{"id":23995,"date":"2020-12-18T14:06:38","date_gmt":"2020-12-18T19:06:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/?p=23995"},"modified":"2020-12-18T14:06:40","modified_gmt":"2020-12-18T19:06:40","slug":"costs-of-not-building-the-wall-immigrationreform-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2020\/12\/18\/costs-of-not-building-the-wall-immigrationreform-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Biden\u2019s Border Wall Cave-In: \u2018Savings\u2019 That Cost Untold Billions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>President-elect Joe Biden could save <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/joe-biden-would-save-26-billion-ending-construction-trumps-wall-1555432\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">$2.6 billion<\/a> if he keeps his pledge to end construction of the southern border wall, according to an Army Corps of Engineers estimate. But media reports glossed over, or simply ignored, the much bigger costs of such (in)action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First,\nthe purported savings would sacrifice security because a large share&nbsp;of\nthe construction contracts include high-speed roads and advanced-technology\ncomponents \u2013 all of which are widely accepted as useful in stopping illegal\ncrossings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Second,\nexisting contacts would have to be paid in compliance with cancellation\nclauses. Hundreds of thousands of tons of steel would have to be stored or\ndumped, and ravines that had been dug in preparation for construction would\nhave to be refilled. Those costs have not been calculated, but could run well\ninto the tens of millions of dollars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Potentially adding to the tab are pending lawsuits over use of Defense Department funds in wall construction. If they prevail in court, wall opponents say they will demand demolition of any sections built with Pentagon money. \u201cBiden could then face the choice of having to defend the Trump construction, or tearing down hundreds of miles of barriers,\u201d the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/news\/2020\/dec\/14\/stopping-border-wall-would-waste-billions-dollars-\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Washington Times<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And how about the cost of <em>not<\/em> completing the wall? Failing to fortify the southern border will mean more illegal aliens entering this country unimpeded. Stopping them will result in savings far greater than $2.6 billion. In 2017, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fairus.org\/sites\/default\/files\/2017-09\/Fiscal-Burden-of-Illegal-Immigration-2017.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">FAIR<\/a> estimated that illegal immigration costs taxpayers <em>$135 billion<\/em> annually, an expense that grows every year. The wall is a one-time cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Beyond the dollars, what does America gain from a less-secure southern border? Biden, who campaigned on the slogan <a href=\"https:\/\/joebiden.com\/build-back-better\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">\u201cBuild Back Better,\u201d<\/a> needs to explain his thinking on this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President-elect Joe Biden could save $2.6 billion if he keeps his pledge to end construction of the southern border wall, according to an Army Corps of Engineers estimate. But media reports glossed over, or simply ignored, the much bigger costs of such (in)action. First, the purported savings would sacrifice security because a large share&nbsp;of the<\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2020\/12\/18\/costs-of-not-building-the-wall-immigrationreform-com\/\" title=\"Read More\">Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":15465,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[1450],"tags":[8556,769,1524,1770],"yst_prominent_words":[10651,5406,2043,5973,2290,2293,3833,2013,10649,3178,2862,10650,2301],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23995"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23995"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23996,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23995\/revisions\/23996"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23995"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=23995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}