You should really examine why people want to “defend” borders. It’s mostly racism and classism. The most effective way to defend your borders is to improve the lives of the people across the border. Yet… does anyone advocate for that? Nope… We undermine their governments and extract their resources to plunder from them instead. We create instability and allow violent regimes to be created and prosper.
Could always not do that shit and help improve their lives… but not the American way… because we see those people as others who shouldn’t be near us and not like fellow human beings. (And frequently this is a white vs POC thing btw)
Why is it most effective, can you give a price estimate? The USSR had the longest and very well defended border with 230 thousand strong border guard. Let's say the US, with a much shorter border needs as many troops just to be sure. At this time the CBP has 62k troops and 18.2B budget. So for 47B more we could get the stronger border guard than the USSR to guard a shorter border than the USSR. Meanwhile, we spent 47B on average in pure foreign aid in 2013-2018, not counting indirect spending through trade agreements and such and still get hundreds of thousands foreigners crossing illegally every month. I don't see how the money spent on foreign aid are effective at all.
I am very pro-immigration, and I have seen firsthand the crazy hoops that well-qualified people need to jump through to come to this country, and I think those hoops are wrong. I think migrant worker programs are wrong. I think that we, as a country, are wealthy enough to let many people in and that those people will be an asset to our country.
But I still want to defend our borders.
I don't think that there is a dichotomy between wanting strong border protections and also being disappointed in the actions that the US government has taken for 80+ years across the globe (and domestically) in the name of freedom and democracy.
Please stop using HN for ideological battle. You've been posting like this repeatedly and we ban such accounts (regardless of ideology). It's not what this site is for.
Edit: since we've already warned you several times and you've continued to do this, I've banned the account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Every single scientific study done on immigration shows that immigration benefits the host country, or maybe, to quote Tucker Carlson, it turns out that immigration doesn't really make our country "poorer and dirtier".
We've banned this account for using HN for ideological battle. Regardless of ideology, it's not what this site is for. Please don't create accounts to break the site rules with.
Could always not do that shit and help improve their lives… but not the American way… because we see those people as others who shouldn’t be near us and not like fellow human beings. (And frequently this is a white vs POC thing btw)