Trumps Border Wall Ignites Controversy

courtesy+of+PBS+news+hour+

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courtesy of PBS news hour

Aydan Harr, Video brodcast editor

The wall we’ve all heard about is what we all know our president wants. But do we actually need it? This is the question for today: Is the border wall essential, or is our president just wasting our time and money?

The first point our president always makes about the importance of the wall is illegal immigration and and how there taking our jobs. Let’s look at the first part of this point how many people are Imarting into the united states illegally. As of 2016 the number of illegal immigrants in the United States was around 10.8 million, but when compared to the total number of people living in the united states that’s only 3.7% of the population according to FactCheck.org.

In addition, the president has made claims that the so called illegals are Putting strain on the economy. “They’re taking our jobs. They’re taking our manufacturing jobs. They’re taking our money. They’re killing us,” Donald trump pronounced during a speech in July of 2015. We can see he’s accusing the illegal immigrants of taking out manufacturing jobs and therefore killing us. According to the website study.com, in order to apply for a basic job in manufacturing you have to have a highschool diploma as well as proof of residency in the United States. The jobs illegal immigrant workers normally get are in transportation, construction and farming, according to CBSNews.com.

Now to also address a big rumor illegal immigrants do in fact have to pay taxes,Trump claims that they don’t staying bipartisanpolicy.org writes “do undocumented immigrants pay federal taxes? The short answer is yes.” as well as huffingtonpost.com with this quote “immigrants typically pay far more in taxes than they receive in benefits. And that includes undocumented immigrants.” There’s also vox.com “about half of undocumented workers in the United States file income tax returns.”
By far the biggest issue that trump faces when it comes to his wall is how he’s going to have it funded He first started that mexico will pay for it during his campaign on september 1st 2016 in phoenix Arizona “we will build a great wall along the sudder border, and mexico will pay for the wall.” Later Mexico’s president Enrique Pena Nieto responds to Trump’s claims by stating “Mexico will not pay for US border wall” in a speech given on the 26th of july 2017. Over the following month President Trump pushed for a deal in order to fund his border wall but it was denied by congress. In Order to try and force the dems to accept the deal he ordered a government shutdown witch has now become the longest continuous government shutdown in history, Leaving 800,000 federal workers without pay according to desert news.

Then the news broke that the demo for Trump’s wall could be sawed through with ease NBC news reports. This leaves the question, Was it all worth it, do we really need this wall? Has the president gone to far with his ambition to fund this wall? The irony of this whole issue is that 54,000 border patrol agents are working without pay due to the shutdown for better border security.