Don’t build a wall
Matthew Yglesias does not want a double wall on the Mexican border to counter illegal immigration:
My colleague Andrea Nill notes that this is a fairly costly endeavor:
U.S. government investigators have indicated that it will cost taxpayers $6.5 billion over the next 20 years to maintain the fencing already in place and the Congressional Research Service estimated in 2007 that building and maintaining a double set of steel fences along 700 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border would add up to $49 billion over the expected 25-year life span of the fence.
That’s a lot of money to spend on an enterprise that, if successful, would reduce GDP and lower wages for most native-born Americans.
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“… reduce GDP and lower wages for most native-born Americans.”
This claim is disingenuous. It would not be possible to project all of the implications of such a drastic change. And a comparison of the 1960s to the 2000s suggests that the opposite outcome is more likely. What is unquestionably true is that undocumented workers do allow for higher profits.
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