Is a wall necessary?

5 years ago

To the editor:

There are those who say we need all the immigrants, legal and illegal, we can attract to the U.S., that we need them to fill the low-income jobs to help the farmers, etc. Here’s the problem: Over 50 percent of these unvetted immigrants are ending up on our welfare rolls. These put a strain on our resources: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and more.

“Insanity” is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. This is the strategy of the Democrats. They want to throw billions more on more manpower, vehicles, etc. We catch a few, listen to their cases and then release them into our country to await their final hearings, which takes years. The vast majority of illegals are never caught and walk right into our country because there is not a thing to stop them.

Chucky Schumer and Nancy Pelosi say a wall or fence is ineffective. Really? We already have 150 miles of wall built and the number of illegals breaching these areas have fallen significantly. Israel had 55,000 illegals breach their border between 2010-2012. In 2015, they built a barrier on the section of their border where these breaches were occurring. The following year there were just 11 illegal crossings. Sounds effective to me.

Also very telling to me is that those who are crying the loudest against the need for a wall, namely celebrities and government elites on the far left, almost without exception live on compounds behind their own private walls and gated private communities. Strange how important it is that they protect themselves and their own families while throwing their country to the wolves.

A wall does not stop immigration; it simply causes those flooding our border to go to legal points of entry to be vetted, to make certain gang members, criminals and those looking to take advantage of this country are excluded. To do this, a barrier is an absolute necessity.

Clare Kierstead

Presque Isle