remains the subject of ongoing litigation.

The current migratory flow is also different because of the greater proportion of asylum applications at the border in recent years. Central American families arriving at the border frequently seek such refuge, which puts them into an immigration process that can take years to resolve.

The Trump administration argues that the asylum claims largely lack merit, but immigration court statistics don't back that up. Roughly 25 percent of defensive asylum applications were approved by an immigration judge in fiscal year 2017, with 41 percent denied and 34 percent resolved in another manner, such as a withdrawn application.

Still, immigration hard-liners contend that lax asylum laws have been a magnet for Central Americans.

Mark Krikorian, director of the restrictionist Center for Immigration Studies, compared the current influx at the border to Europe's migratory surge in 2015.

"We are seeing an Angela Merkel-style disaster on the border caused by loopholes in our laws that the Democrats refuse to even consider changing," he said.

Democrats and advocates argue that the Trump administration's response has exacerbated problems at the border.

Administration officials have known for months - arguably years - that more migrant families could trek to the United States, yet they appear to have been caught flat-footed.

During McAleenan's press conference in El Paso Wednesday, reporters observed hundreds of parents and children held in a parking lot converted into a makeshift detention center.

"That's their solution? That's not a solution," Escobar said. "In my community when these families are released, the community ... scrambles and works hard to create hospitality centers, to feed these people, to help get them to their final destination. If we can do it with a fraction of the resources and power of the federal government, surely DHS can find a better solution."

Escobar said DHS hasn't taken adequate steps to deal with a long-term trend of more family and child arrivals. Border Patrol often uses small concrete cells that were better suited to the earlier populations of single men, many of whom would be sent back to Mexico in a day's time, she said.

"They've been acting and responding in the same way over the last five years despite the change in the migration pattern," she said.

The spending package approved by Congress in February included $192 million to construct a large processing center for migrant families in El Paso. The facility will house multiple agencies that deal with families in one building, but will take six months to a year to become functional, according to Escobar.

In the meantime, the Texas Democrat argues that if Trump truly deems immigration a national emergency, he should work harder to house and care for incoming migrants, perhaps with Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers or Red Cross assistance.

Under a January 2017 Trump executive order, federal immigration officials remain tasked with arresting and detaining as many migrants as possible, without a system of prioritization. Advocates contend the enforcement push has sapped resources that could be used to address the care and custody of newly arrived migrant families.

"They just detain any grandpa or mom that they find in the interior and they don't prioritize who they should be putting in detention," said Kerri Talbot, a director with the Washington, D.C.-based Immigration Hub. "They don't need any more money, they need a new strategy."

The Trump administration has experimented with several hard-line and legally questionable tactics to discourage migrants from trekking to the border - all without any discernible success.

Under its "zero tolerance" strategy, the Trump administration sought to prosecute all suspect border crossers for illegal entry. Children couldn't travel with their parents to criminal detention facilities, so they were reclassified as "unaccompanied" and transferred to the custody of the Health and Human Services Department. Thousands of families were split apart from April until June, only to see Trump reverse the policy and a federal judge order families reunited.

The administration also has sought to keep asylum-seeking migrants in Mexico for longer periods of time.

Using a practice known as "metering," border officials have forced families to wait in Mexico, only accepting a certain number of asylum applicants at ports of entry each day.

A September report by the DHS inspector general's office found evidence that forcing migrants to wait at ports actually encouraged more people to cross illegally. The report cited a Border Patrol supervisor and accounts of several migrants who said they attempted to enter illegally after being turned away at a port.

"They're afraid of waiting in Mexico until they can get in at the port," said Theresa Cardinal Brown, director of immigration and cross-border policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center. "They're balancing that against their desire to do it legally. And I definitely think its emboldening the smugglers to go to those who are waiting."

McAleenan acknowledged during a December Senate committee hearing that metering could lead to an increase in the number of people attempting to cross the border illegally, saying it's "certainly a concern."

Still, the Trump administration has moved forward with a separate policy to keep asylum seekers in Mexico for extended periods of time.

The administration's "remain in Mexico" policy - announced in late December and now implemented in several areas along the border - forces certain non-Mexican asylum seekers to wait in Mexico during the duration of an asylum case.

