Illegal Immigration

[FlyingNarwhal]

The administration isn't changing the qualifications for those seeking asylum.  I'm just gonna lay this here from the wiki page on US asylum:

There's not even really a dip in the amount of asylum seekers we let into the country each year.  It's stayed pretty steady even throughout Trump's administration.

You are right that a wall is not much of an obstacle, but that's not it's only purpose.  The lock on the outside of most peoples houses is not much of an obstacle either.  It can be easily picked, removed, destroyed, or the door can even be kicked in.  It works along the principle that criminals look for easy targets.  That's why burglars look for unlocked houses, it's why scammers target old people, and it's why muggers target tourists.  The wall won't be a complete 100% deterrent, but in all reality how many people do you think would even be fit enough to climb it.  And those that are fit enough, how many would risk it?  It purpose is meant to funnel people towards point of entry or at the very least areas with increased border security where anyone entering the country illegally can be picked up with relative ease.  And ultimately, if you the walls are not easily scalable, and all other entry points are heavily scrutinized, a lot of people may not bother trying to enter the country illegally.  Instead they'll have to enter through legal channels which is what we want.

I went searching for a very good article that I read a few months ago which detailed one of the changes that Jeff Sessions was attempting to make to the definition of 'credible fear'. He wanted to change it so that the fear specifically had to be fear of the government in a prospective immigrants home country. I have not been able to locate that article. I apologize for that, and hope to come up with it in the near future.

The wall really will be a very, very small obstacle.  We are talking about people who are willing to risk their lives following 'coyotes' on life threatening treks through the desert. Quite a few of them die doing this. Compared to that, the wall is just a little hill that they have to get over, under, through, or around. They are going to do it.  Seriously, the cost to benefit analysis of the wall is really horrible. The benefit is close to zero. The cost isn't really known aside from being many billions to build and billions more to maintain. We have bridges that are falling down. I would rather spend the money on bridges. The cost to benefit analysis on most of them is fantastic.

If you can find the article I'd definitely be interested in reading it, but everything I've seen from this administration doesn't show that they are trying to actually hamper the amount of actual asylum seekers into the country.  If you are truly seeking asylum, you can do so at points of entry or embassies.  Most of the people trying to illegally cross are not doing so to actually seek asylum, they are economic immigrants.  And there's nothing wrong with that, but there is a line that they need to get in to enter the country.

As far as the wall being a small obstacle, not necessarily.  I know that there hasn't been a clear design for the wall, but I've heard that Trump wants it to be 30 ft tall.  Which is very large, think about a 3 story building in your city and trying to climb it without equipment.  Crossing a desert is definitely difficult, but a lot of them cross without enough water or food.  Crossing a desert also does not give people an inhuman ability to climb walls.  Not everyone is young and in shape, there are older people, full families with young kids, etc.  They are not all going to be able to scale up a 30 ft wall.  Even if they brought climbing equipment with them (which I would doubt because walking through a desert with heavy climbing equipment is impractical), the prototypes of the walls that were already tested could likely still prevent them from scaling.  I haven't seen any numbers on what it would cost to maintain, but depending on the material used it might not be terribly expensive.  It might even provide a net benefit if you taken into account all the other various costs of hosting illegal immigrants in a country.