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Just to help me understand your vision of how to make America Great Again, could you help me visualize the Wall?

The photograph below is of the Rio Grande and was taken in Big Bend National Park in Texas. The canyon wall on the left is Mexico. The canyon wall on the right is the United States. The water in the middle is the Rio Grande, and the international border is the exact middle of the river. In order to secure the border, make us safe, and keep illegal immigrants from crossing the border and voting Democrat, where, specifically, would you put the wall?

Do you envision it on the American bank of the river? Up on the top of the cliff? Perhaps going straight through the middle of the river? Would you allow visitors of the park to go down to the river like the people in this photograph? Or is allowing that too big of a national security risk?

Wouldn't that fall into the category of natural barrier that Trump recently mentioned?

You wouldn't put a wall there.

Jersey Girl wrote:Wouldn't that fall into the category of natural barrier that Trump recently mentioned?

Yes, and not just recently. He has bounced back and forth between a 2000 mile wall and a 1000 mile wall that makes use of natural barriers for quite a while.

ETA: http://time.com/4091301/republican-deba ... c-boulder/ (from a primary debate in 2015)

From my understanding they think Trump can declare a national emergency, take private land, and order the military to start building it right along the border.

- Doc

The photograph below is of the Rio Grande and was taken in Big Bend National Park in Texas. The canyon wall on the left is Mexico. The canyon wall on the right is the United States. The water in the middle is the Rio Grande, and the international border is the exact middle of the river. In order to secure the border, make us safe, and keep illegal immigrants from crossing the border and voting Democrat, where, specifically, would you put the wall?

According to you there's already two walls. See?

Got any other areas we can take a look at?

Jersey Girl wrote:Wouldn't that fall into the category of natural barrier that Trump recently mentioned?

It seems to me that the desert is already a massive and effective natural barrier, but Trump still wants a wall. If a wall was put up in the desert in the middle of nowhere, getting over the wall would be the easiest part of the journey.

The cliff itself isn't that formidable of a natural barrier--as the photograph shows, it is easy for hikers with kids to follow paths down to the water. Does Trump intend for his wall to prevent visitors to the park from doing this?

Analytics wrote:It seems to me that the desert is already a massive and effective natural barrier, but Trump still wants a wall. If a wall was put up in the desert in the middle of nowhere, getting over the wall would be the easiest part of the journey.

The cliff itself isn't that formidable of a natural barrier--as the photograph shows, it is easy for hikers with kids to follow paths down to the water. Does Trump intend for his wall to prevent visitors to the park from doing this?

Yes, and the reason drug runners avoid the open desert is because it is easy to see them and when they are spotted by CBP monitoring, they're basically sitting ducks because they're 40-80 miles to the nearest city. Drugs are flippin expensive and they don't take risks across the desert except in smaller quantities.

But even with a wall, the "mules" could come to the wall from the US side and wait for them to throw them over in bags or drop them over using drones or whatever. A wall does nothing in the end.

Analytics wrote:

Jersey Girl wrote:Wouldn't that fall into the category of natural barrier that Trump recently mentioned?

It seems to me that the desert is already a massive and effective natural barrier, but Trump still wants a wall. If a wall was put up in the desert in the middle of nowhere, getting over the wall would be the easiest part of the journey.

The cliff itself isn't that formidable of a natural barrier--as the photograph shows, it is easy for hikers with kids to follow paths down to the water. Does Trump intend for his wall to prevent visitors to the park from doing this?

I have no blessed clue what Trump intends until and unless he specifies a particular area or obstacle, has contractors draw up plans and bid--if it comes to that process. So. I don't know why you're posing that question to start with.

Here's the description of that area directly from the website.

Santa Elena Canyon Trail

Difficulty: Moderate; Distance: 1.7 miles round trip
Begins at terminus of the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive
This trail leads into the stunning Santa Elena Canyon. After crossing Terlingua Creek, the trail ascends on paved steps to a vista, then descends back to the water's edge, continuing into the canyon until the canyon walls meet the water. A Big Bend classic. Trail is impassable when Terlingua Creek floods.

https://www.nps.gov/bibe/planyourvisit/river_hikes.htm

I suppose it would matter what's on the other side of the river and whether or not it's accessible. I don't have regulations in front of me that govern the building of structures or barriers in National Parks, I don't have a precise plan in front of me from Trump since his plan will depend on how much money he gets or doesn't get for funding so I don't know why you are posing these questions that currently have no answer to start with.

What comes immediately to mind is that the area would be covered by drones and monitored.

But I can't know a thing that hasn't been made known.

Jersey Girl wrote:I have no blessed clue what Trump intends until and unless he specifies a particular area or obstacle, has contractors draw up plans and bid--if it comes to that process. So. I don't know why you're posing that question to start with.

I have no reason to believe Trump has actually thought any of this through, other than wanting to energize his base, build a big physical monument to himself, and cause several billion dollars of contractor work to fill the pockets of his friends.

So I'm not too interested in Trump's non-existent plans. But I am interested in what his supporters visualize. To me, Trump's statements about a wall are stupid and don't actually address any actual problems. If we were serious about border security, I'd be more interested in better ways of screening ports of entry for bombs so that it would be impossible to ship a nuclear device to the U.S. in a truck or a shipping container without getting caught.

But we aren't talking about how to hermetically seal our ports of entry from receiving nuclear weapons that could be used in terrorist attacks. We are talking about building walls in the middle of the desert.

Jersey Girl wrote:

Santa Elena Canyon Trail

Difficulty: Moderate; Distance: 1.7 miles round trip
Begins at terminus of the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive
This trail leads into the stunning Santa Elena Canyon. After crossing Terlingua Creek, the trail ascends on paved steps to a vista, then descends back to the water's edge, continuing into the canyon until the canyon walls meet the water. A Big Bend classic. Trail is impassable when Terlingua Creek floods.

https://www.nps.gov/bibe/planyourvisit/river_hikes.htm

I suppose it would matter what's on the other side of the river and whether or not it's accessible. I don't have regulations in front of me that govern the building of structures or barriers in National Parks, I don't have a precise plan in front of me from Trump since his plan will depend on how much money he gets or doesn't get for funding so I don't know why you are posing these questions that currently have no answer to start with.

As long as that trail is open, somebody from Mexico could head to the river on the Mexican side, float down it a ways, and then follow the trail up to the heart of the national park. If we want to create a physical barrier to prevent people from crossing the river into the United States, this trail needs to be closed.

If we don't close it, what's the point of building the wall elsewhere?

Proponents of building walls need to think through the implications of what it is they claim they want. Just sayin'.