What Would It Take for Donald Trump to Deport 11 Million and Build a Wall?By JULIA PRESTON, ALAN RAPPEPORT and MATT RICHTELMAY 19, 2016 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/20/us/politics/donald-trump-immigration.html. . . excerpted . . .
Mass deportations: Adding chaos to dysfunction...
Mr. Trump has said he would triple ICE’s deportation officers, to 15,000 from about 5,000. But even if that could be accomplished quickly — difficult given the vetting and training required — it would still be insufficient, experts said. The F.B.I. and other agencies would have to set aside some of their missions to help.
John Sandweg, who led ICE for seven months under Mr. Obama, said wholesale deportations could make it easier for immigrant gang members and drug traffickers to escape detection. “If the agents are looking for volume, they won’t spend the time to do the detective work tracking down the high-value bad guy who has fake documents, the hardened criminals in the shadows,” he said.
To prevent flight after arrest, the authorities would have to detain most immigrants awaiting deportation. Existing facilities, with about 34,000 beds, would have to be expanded to hold at least 300,000, Mr. Sandweg estimated, perhaps with tens of thousands of people in detention camps, similar to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
Most deportations must be approved by judges. But backlogs in the 57 immigration courts are already severe, with waits as long as two years for a first hearing. The federal government would have to open dozens of emergency courts and hire hundreds of judges, shortcutting the painstaking selection process.
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By any tally, the costs would be enormous. The American Action Forum, a conservative-leaning research group,
calculated the federal outlay to be at least $400 billion, and then only if the deportations were stretched over 20 years.
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The wall: Big, beautiful and impractical...
Mr. Trump has shared few details. He has said that the wall would be built from precast concrete and steel and that it could be 50 feet tall, if not higher. After calling for it to extend across the entire 2,000-mile southern border, he more recently said half that length could be sufficient because of natural barriers. He has pegged the cost at $4 billion to $12 billion, most recently settling on around $10 billion.
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Running the numbers, Mr. Sternfeld said a 40-foot-tall concrete wall using a “post and panel” system that went 10 feet below the ground — to minimize tunneling — would cost at least $26 billion. The logistics would be nightmarish, including multiple concrete casting sites and temporary housing for a crew of 1,000 workers if the job were to be completed within Mr. Trump’s first four-year term.
Maintenance would be an additional recurring expense, said Walter W. Boles, an engineering professor at Middle Tennessee State University who specializes in concrete construction. Deep trench work would also be necessary for keeping a wall of that height from toppling, he said, and seismic sensors to detect digging would be wise for preserving its integrity from below.
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Maintaining water supplies: A diplomatic challengeBillions of gallons flow between the United States and Mexico, funneling lifeblood to farms and communities on both sides of the border. The Colorado River sends water south; the Rio Grande, a natural boundary for hundreds of miles, delivers precious water from Mexico, through dozens of canals, to much of South Texas.
Water experts in the Southwest question how Mr. Trump’s border wall could accommodate those crucial flows and still provide the barrier he wants.
Another complication is that a nearly 50-year-old treaty between Mexico and the United States prevents any construction that obstructs or diverts the flow of the waterways. The wall, in other words, could not interfere in any way with the flow of water in either direction.
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