If Mexico will pay for wall, why the big budget fight?
On several occasions, President Donald Trump has vowed to shut down parts of the federal government at the end of this week if he doesn’t get funding for his U.S.-Mexico border wall. You know, the one Mexico was supposed to pay for.
In a meeting with Democratic leaders last week, Trump even said he’d be “proud” to shut down the government in the name of border security, though the White House appeared to soften that stance on Tuesday.
A government shutdown would be a big price to pay for a political symbol.
There is nothing wrong with physical barriers along certain segments of the 2,000-mile border; in fact, about 650 miles already have some kind of vehicle or pedestrian barriers. But adding another 330 miles, as Trump is proposing, has at least two problems.
One is that it is hard to justify spending another $5 billion on Trump’s vision at a time when the budget deficit is soaring and other critical needs make a more compelling case for tax dollars. Despite a boomlet of refugees from Central America, illegal immigration is down significantly from its peak more than a decade ago.
The other problem is that, of all of the ways to spend more money on immigration enforcement, wall building will arguably yield the smallest bang for the buck.
A wall would do nothing, for example, to thwart the nearly half of all illegal immigrants who arrived in America legally and then overstayed their visas. Nor would it be of much assistance in deterring the families and unaccompanied minors from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras who have been showing up at the border recently, sometimes in caravans. Their aim is not to pass into the United States undetected, but rather to turn themselves in and apply for asylum or refugee status.
It’s hard to fathom how anyone could justify a partial government shutdown over wasteful spending — unless, of course, one sees the federal budget as little more than a vehicle for making political statements.
Trump made a 2,000-mile wall from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico a key part of his campaign. He has since retreated on the Mexico pay-for part, tweeting nonsense about the wall being financed by the son-of-NAFTA deal he negotiated with Mexico and Canada.
In reality, the president needs Congress to appropriate wall-building funds, although White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Tuesday that the administration has “other ways that we can get to that $5 billion.” Democrats have offered $1.3 billion for border fencing.
For someone who considers himself the consummate deal-maker, this one isn’t very complicated. Senate Democrats have previously offered additional border-security funding in return for legal protection for the roughly 700,000 DREAMers, undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as minors.
So let the DREAMers celebrate Christmas without fear of deportation. Let Trump tout any new or refurbished security barriers as pieces of a “wall system.” Let the Democrats call it better fencing. And let the government stay open.