It’s true, I do!

Efficiency would be very hard to compare between the two choices, and effectiveness would be tricky, too, since the choices aren’t the same piece of work being done in two different ways. Which is more efficient, sex or basketball?

A set of independent contractors, working from greed, would probably build a fence better/faster/cheaper than the federal government. But for obvious reasons, it is usually more practical to do unitary Big Projects with one boss.

It isn’t, at least not in the sense that you mean. Nobody really cares about Larry’s Garden Shop being run out of business, but large agribusiness and the National Restaurant Association care very much about their labor costs. And they are much more effective than Larry at determining what immigration-enforcement policies will be.

A wall is a nice fantasy, and will keep many contractors in business for decades, but this is going to be a government project. Do you really think it will be built affordably, reliably and in any of our lifetimes?

“Robert, I just don’t see a ‘wall’ as a realistic or truly feasible option. I find it fantasy at best. People will continue to find ways to get around the wall, manipulation, cash and connection will play an even larger role.”

Here is thing with the wall, yes some determined illegals and traffickers will tunnel, climb, and cut their way through the wall to get here. But consider this question: Do you lock your doors at night? More than likely you do. Even though a determined criminal can fairly easily break a window, cut through a wall, jimmy or break a lock, etc, most people still lock their doors at night. Part of that might be that we simply feel safer, but more I think is the belief that most criminals are less determined than others. I think the double wall would significantly cut down on illegal entry by filtering out all but the most determined border violaters.

Secondly, the wall would be much easier to police than an open desert. Even more so if they employ certain electronic technologies. And with the added “filtering effect” of the barrier many of people that are determined enough to cross are the exact people you really want to catch. Border patrol can spend more time apprehending drug smugglers, people smugglers, the gang members, would be terrorists, etc and less time chasing the tens of thousands of people just wanting a better job. If the fence can cut down illegal entrants by 80-90% I think that was money well spent.

Certainly. People find ways to pursue their interests pretty much regardless of what others may do.

The question, however, is what the costs are for a given activity, and what incentive signals those costs send. Putting up a wall doesn’t stop people from trying to get to the states; it makes it harder for them to try. Some will give up. Others will choose to try to find better work in Mexico. And so forth.

One indirect, but foreseeable, consequence of making it more difficult to illegally cross the border: increased demographic pressure on Mexico to modernize its economy and reduce the level of taxation and corruption which choke off entrepreneurial activity.

Also, will the wall follow north along the coastline of california? Will the wall snake around the gulf of mexico? Or will the wall just continue out into the sea to the next continent westward and eastward over to Florida. Will it follow along Florida as well because remember, we’ve the boat people from cuba to be worried about too.

Could we also build a wall between the us and canada to keep out those Canadians with their socialized medicine ideas and their competition with the american pharmecutical companies? Not to mention canada’s notoriously porous borders and how that opens us up to threats of terrorism.

Oh and speaking of terrorists, can we go ahead and put Reagan’s Star Wars program back on the table, albeit in a more modern form? Possibly a giant air-sheild to prevent future terrorist attacks on our great nation?

We could skim what’s left from the student loan program, welfare, medicaid and the school lunch programs probably to fund a big part of the project. What the hell, our tax dollars. let’s protect our nation.

I commend you on your forward thinking Robert.

So by “in a practical sense” I take you to mean “in theory”. Because in a practical sense, political will and the interests of the people in charge are operative factors.

Enforcing immigration laws at the employer level essentially requires widespread local cooperation. And you don’t get the local cooperation, because locally the people are aware that (a) you’re talking about running off Paolo, that nice young fellow, and his wife and their new baby, and (b) that you also mean closing down Hank’s Lawn and Garden, who paid $12,252.23 in taxes to the county last year.

Practically speaking, it is in essence impossible to enforce immigration law, as things currently stand. Perhaps if it was 1960 and the problem was 1/100th the size it is now - but today, as things are, it’s a non-starter.

Building the wall is a trivial exercise in comparison.

The difference is both in terms of political will, and in terms of interests of the ruling class.

Incidentally I don’t necessarily agree that people wouldn’t hire immigrants if they didn’t have the power over them that comes from them being illegal.

It’s a lot easier to build a wall.

I want to take this a step further: stop outsourcing to countries that don’t meet our labor laws. That would solve the problem of outsourcing without being immoral.

Paolo from Mexico City comes to Texas and works in a restaurant.

If you build a wall to stop illegal immigration, Paolo won’t be able to get to Texas, and won’t have that job. Maia objects to this.

If you fully enforce job laws and require the restaurant to pay benefits and all the rest of it, Paolo also will not get the job. Increasing the pay and compensation of the job makes it a more attractive job. That means that Francisco, who lives next door to the restaurant and who is a more attractive job candidate than Paolo, will be interested and will apply.

Whether you build a wall, or build a law, Paolo will be the one who loses out.

This may be good or bad or indifferent, depending on your point of view. My point was simply that economic barriers, no less than physical barriers, will block the low-skilled from finding certain types of work.

Enforcing the labor law has exactly the same effect as putting up a wall.

No, it doesn’t. The fence would not, by itself, stop people from coming in. It would help people with guns keep people out. In the process, some number of people will presumably die. Certainly it involves the threat of force. By contrast, if people “won’t come across the border in the first place” because they can’t get jobs, then none of them will die on the way and none of us will threaten them with a gun. I don’t know if the assumptions here actually fit the observed facts, but your argument seems absurd as stated.

Right. Also, ‘under the table’ pay does get reported in many cases, when the employer wants to pretend to the government that, gosh, they thought all those folks were legal.

But he’ll tell you stories that make mine (and his) blood freeze.

From the purely injustice: such as ranchers who’ll work an immigrant on his ranch for a month then calling BP when it comes to pay them (they now have changed the law so that the ranch MUST pay them), to the disturbing: finding half-starved, dying of thirst groups of men, women and children wandering in the desert because some pendejo lobo stole all their money, told them they’d get them to the US and then leave them, to the downright viciously cruel: the group of Hispanic girls that were locked in a dark room and raped repeatedly.

It’s too easy to take advantage of these people. I believe in making it easier to get refugee status, but more than that: US companies should not be allowed to trade with countries that do not meet OSHA and minium wage requirements. No more cheap labor exploitation from China, India, Mexico, Sri Lanka, anything. That is what’s making labor impossible to find in the US. The Free Market is one of the most immoral things devised by man: it is going to address violations of human rights anymore than it allowed civil rights.

Allowing labor to be traded like other goods would go a long way towards improving the situation for immigrants. For one thing, workers would not have the threat of deportation if they complained about illegal working conditions.

The people who can ‘afford’ illegal workers & domestics can also afford to pay them a decent wage but won’t because they don’t have to. The cost of goods & services wouldn’t go up in an honest economy if this were so but the profits would go down. It’s the obscenity of profits-at-any-cost that drives the ‘need’ for an illegal underground workforce, not the need or desire for cheap goods & services.

Exploitation here or there is indefensible. However anyone living here that needs food, clothing, Education or medical needs should get it. Folks who say we can’t afford it have a tough time justifying that after dumping hundreds of billions into the military to spread hatred and suffering amongst peoples that never asked for our “help.” (Isn’t that what China said when they rolled over Tibet? They asked for our liberation?) Do you want to slow immigration? Help and encourage folks to have the rule of law and opportunity in the lands they currently live.

It was awesome in LA (accept for the freeway!)