By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--January 25, 2017
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President Trump’s Homeland Security secretary, John F. Kelly, has been clear about his views on a border wall with Mexico: It won’t work. When asked by senators about his views on a border wall during his confirmation hearing this month, Mr. Kelly, a retired general, said a “physical barrier will not do the job.”
Mr. Trump said on Wednesday that he would order the construction of a wall along the United States-Mexico border, fulfilling his campaign promise to crack down on illegal immigration and stop the flow of drugs coming into the United States. Mr. Kelly said that a wall would be effective only to the extent that it was backed up by far more sweeping measures. “It has to be a layered defense,” Mr. Kelly said during an exchange with Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona. “If you build a wall, you would still have to back that wall up with patrolling by human beings, by sensors, by observation devices.”Well, duh, New York Times. Whoever said border security should consist of a wall alone? Trump certainly never said that, and there is nothing in Kelly's testimony that indicates he thinks a wall would be a negative. He simply believes you can't rely on it solely, which is about as obvious as saying your shoes are for your feet. What no one can seriously deny is that, taken together with other necessary measures, a physical barrier makes it harder to sneak across the border. Impossible? Maybe not. But if it's hard to do it with border patrol guards, infrared technology, drone patrols and the like, then why wouldn't be even harder if you do all those things and also put up a wall? What Trump has said all along is that relying solely on what we're doing now isn't working, and how can anyone seriously disagree with that? Then again, it's been obvious all along that the anti-wall arguments of the political class aren't serious. They're offered because the political class doesn't really want a secure border. They want a way for people to stream into the country, become recipients of public assistance programs and ultimately become registered voters. In their fondest dreams, this would turn Texas blue and deny those 34 electoral votes to future Republican nominees for president. Too bad these same people might take 55 reliably blue electoral votes and transplant them in the Republic of Moonbeam. Then we'll need a wall outside of Barstow too.
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Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain
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