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April 24, 2006
Exactly How Unrealistic Is An Immigration Barrier, Anyway?
In my local mountain biking discussion group, someone posted a note concerning the Minuteman Project's proposal to use private funding to build an immigration barrier across portions of the US-Mexican border. Several others questioned the cited cost--some said it was $250 per foot while others mentioned $150. This was my rather offhand reply:
The US-Mexican border from Brownsville to San Diego runs just under 1500 miles. Lets split the difference and say the barrier comes in at $200/ft. That comes out to be a little over $1.5 billion. That's a lot of money, right?Well, for the year 2003 the Department of Health and Human Services spent $503 billion. That's over 330 times as much as the barrier would cost--and the barrier would be a one-time expenditure (not counting maintenance which would not be insignificant). HHS spends that half a trillion every single year, and it's probably more by now.
It looks like $150 per foot is the number that's being thrown around, but I can find no substantiation yet.
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