Comics, 9-6-19: Garrison, Wall

Current Status: USA Southern Border Security Barrier aka ‘Trump’s Wall’
5-1-19, Fairus.org -- Many countries maintain border walls or fences, including Israel, the UK (Northern Ireland),  Spain, Greece, Hungary and India. As of May 2018, there were at least seventy-seven border walls or fences around the world. However, in America, Congress has impeded progress of completion of the southern border security barrier; therefore because of its inaction and obstruction, in Feb 2019, President Trump declared a national emergency to jump start the border wall. Few important facts:
1. In 1996 Congress and Pres Clinton [Dem] passed the “Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA)” to construct a southern border fence: 14-mile, triple-layered fence between San Diego & Tijuana
2. By 2004, only nine miles of fencing were completed so Congress passed the Secure Fence Act of 2006 [double-layered fencing along the border, augmented by manpower and technology and directed Homeland security to construct “reinforced fencing along not fewer than 700 miles of the southwest border]
3. As of May 2015 there was only 350 miles of fencing … Currently there is approximately 700 miles of fencing and barriers along the 1,954-mile USA border with Mexico majority is only for vehicles not foot traffic.
4. In 2019 the Dept of Defense (DOD) redirected funds from existing programs for the purposes of border wall construction under the authority of President Trump’s emergency declaration [In July 2019 Supreme Court approved here]
5.  The estimated cost of the wall is between $15 and $25 billion
6.  After initial construction, especially if high-tech monitoring devices are installed, there will be annual maintenance costs [estimated in 2006] from a low of $115 million to a high of $1.2 billion in FY 2008 before eventually stabilizing at around $400 million in FY 2012. [The overall construction and annual maintenance costs pale when compared to the annual $116 billion FAIR estimates illegal immigration costs American taxpayers.
​7. Securing the southern border is a sound fiscal investment. Besides helping stem the tide of illegal immigration, it also limits the ability of drug cartels, human traffickers, terrorists and other national security threats to access the United States from Mexico and the rest of Central and South America. More here