At the same time, the administration has moved slowly to disperse funding to address root causes of migration in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

POLITICO reported this week that hundreds of millions in aid dollars remain stalled at the White House budget office as aides wonder how seriously to take Trump's threats to cut the funding.

"Mexico is doing NOTHING to help stop the flow of illegal immigrants to our Country. They are all talk and no action," Trump tweeted Thursday. "Likewise, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador have taken our money for years, and do Nothing. The Dems don't care, such BAD laws. May close the Southern Border!"

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Here's what's driving the 'crisis' at the border

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The border crisis that President Donald Trump used to justify declaring a national emergency was never real, but a different crisis at the border is now starting to escalate as immigration officials hold hundreds of parents and children in makeshift facilities, including a parking lot.

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Click here to see more of Pulitzer Prize-winner Adam Zyglis' political cartoons.

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right-wing populism in the united states

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Disaster relief, Pentagon: Where does Trump get the money for an emergency declaration?

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President Donald Trump continues to tease the idea of declaring a national emergency, saying he has an "absolute right" to do it if Democrats in Congress refuse his demand for $5. 7 billion to construct the U. S. -Mexico border wall.

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(Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump's declaration of a national emergency on the border on Friday immediately launched the president into conflict with Congress. Over the objections of the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, Trump now intends to unilaterally divert billions of dollars that Congress refused to give him to fund the construction of a barrier on the southern border.

Trump's decision to build the wall with emergency powers also throws him into conflict with another group of people: American voters.

For years, polling has consistently revealed that a clear majority of Americans oppose the construction of a border wall. Though support for the wall seems to have grown in the last year, recent polls have found that Americans, as a group, still oppose a barrier on the souther border-and by more than a 10-point margin.

A detailed survey completed by the Pew Research Center last month found that 58 percent of Americans oppose substantial expansion of the United States-Mexico border wall, compared to the 40 percent who support it. However, Pew polling also reveals that support for the wall has grown: Opposition is down from a peak of 62 percent in 2017, and support has grown from a low of 34 percent in 2016.

That said, polls still reveal a clear margin in opposition to the wall. AHarvard Center for American Political Studies/Harris poll released to the in late December found 56 percent of respondents in opposition to the wall's construction, with 44 percent in support. An ABC News/Washington Post poll from mid-January showed 54 percent opposed, compared to 42 percent in support.

That survey, which was completed in the midst of the shutdown, also revealed that two-thirds of Americans would oppose Trump using a national emergency to fund a wall. And only a quarter of respondents said they agreed with his claim that there is a crisis on the border.

Though presidents have, in the past, declared national emergencies on no less than 58 occasions, Trump's current declaration may prove unprecedented in the way it clashes directly with public opinion. In the past, national emergencies have been used to address scenarios like disease outbreaks or terrorists attacks. Trump's decision to use a declaration to fund an unpopular policy proposal does not have a clear historical antecedent. Only two other presidents-both named Bush-have used emergency powers to spend money without first getting approval from Congress, and neither did so in a way that was particularly controversial. George H.W. Bush diverted funds in the lead-up the Gulf War in 1990, and George W. Bush did the same in 2001 after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Analysts, like the New York Times' Nate Cohn, have called Trump's push to build the wall an appeal to his base. Though the majority of Americans oppose its construction, a wall has clear margins of support among GOP voters. Pew found that Republican support for the wall has skyrocketed from 72 percent in 2018 up to its current standing at 82 percent. As Cohn argued in January, Trump's attempt to build the wall might prove popular with his core voters, but it'sunlikely to attract new supporters to his cause.

Polling has yet to reveal what Trump's base thinks of his decision to use emergency powers to build the wall. But the January ABC News/Washington Post poll found that, even among supporters of the wall, only 46 percent agreed with Trump that there is a crisis on the border.

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The Majority of Americans Oppose a Border Wall

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President Donald Trump's declaration of a national emergency on the border on Friday immediately launched the president into conflict with Congress. Over the objections of the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, Trump now intends to unilaterally divert billions of dollars that Congress refused to give him to fund the construction of a barrier on the southern border.

