Congress Passes Border Fence Bill

[Nym90]

Massive waste of money. I'd vote no.

Take the money that would've been spent on this and spend it instead on prosecuting those who hire illegal immigrants.

[Nym90]

.

Nay.

While parts of the border will need to be fenced off at somepoint, the 700 mile bill did not actually fund the construction of a fence, but just that one could be built.  I'm more in line with the 300 mile bill that was passed (and funded), since it limits the fence to key hotspots yet doesn't waste tax revenue on a bigger fence that will just be breeched.  The money saved should be invested into placing US businesses in northern Mexico to help stem off the flow of otherwise law-abiding immigrants to keep them in their own country working jobs at higher salaries than they would find domestically, but at slightly lower wages than would be paid here in the US.

I would strongly oppose government subsidies to businesses to get them to locate outside of the US, especially if the wages they were going to pay would be lower than here in the US. That's a double incentive to leave the country.

I want to end illegal immigration as much as the next guy, but why would taking away jobs in the US be the solution? That's the primary point of what we are trying to prevent.

I do very much agree that the only long term solution to the problem is to improve the economy of the countries that the immigrants are attempting to escape from, but subsidizing a US export of jobs is not the way to do that.

[Nym90]

Well, if these truly were newly created jobs and no jobs were being lost in this country in the process, then sure, I'm all for it. I'm still definitely not sure about it being something the government should be subsidizing, however, as that could create an incentive to move jobs out of this country to Mexico. Any kind of government funds would have to be strictly tied to that. I'm just very suspicious that it could easily turn into corporate welfare subsidizing a loss of US jobs. The devil would definitely be in the details on this legislation.

As long as there is no loss of jobs in the US, it's an excellent strategy, and I agree that the only long term solution is improving the economy of countries like Mexico.