Ever since Donald Trump emerged in the political scene, his presidential campaign and promises have been focused on solutions for the immense immigration problem in the United States. Some of the ideas include building a wall and greatly reducing the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals (DACA). Trump’s main goal is to reduce the number of roughly 13 million undocumented immigrants currently residing in the United States, yet people are still strongly against the ideas of building a wall and ridding of DACA. The truth is, the most effective way to reduce illegal immigration in the U.S. is to proceed with building a border wall and trashing DACA once and for all.
The illegal immigration problem in America is the worst it has ever been, with undocumented immigrants costing the U.S. an average of $113 billion every year, with $52 billion spent on schooling for children of illegal immigrants, a majority of those protected by DACA, according to FOX news.
When President Barack Obama overreached executive power to create DACA in 2012, he made it for the intent of people who were brought to America illegally by their parents and who grew up in America without knowledge of any other life. DACA gives these parents an opportunity to bypass the process of coming to the United States the legal and proper way. In 2012, the United States admitted about 1 million immigrants the legal way. The cost to become a U.S. citizen in 2015 was $725, while the cost to apply for DACA: $465. While looking at these prices, the question comes up, if someone is going to come to the U.S, why wouldn’t they just go the extra mile to become a full time U.S. citizen?
Another that must be addressed is border security. Ever since Trump’s campaign began he wanted to build a wall along the U.S-Mexico border, which came with an immense amount of controversy, but why are people so against a secure southern border? The truth is that, historically, walls work pretty well. In 1996, Congress passed a bill to construct a double layer border fence in the San Diego corridor along the border. While this fence only covered 14 miles, the immigration rates dropped 95 percent, according to NPR.
While building a wall would be a pricey endeavor, with estimates as high as $21 billion, according to CBS, keep in mind harboring illegal immigrants cost the us roughly $113 billion each year, which could pay for more than five walls. Another positive of building a wall is that it would provide jobs for many Americans who would not only build it, but also people to man the wall and for maintenance of it.
While a majority of Americans are against these ideas of repealing DACA and building a wall, it seems that with the sheer number of illegal immigrants in the U.S., there is not much of an option left for us to follow.