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In U.S. politics, the Democratic Party has been represented by a donkey and the Republican Party by an elephant for decades. But few people know how long they've symbolized the two big parties, or where the symbols even came from.

The donkey's first use in political parlance to represent the Democratic Party came in 1828, during the presidential campaign of Andrew Jackson. Jackson was a popular war hero (after victories in the War of 1812 and the First Seminole War) and ran a campaign under the slogan "Let the People Rule."

Jackson's opponents attacked him as a populist and branded him a "jackass." But Jackson liked the comparison and used the jackass/donkey as a campaign symbol. Opponents later used the jackass/donkey to represent Jackson's stubbornness in office.

But the person who is most responsible for making the donkey a symbol of the Democrats and the elephant a symbol of the Republicans was a cartoonist for "Harper's Weekly" magazine, Thomas Nast.

He first used the donkey in 1870 to represent an antiwar faction he disagreed with, and the next year he used the image of an elephant in a cartoon warning Republicans that their infighting would hurt them in upcoming elections.

But it was his November 7, 1874 cartoon titled "Third Term Panic" that would forever link the animals as symbols of each party.

At the time, Republican Ulysses S. Grant had served two terms as president and was considering running for a third. In the cartoon, a donkey wearing a lion's skin labeled "Caeserism" frightens off other animals, including an elephant identified as "The Republican Vote."

The caption reads: "'An Ass, having put on the Lion's skin, roamed about in the Forest, and amused himself by frightening all the foolish Animals he met with in his wanderings.' -- Shakespeare or Bacon."

Nast was referring to a series of editorials in the "New York Herald" attacking President Grant for seeking a third term and for what it called his "Caeserism," or undemocratic attempt to seize imperial power. The cartoon's imagery is from Aesop's fable "The Ass in the Lion's Skin," with the moral being that a fool may disguise his appearance but his words will give him away.

Nast continued to use the elephant to symbolize the "Republican vote" until eventually it simply became "Republicans." Soon other political cartoonists followed suit and the donkey and elephant became widely used as the symbols of the two parties.

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In U.S. politics, the Democratic Party has been represented by a donkey and the Republican Party by an elephant for decades. But many people don't know how long they've symbolized the two big parties or where the symbols even came from.

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Social scientist Bent Flyvbjerg described the selection of government-funded infrastructure projects as " survival of the unfittest " because proponents of those projects systematically exaggerate the benefits and underestimate the costs. President Trump's proposed border wall with Mexico provides a striking example of this: A wall along the border with Mexico will likely cost about $59.8 billion to construct.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) recently sent a letter to Congress where it argued that $5.7 billion would pay for approximately 234 miles of a new physical steel barrier along the border. That new estimate comes to about $24.4 million per mile. This new OMB estimate is 41 percent more costly than the approximately $17.3 million per mile construction costs that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) estimated just a few years ago, 2.7 times as expensive as Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan estimated, and 5 times as expensive as Trump's lowest estimate.

Even worse, the $24.4 million per mile estimate does not include the large cost overruns for government construction projects. Applying a conservative 50 percent cost overrun estimate to building the border fence brings the total price tag to approximately $36.6 million per mile. Building a steel fence along the remaining 1,637 miles of Mexican border not covered by pedestrian fencing would cost approximately $59.8 billion, excluding any maintenance costs.

There are a few caveats about the above estimate.

First, the 50 percent cost overrun estimate is conservative. A small sample of large construction projects selected by my colleague Chris Edwards shows that cost overruns boost total project costs by an average of 3.3 fold. The cost of the border fence is thus very likely to be more than double what I estimate above.

Second, this estimate is for the steel bollard barrier and not a concrete wall. In other words, the currently proposed steel border fence is far cheaper than the concrete and steel wall originally proposed by President Trump. Making it out of concrete could more than double the price.

Third, our cost estimate does not include the low-ball $864,353 annual per mile cost of maintaining the current border fence - which is likely a lot less expensive than repairing the barrier that has been proposed by Trump.

Fourth, the OMB's cost estimate per wall is more in line with previous Trump administration requests than estimates made by organizations that are ideologically committed to building a wall regardless of the cost to taxpayers.

