It kind of baffles me how people say "it's symbolic" when Trump has literally described an actual wall and what he intends for it to be.
The Wall is both literal and symbolic. It's literal in that it is a physical barrier and it's symbolic as
part of a concerted effort to drastically change the illegal immigration process in America. Trump isn't going to throw the wall up and go "GG immigration is solved", it's a much larger process of making sure we have an immigration system befitting a first world county, which includes re-examining the entire immigration process (including H1Bs) and we can't even start that process with the entire southern border basically open and half of the states on the border coaxing illegals over. You cannot have a "real" immigration procedure if sneaking into the country illegally is a tactically valid option.
The physical wall is not meant to ward off an attacking army, it's meant to be a literal and spiritual deterrent for "refugees" who literally have just walked up to the border in a dingy disney t-shirt and fat kids in tow.
We currently do not have the ability to
- Easily verify that children coming over are coming over with their parents, as opposed to sex traffickers.
- Prevent people from coming over with drugs, weapons, or a real intent to do harm.
- Bring people over with specific jobs, skills, or education.
- Effectively deport people (as there is not a whole lot stopping them from just coming back, aka "catch and release")
- Prosecute these illegal citizens as criminals (with the advent of "Sanctuary Cities")
This lax process is also insanely dangerous for prospective immigrants, in particular Mexican and South Americans
- Most Cartel criminals literally seek out and exploit migrants. Captured migrants are killed, raped (at a 60% rate), become sex slaves (including Children) or forced laborers.
- If they aren't captured by Cartels they will likely be caught by Border Patrol and sent back to their home after trying to flee it.
- Even if they do make it, as illegals they are literally second class citizens. Democrats seem more keen to exploit them "who else will clean our toilets?" and Republicans have literally 0 sympathy for them.
- As they are typically unskilled, they are resented by the already struggling American lower-class as they give exploitative companies (Amazon, Walmart, etc) and even lower cost pool of unskilled labor.
Our blatant inability to do this puts us behind nearly every first world country in the world, despite how "awful" their leaders infer we are. Border Control is such a tremendously national issue that it's likely going to be what shatters the European Union (it's why Britain is trying to leave and why some countries, like Italy and Poland are fighting against the EU laws).
It puts us behind
CANADA in terms of immigration control. Even in Trudeau-land they sort and process immigrants (besides Muslim "refugees", apparently) on a clear system that identifies people that would benefit and integrate into Canada. This is the same for most world nations and even Australia. In some places (Japan) even if you are able to live there, you cannot become a "full voting citizen".
From a Canadian immigration website
If you have
more than a year of full-time work experience, there’s a good chance you’ll be eligible for Express Entry. The application takes places entirely online, and is usually processed within six months. Other methods of immigration are pretty much guaranteed to take longer than this one, so if you qualify for Express Entry, this is definitely the best route to go. The whole process costs between $1,500 and $2,000 total. Express Entry is open to
skilled foreign applicants, usually younger, who have taken one of the following official language tests in either English or French:
International English Language Testing System (IELTS)
Canadian English Language Proficiency Index Program (CELPIP)
French Certification Exam, or Test d'Evaluation de Français (TEF)
When you apply, you’ll be assessed on a scale of points that goes up to 1,200. The first 600 come from your
skills, education, work experience, and whether you have a spouse in Canada. The other 600 come from things like having
Canadian degrees/diplomas/certificates (always a plus), as well as job offers, siblings with permanent Canadian residency, a nomination from a Canadian province (more on that in a sec) and being good at French. You can learn more about how to get your credentials assessed
here.
