Borders Vs. Walls: Is it Worth the Costs?
Kaitlyn Boelter-Eberhardt
Mrs. Straub
Advanced Economics
28 February 2017
Borders Vs. Walls: Is it Worth the Costs?
As of January 20, 2017, Donald Trump has been inaugurated as the President of the United States of America. Along with his inauguration to presidency comes his plans for this country, one of which has been a major controversy around the world as it becomes more of a reality. So what should we really believe? From the beginning, Trump has incorporated the idea of building a wall along the border of Mexico into his campaign as a way to stop illegal immigration crossing and included finding all the illegals and sending them back to their countries in order to gain back jobs for the American people. Now that Donald Trump has become president and this theory is being turned into a reality, people are beginning to wonder the positives and opportunity costs if this potential action is to be fulfilled. Yet, the evidence shows that this can only be seen in the perspective of positive economics, meaning that it can be proven there will be more costs to the production of this wall than positives.
Donald Trump told the world that he would begin to build this wall from day one and thus, to fulfill his election pledge, he signed an executive order to put it into the workings. Yet, with this pledge, he told the American people that the Mexicans would pay for this large project and that has been proven a lie. Does everyone believe that though? There is nearly 2,000 miles worth of land across that border that Trump wants this wall to cover. Below shows the 650 miles of existing fencing that was put up by the United States government in 2006 and that only cost nearly $7 billion. He says that his estimate for the cost of the wall is $8 billion to $12 billion because he has always claimed, “ I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I build them very inexpensively” (BBC) while the U.S department of Homeland Security has shown evidence that estimates the cost to be more than $20 billion dollars (Reuters). This would not only be a negative impact on the economy because of the cost to build the wall but also affect the tourism and businesses along the border. This plan that has been told to the world has truly not been analyzed thoroughly as there is way too much risk in the many other costs besides building the wall. Unless Donald Trump takes a step back to truly figure this out then there is not a chance for the country to gain any profit or even break even and can only lead to a colossal net loss. 
Works Cited
Ainsley, Julia Edwards. "Exclusive - Trump Border 'wall' to Cost $21.6 Billion, Take 3.5 Years to Build: Internal Report." Reuters. Thomson Reuters, 09 Feb. 2017. Web. 26 Feb. 2017. <http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-immigration-wall-exclusive-idUSKBN15O2ZN>.
Burnett, John. "Donald Trump Moves Forward With Plan To Build Border Wall." NPR. NPR, 25 Jan. 2017. Web. 26 Feb. 2017. <http://www.npr.org/2017/01/25/511655776/donald-trump-moves-forward-with-plan-to-build-border-wall>.
"Donald Trump's Mexico Wall: Who Is Going to Pay for It?" BBC News. BBC, 06 Feb. 2017. Web. 26 Feb. 2017. <http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37243269>.
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