Since 2017, administration officials at the OMB have been relatively consistent in estimating that the government cost of building a border wall is around $24 million per mile. However, the incentives for and history of government agencies systematically underestimating the costs of government construction projects makes this the lowest possible estimate. If it is built for about $24.3 million per mile than it would be the first time that a large government construction project has come in at or below cost in a very long time.

The cost of the border wall keeps getting higher, the border wall keeps becoming less of a wall, and the administration keeps promising that it will cover less and less of the border. At this rate, President Trump might end his administration with less fencing than he began it.

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The Cost of the Border Wall Keeps Climbing and It's Becoming Less of a Wall

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If the proposed border wall is built for about the estimated $24.3 million per mile than it would be the first time that a large government construction project has come in at or below cost in a very long time.

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Sen. Bernie Sanders is running for president again - and his ideas are no less sweeping than the last time he ran.

The independent senator from Vermont launched his 2020 presidential campaign Tuesday. The self-described democratic socialist, 77, enters a crowded Democratic primary field that largely shares his views on key policies.

Since his long-shot 2016 presidential bid, Sanders has been a leading ideological voice in the Democratic Party, despite his independent status in the Senate. His broadsides against corporations and business titans reflect a wider shift toward populism in the party. Out of all the Democratic candidates, Sanders would bring perhaps the most drastic changes for businesses and wealthy Americans.

Here's where Sanders stands on key issues and companies:

Health care: In 2017, Sanders introduced a bill to transition to Medicare for All, a system where every American would get health care through the government. The proposal is seen as one test of liberal credentials: Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Kamala Harris of California, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts all endorsed his legislation. Critics have called his plan too radical or expensive. The Vermont senator has also joined Democratic leaders in introducing legislation to slash drug costs, in part by encouraging imports of cheaper drugs from abroad and giving Medicare more power to negotiate prices.

Labor: Sanders has pushed for a $15 per hour minimum wage and urged major companies to give their workers raises. He introduced Senate legislation to hike the federal wage floor in January, calling the current $7.25 an hour a "starvation wage." Booker, Gillibrand, Harris, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Warren are all co-sponsors. Last year, his pressure on Amazon contributed to the internet retailer raising its minimum wage to $15 per hour. He has pushed other companies, from Walmart to McDonald's, to take the same step. Numerous businesses have argued a $15 wage floor would force them to reduce hours or cut jobs. Sanders also has pushed to boost dwindling private sector labor unions.

Taxes: The Vermont senator has slammed the Republican tax plan passed in December 2017, calling it an unnecessary boon to corporations and the wealthy. To address growing wealth inequality, Sanders wants to expand the estate tax. A plan proposed in January would tax estates starting at $3.5 million, with a 77 percent rate on billionaire estates. Various 2020 Democratic candidates have unveiled proposals to either tax the wealthy more or reduce the tax burden on the middle class.

Investing/banks: Sanders has pointedly criticized Wall Street for years. In October, he introduced a bill to cap the size of financial institutions, which would break up banks including J.P. Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs. Earlier this month, he unveiled a plan to restrict stock repurchases, which would put conditions on share buybacks. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., endorsed it alongside Sanders in another sign of the Democratic Party's shift.

Education: In 2017, Sanders introduced a plan to make community college tuition-free and eliminate tuition at four-year universities for students from families with income of $125,000 or less. He has also pushed for more student loan forgiveness.

Climate change: The senator has endorsed a version of the Green New Deal, a plan to dramatically reshape the U.S. economy to cut carbon emissions and address climate change. Other 2020 Democratic contenders have endorsed that plan in some form, though not necessarily as outlined by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. President Donald Trump and Republican campaign groups have also seized on the freshman representative's proposal as evidence of a Democratic Party drifting toward socialism.

His top policy goals - Medicare for All, free public college and a $15 per hour minimum wage - have become more mainstream in the Democratic Party, even if the party's congressional leadership have not embraced all of those plans. Sanders acknowledged as much in a CBS interview that aired Tuesday morning.

"All of those ideas people were saying, 'Oh Bernie, they're so radical. They are extreme. The American people just won't accept those ideas.' Well, you know what's happened in over three years? All of those ideas and many more are now part of the political mainstream," the senator said.

