By Ron Paul
Just one week in office, President Trump is already following through on his pledge to address illegal immigration. His January 25th executive order called for the construction of a wall along the entire length of the US-Mexico border. While he is right to focus on the issue, there are several reasons why his proposed solution will unfortunately not lead us anywhere closer to solving the problem.
First, the wall will not work. Texas already started building a border fence about ten years ago. It divided people from their own property across the border, it deprived people of their land through the use of eminent domain, and in the end the problem of drug and human smuggling was not solved.
Second, the wall will be expensive. The wall is estimated to cost between 12 and 15 billion dollars. You can bet it will be more than that. President Trump has claimed that if the Mexican government doesn’t pay for it, he will impose a 20 percent duty on products imported from Mexico. Who will pay this tax? Ultimately, the American consumer, as the additional costs will be passed on. This will of course hurt the poorest Americans the most.
Third, building a wall ignores the real causes of illegal border crossings into the United States. Though President Trump is right to prioritize the problem of border security, he misses the point on how it can be done effectively and at an actual financial benefit to the country rather than a huge economic drain.
The solution to really addressing the problem of illegal immigration, drug smuggling, and the threat of cross-border terrorism is clear: remove the welfare magnet that attracts so many to cross the border illegally, stop the 25 year US war in the Middle East, and end the drug war that incentivizes smugglers to cross the border.
The various taxpayer-funded programs that benefit illegal immigrants in the United States, such as direct financial transfers, medical benefits, food assistance, and education, cost an estimated $100 billion dollars per year. That is a significant burden on citizens and legal residents. The promise of free money, free food, free education, and free medical care if you cross the border illegally is a powerful incentive for people to do so. It especially makes no sense for the United States government to provide these services to those who are not in the US legally.
Likewise, the 40 year war on drugs has produced no benefit to the American people at a great cost. It is estimated that since President Nixon declared a war on drugs, the US has spent more than a trillion dollars to fight what is a losing battle. That is because just as with the welfare magnet, there is an enormous incentive to smuggle drugs into the United States.
We already know the effect that ending the war on drugs has on illegal smuggling: as more and more US states decriminalize marijuana for medical and recreational uses, marijuana smuggling from Mexico to the US has dropped by 50 percent from 2010.
Finally, the threat of terrorists crossing into the United States from Mexico must be taken seriously, however once again we must soberly consider why they may seek to do us harm. We have been dropping bombs on the Middle East since at least 1990. Last year President Obama dropped more than 26,000 bombs. Thousands of civilians have been killed in US drone attacks. The grand US plan to “remake” the Middle East has produced only misery, bloodshed, and terrorism. Ending this senseless intervention will go a long way toward removing the incentive to attack the United States.
I believe it is important for the United States to have secure borders, but unfortunately President Trump’s plan to build a wall will end up costing a fortune while ignoring the real problem of why people cross the borders illegally. They will keep coming as long as those incentives remain.
Ron Paul writes for his site RonPaulInstitute.org where this article first appeared. Get his latest book Swords Into Plowshares.
That’s why you didn’t get to be president Ron. You make too much sense.
Yep, can’t have that in the District of Criminals.
My opinion is the author of this article is a freemasonic dissembler with an Eastern Star wife and Rainbow children, who has connections to the beyond with the very globalist cabal he professes to oppose (Hegelian wizard, tho, stellar actor – playing “antithesis” to help facilitate the fraudulently gained synthesis of a New World Order). I have no idea why his words are even here, he’s not one of us fighting for the truth, he’s one of them adding to the lies. And no one please come back with he’s denied being a freemasib on his webpage because it’s not true. He’s up to his ears in it, by word and deed (he let a LOT of people down and gained a LOT of $) and even his presence here makes my hair hurt.
those are COMMON SENSE ideas so I can’t see what that has to do with freemasonry…killing the messenger isn’t helping us that’s for sure
Free Masons aren’t usually interested in Rudolf Steiner’s Threefold Commonwealth of Social Organism, so that might explain why Mr Paul got stuck in run-of-the-mill
ideas.
He will build that wall 10 feet higher, 10 feet higher.
It will become the Trump wall.
The great wall of the south.
And
The war on drugs is a ruse to keep a steady flow of money going to the goat worshipers.
suggested reads: ‘The Committee of 300’ by John D. Coleman hint; the royals have controlled the drug routes for hundreds of years.
‘Barry and the Boys’ Dennis Hopsicker, hint: The Bush controlled CIA was flying drugs into Mena, Ark. Poor ol’ Barry…RIP.
You don’t say which route Bush had his cocaine transporters use.
Chump is just doing what every other clown before him is doing, giving the illusion of security to the dumbed down and charging them out the A$$ to do it. In the end, the morons can’t figure out they’ve been screwed and that’s why this country is in the shape it’s in.
We need both. Stop the flow AND the incentives. Plus, real terrorists don’t care much about welfare.
If Israel and China can have walls that effectively do the job, so can we. We’re the greatest nation on the face of the earth. Btw, it’s not Trump’s border wall. It’s Bush’s border wall. Bush signed it into law while in office after the House and Senate passed it. He just gets the privilege of making it with newer and better technology.
That’s really a lousy comparison: USA is NOT in the situation of Zionist Israel
(which aims to become much greater in territory, but needs to fragment and subdue Arabs). How can you compare the war between Zionists and Arabs with problems the US has with illegal migrants? You need your head checked, buddy.
Trade deals need to be restructured so that the poor benefit…not just the big shots in both countries
For example corn and cotton subsidies….I’d say that takes aim at poor Mexican farmers
Even the supposed Pope, PF the FP or just the False Prophet, says walls around countries is a bad thing.
That is while he sits behind the Vatican wall.
.-.
I hate to agreed with the False Prophet but making the U.S. a prison planet is not what I want to see either.
Petition to have Ron Paul nominated for the U.S. Supreme Court.
He couldn’t serve many years but might be able to move us toward the Limited Constitutional Republic that we were promised.
Our current corporate/fascist state is getting old and only d-word and r-word governments below that.
What is amazing is that Ron Paul lives in Texas and ignores the border guards. Why do the border guards and law enforcement on the border want the wall?
Ron Paul believes the wall will be too expensive. None of his arguments are wrong – heroin arrives elsewhere, war goes on, etc. But a border wall sounds like common sense.
Add in penalizing people who hire illegals with fines and jail time.