I was wrong about the border wall after talking to a guy who works on it

My neighbor Joe does welding for a construction company. He spent six months on a wall section near Yuma. I always thought it was just a campaign promise that did nothing. He showed me photos of the old vehicle barriers vs the new bollard design. Said the number of foot crossings dropped by like 80% in his sector. I still dont love the cost but the data is hard to argue with. Anyone else have a blindspot like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

roberts.jordan1mo ago

Yeah, I get what you're saying about the data, but I'm not sure one guy's photos and one sector really tell the whole story. That 80% drop could be from other things like better enforcement or just people shifting to other areas. The cost is a huge blindspot for me too, like billions of dollars for something that might just move the problem around instead of fixing it. Have you looked at how much we spend on maintenance and repairs after it's built?

the_fiona1mo ago

Oh come on, you're really gonna take some welder's word and a quick photo tour as proof this thing works? Look, I get the appeal of a nice clean bollard design over some rusty old junk, but that 80% number is probably cherry picked from a short window after they installed it. DHS throws around stats like that all the time and then quietly revises them a year later when the smugglers find new routes. And yeah, the maintenance costs are insane, I read somewhere the welds alone fail faster than they expected in that desert heat, so you're paying to fix it every other year. It just feels like we pour money into this giant fence while ignoring the actual root problems.