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Bernie Sanders is running for president - and his policies would have a huge impact on business

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Sen. Bernie Sanders is running for president again - and his ideas are no less sweeping than the last time he ran. The independent senator from Vermont launched his 2020 presidential campaign Tuesday. The self-described democratic socialist, 77, enters a crowded Democratic primary field that largely shares his views on key policies.

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Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez appeared in a MSNBC town hall on Friday and forcefully defended her Green New Deal and called climate change "our greatest existential threat."

"We don't have time for five years of a half-baked, watered-down position," Ocasio-Cortez said during the "All In" town hall hosted by MSNBC's Chris Hayes. "This is urgent, and to think we have time is such a privileged and removed-from-reality attitude."

Ocasio-Cortez championed the Green New Deal with Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass. The ambitious proposal to fight climate change came up for vote Tuesday in the GOP-controlled Senate but failed to advance.

Even some Democrats in Congress have sought to distance themselves from the Green New Deal. Republicans, meantime, are trying to turn the progressive plan into a wedge issue in the 2020 elections.

She said the Green New Deal was intentionally written for the American people and not necessarily for her congressional colleagues.

"This is not a partisan issue, because there are Democrats who will get in the way of us saving ourselves," Ocasio-Cortez told to the town hall audience at the Albert Einstein Medical Center in the Bronx. "We encourage everyone here to look it up. I'm here not to convince my colleagues, but the electorate."

According to Ocasio-Cortez, if the American voters end up making the plan a priority or show overwhelming support for it, then there's "political room to pass it."

"A lot of what the Green New Deal is, is about shifting our political, economic and social paradigm on every issue," she said. "Because we don't have time to wait."

The Green New Deal includes a series of goals for fighting climate change and pollution as well as calling for economic and social justice reforms.

"This issue is not just about our climate," said the 29-year-old lawmaker. She said there's "runaway income equality" and the economy isn't producing and innovating like it needs to be for the American people.

Also, she said it was important to transition away from fossil fuel jobs to new energy jobs as part of a shift in the economy to help fight climate change.

The congresswoman also fought back against criticism that the Green New Deal was too broad or lofty.

"First of all, we've been here before," she said. "We've been here before with the Great Depression, we've been here before with World War II, even the Cold War. And the answer has been an ambitious and directed mobilization of the American economy to direct and solve our biggest problem."

She went on to say the climate crisis along with economic and social inequality are far too serious to ignore.

"To get us out of this situation, to revamp our economy, to create dignified jobs for working Americans, to guarantee health care and elevate our educational opportunities and attainment, we will have to mobilize our entire economy around saving ourselves and taking care of this planet," said Ocasio-Cortez

The plan has been ridiculed by some Republicans and right-wing media as "a socialist manifesto" and for mentioning the "farting cows" as a greenhouse gas problem.

Ocasio-Cortez said she expected the criticism of the Green New Deal plan but added, "I didn't expect them to make total fools of themselves."

Finally, she rejected those who consider the Green New Deal as radical or socialist.

"This is not a Tea Party of the left," Ocasio-Cortez said. "This is a return to representative democracy."

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slams critics for 'privileged' attitude on climate change

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Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez appeared in a MSNBC town hall on Friday and forcefully defended her Green New Deal and called climate change "our greatest existential threat." "We don't have time for five years of a half-baked, watered-down position," Ocasio-Cortez said during the "All In" town hall hosted by MSNBC's Chris Hayes.

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The Border Is in Disarray, but Change May Be Coming

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It might seem odd that in the midst of a border crisis caused by a massive surge of illegal immigration, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., reintroduced a bill to reform the legal immigration system. But that move wasn't out of step at all.

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We Need Trump's Border Wall Plus Other Measures to Reduce Illegal Immigration

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Congressional Democrats have made it clear that they will oppose President Trump's commonsense request for $5 billion to expand fencing and begin work on a wall along our southern border. But the fight over the wall is just a small skirmish in a war to decide the future of our country and whether we can control our own borders.

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An eleventh-hour rescue mission by Republican senators to stave off an awkward defeat for President Donald Trump on his declaration of a national emergency at the Mexican border, and to protect themselves from a politically dicey vote opposing him, seemed to collapse Wednesday.

