John Sandweg, the former acting director of ICE during the Obama administration, laid out the reasons why Trump’s wall will be a failure.
Sandweg said on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports:
You know, the funny thing, Andrea, the wall is not going to be effective for what the president is calling the crisis. What we’re facing today, we have a total lower number of people crossing that border unlawfully. The total is much lower than historically, 15 years ago. More importantly, the composition is changed. Fully, a third of the people are families. Parents with children or just the children themselves fleeing violence in Central America.
All the people want to do is get their foot on American soil. They don’t need to infiltrate their way into the United States. They just need to get their foot on the soil to make an asylum claim. The problem with the wall is not there. It’s not going to prevent them from entering the United States. Especially the area where the president was yesterday, that’s The Rio Grande Valley. If you at that river, it snakes its way, that’s our border. It’s not like the wall is going to be on that border. It will be inland. If it could be built tomorrow — it can’t — it will prevent those Central Americans from getting their feet on American soil, which is what they want to do.
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Video:
The former acting director of ICE explains why Trump's wall will fail. https://t.co/z41rdCOqzY pic.twitter.com/1fAYlJJLZY
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) January 11, 2019
The wall isn’t just a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. If there was a crisis, and there isn’t, but if there were, the wall would be the worst policy option because it will cost $50-100 billion and it won’t work. Instead of wasting the money on the wall, border agents should be given the technology that they need.
Trump’s wall isn’t a solution. It’s just a showy waste of money that will accomplish nothing.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