The setback made it all but certain that defections from his own party will force Trump to cast what could be his first veto - on a struggle directly related to his signature issue of building barricades along the southwest border. It also left Republican senators facing a painful choice: defy a president who commands passionate loyalty from conservative voters or acquiesce to what many lawmakers from both parties consider a dubious and dangerous expansion of presidential authority.

After a closed-door lunch, GOP lawmakers predicted the Senate would approve a resolution Thursday annulling the emergency Trump has declared along the border. The Democratic-led House passed the legislation last month, meaning Senate assent would send it to Trump.

"It was called turn out the lights, the party's over," said Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., recalling a favorite refrain of "Monday Night Football" announcers when a game was out of reach. "Well, that's appropriate right now."

Republicans hoped Trump would support a separate measure curbing a president's powers to declare future emergencies. Had he done so, they thought, it would be easier for reluctant GOP senators to support the emergency Trump has proclaimed to steer $3.6 billion more than Congress has approved for barrier construction.

But during the GOP lunch, Trump called Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, chief sponsor of the bill limiting future emergency declarations, and told him he opposed that proposal. The call was described by two officials who weren't authorized to publicly discuss the matter and described it on condition of anonymity.

"There's been numerous efforts to engage with the vice president and the president, and the president's not persuaded that he should support it right now," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who advises GOP leaders. "I don't know of any president that likes to give up power."

Lee said later in a statement that he will back the resolution canceling the border emergency because his own bill now lacks "an immediate path forward." That would make him the fifth Republican senator to oppose the border emergency - more than enough to send the resolution to the White House.

With Republicans controlling the Senate 53-47, it will take just four GOP defections to approve the measure, which the House passed last month.

Also saying they would oppose Trump's emergency declaration were GOP Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Kentucky's Rand Paul. Tillis and Collins face potentially competitive re-election fights in 2020.

Tillis, though, said Wednesday that his vote was "still a work in progress" as talks with the White House continued.

As many as 15 Republicans might vote to block Trump's emergency, said one Republican who offered the estimate only on condition of anonymity.

Any Republican hopes of a turnabout rested largely on a familiar phenomenon of the Trump administration - an unexpected change in mind, as he's done in congressional battles over health care and immigration.

Trump told reporters that he has advised GOP senators to "vote any way you want" on the resolution blocking his emergency declaration - but he added a warning.

"Anybody going against border security, drug trafficking, human trafficking, that's a bad vote," he said. Framing Thursday's vote that way seemed to be a message all but aimed directly at undecided GOP senators facing re-election races next year, of whom there are several.

Within the White House, there was concern about agreeing to a deal that may only limit the number of defections, said a senior administration official who was not authorized to speak publicly.

Trump had customs, border patrol and other officials reiterate his case about the need for a border wall during a meeting with senators Wednesday.

"He just said he wants people to support it because, as he said before, he thinks it's important because it's an emergency at the border," said Sen John Hoeven, R-N.D.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., tried making it even harder for uncertain Republicans to support Trump's border emergency. She said the House would never even consider the separate bill limiting future declarations by presidents, including Trump.

"Republican Senators are proposing new legislation to allow the president to violate the Constitution just this once in order to give themselves cover," Pelosi said in a statement. "The House will not take up this legislation to give President Trump a pass."

Under a four-decade old law, presidents have wide leeway in declaring a national emergency. Congress can vote to block a declaration, but the two-thirds majorities required to overcome presidential vetoes make it hard for lawmakers to prevail. Presidents have never before declared an emergency after Congress voted to deny them money for the same purpose.

Lee's proposal says a presidential emergency would last 30 days unless Congress votes to extend it. It would apply to future emergencies, but not Trump's current border emergency unless he seeks to renew it next year.

The strongest chance of blocking Trump's border emergency is likely several lawsuits filed by Democratic state attorneys general, environmental groups and others.

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Associated Press writer Catherine Lucey contributed to this report.

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Senate GOP effort on Trump border wall seems to fall short

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The White House and Republican senators sought compromise on limiting presidents' powers to unilaterally declare national emergencies, as chances improved that President Donald Trump might avoid a long-expected rejection by Congress of his effort to divert billions more for building barriers along the Mexican border.

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By Robert J. Samuelson, Washington Post Writers Group

Just because Donald Trump isn't qualified to be president - and just because much of his agenda is hateful and undesirable - doesn't mean that everything he says is automatically wrong. Some of his ideas deserve consideration and enactment. One of these is building a wall across our southern border with Mexico.

It has been ridiculed by opponents as an unneeded monstrosity and a colossal waste of money. The theory of the wall is that it keeps out low-wage workers and, thereby, raises the wages of U.S. workers, including earlier Hispanic arrivals. They are most vulnerable to more Hispanic workers, because their skills generally overlap.

Just what a wall would cost is unknown. Guesses vary. Trump has said $8 billion. A detailed report by AllianceBernstein, a research firm, estimated between $15 billion and $25 billion. These sums seem (and are) large, but within a $4 trillion federal budget, they're modest.

The crucial question is: If we had a wall, what would we get for it? The answer: A wall probably represents our best chance of reaching broad agreement on immigration policy, a subject that has frustrated Congress and the last two presidents.

Let's be clear on one issue: Trump's insistence that Mexico pay for the wall is an absurd idea. No self-respecting Mexican president would accept it. If one did, the wall would become a subject of endless bickering between the two countries as to who actually owned and controlled it. The fact that Trump made this so central to his proposal suggests that he's not serious. He is simply grandstanding.

Still, in the hands of someone serious, a wall could be a catalyst for a comprehensive overhaul of U.S. immigration policy. "It's hard to understand opposition [to a wall]," as my colleague Charles Krauthammer recently noted. "It's the most venerable and reliable way to keep people out." He argues correctly that the outlines of a deal have long been apparent. It would:

Change legal immigration criteria to favor employability (aka skills) over family connections - the emphasis would be on stimulating the nation's economic growth.

Require most businesses to belong to E-Verify, the government system that allows employers to check on the immigrant status of potential workers.

Create a path to legality - and ultimately to citizenship - for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants now in the country.

Embrace policies - including a wall - that would credibly and dramatically reduce illegal immigration.

Without a wall, it's doubtful that Republicans will enter into meaningful negotiations on immigration policy - and without Republican participation, the stalemate will continue. In a recent Pew poll, 63 percent of Republicans supported a wall and only 34 percent opposed. The distrust is deep. Republicans think Democrats don't truly care about stopping illegal immigration; they mainly want "amnesty" for existing undocumented immigrants. In the same Pew poll, 84 percent of Democrats opposed a wall.

There are two standard objections to a wall - both true but politically irrelevant. The first is that it might have once been justified but isn't now, because the inflow of undocumented Mexican immigrants is slowing and maybe reversing. Mexico's birthrate - which affects its labor force - has declined, and its economy has improved. It can more easily absorb new workers. A 2015 Pew study found that the number of undocumented Mexicans in the United States had dropped by 140,000 between 2009 and 2014.

But this is a net figure: people entering minus people leaving. There are still hundreds of thousands of Mexicans and Latinos trying to cross the southern border illegally every year. A wall will make this harder and reinforce the natural trend. Some people won't try to enter; of those who do, fewer will make it. Tragedies - dying in the desert, being exploited by "coyotes" - will decline.

The second objection is that the southern border isn't the only way people become illegal immigrants. Many arrive legally and overstay their visas. Indeed, according to a study in the Journal on Migration and Human Security, these immigrants now outnumber those breaching the southern border. But if E-Verify were widely adopted, these immigrants would have a harder time getting work.

If we could buy an immigration bargain for $25 billion, or even a bit more, it would be a fabulous deal. That's the opportunity facing the next president. But we won't make it any easier by stigmatizing the one change - a wall - that could be the foundation for compromise.
Robert J. Samuelson is a Washington Post columnist. To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by e-mail or mail.

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Yes, U.S. should build the wall (but not because Trump says so)

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By Robert J. Samuelson, Washington Post Writers Group Just because Donald Trump isn't qualified to be president - and just because much of his agenda is hateful and undesirable - doesn't mean that everything he says is automatically wrong. Some of his ideas deserve consideration and enactment.