How do we spend 3/4 trillion dollars on defense, yet our borders are insecure?

If you don't agree with my title then show how to get as much
meaning on a shorter line, I find it a struggle, and write a better title.

I'd also be interested to know an answer to this question because
to me it's the big elephant in the room.

 

The thread fails because you needed to start with where you got the idea that our borders are not defended by the military in the best way possible.

 

We are spending on offense, not defense.

 

They’re defended well against war with a country. They’re not defended against social and economic decay through mass unrestricted immigration of the lowest common denominators.

 

The Democrats have no desire to defend the borders. If fact their policy is quite the opposite. They want the illegals to come here and vote for them.

I am staring to think that a chunk of the money we are spending in Ukraine is going to the oligarchs who gave money to Biden. When you are spending billions of dollars, which I remind people is a thousand million, you don’t have to skim too much to give those guys a great return on their investment, which was only a few million to Hunter.

The Federal Government is great at spending money, but very poor on checking where it goes. Those who might pose such questions are immediately written off as “Putin lovers” or cranks. Given the corruption here at home, and the lack of interest it, it’s not an unfair question to ask where the money is going.

 

What is our interest beyond our borders? List them out one by one. Then ask yourself the thread Q again, is it the right Q?

 

One picture speaks 3/4 trillion words...

 

That might be what caused the fall of the Roman Empire, so maybe we should have thought about that:

The Migration Period, also known as the Barbarian Invasions, was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories by various tribes, and the establishment of the post-Roman kingdoms.

 

Yea, but Biden was the only one of that group who turned the gates completely open. Even people in your own party, like the Mayor of New York, have had enough. Biden opened the border INTENTIONALLY. He didn't even try to close it. That's why he should be impeached for doing it.

 

Spending for defense is not the same as spending for border security.
That's your basic problem.

We can secure our borders and fix the ILLEGAL immigration crisis in short order.
1. Only accept applications for asylum and immigration at offices attached to our embassies overseas. Anyone at our border or inside the US who requests immigration or asylum is deported without recourse.
2. Every job applicant is processed through e verify. Every Job Applicant. Significantly increase penalties for employers not using e verifile/hiring ILLEGAL migrants and automatically deport ILLEGAL immigrants trying to work in the US.
3. Bond Visas
4. Sort out the 14 MILLION ILLEGAL migrants now in the country. Either deport them or make them citizens.

With this, border patrol can stop being guardians of ILLEGAL migrants and get on with the very real business of securing our borders from criminals and terrorists.

 

I think you need to understand what exactly is in defense spending. One-third of the budget is for operations. This includes pay for soldiers and officers, both taxable and nontaxable pay such as certain allowances, the upkeep and replenishment of fuel for ships, tanks, and other vehicles, training, and healthcare for active, reserve, and national guard soldiers while on training exercises, and so forth. Then you have procurement, which is a big part of the DoD budget. This includes ships and other equipment that we purchase of a long period of time. It will include payments for past approvals for ships, aircraft, tanks and so forth. Then you have R&D, and all the other things that go in a defense budget.

At the same time, you have the Posse Comitatus Act, which forbids the military from doing law enforcement jobs such as actually arresting someone on the border. We have the CBP on the southern border with some 25000 agents. In the 1980s, early 80s, it was 3000 agents. We have other Homeland Security agents there too, DEA, FBI, and so forth, all doing their particular job.

We are a magnate and have been since the early 18th century, for mass migration. We have had Irish, German, Polish, Greek, Italian, Vietnamese, Chinese (Twice I might add), and others who have come here in droves. In the past, before the Chinese Exclusion Act, anyone who showed up was pretty much let in, period. But all of the immigrant groups faced opposition from the native, predominately white population of Anglo-Saxon Ancestry while here in the early 18th century, the first "America's First Policy." Today, we are still a magnate. They are mostly coming here for jobs and so forth. They can't find it in their home country, so they come here or go to Columbia or Argentina if they have family there. And we have an antiquated immigration system that is expensive, inefficient, and ineffective most of the time, especially for low-skilled workers which is what most of them are anyway. We have some humanitarian relief such as unaccompanied minors or victims of domestic violence if it occured in the US, and so forth, but most of the asylee and refugee laws are based on a cold war mentality. If you want the southern border to improve, first we fix our legal immigration system to make it more efficient and less expensive than it is already, we try diplomatic means, increased trade, and liberalize their economies so that more job opportunities are in their home country, and so forth. Walls and other devices are not going to stop them if they are committed to coming here. But as Patton said, "fixed fortifications, in this case, walls, buoys, and so forth, are a monument to man's stupidity."

 

For starters, that would be impossible. Our embassies do not handle, generally, asylum and refugee claims. We have a very complicated process if the person claiming asylum or refugee status is outside the US with three agencies involved: USCIS, State Department, and FBI for verification of information.
Second, I agree everyone goes through e-verify, but this should include all US Citizens, including naturalized as well. However, if a negative result comes, according to the law, the employer must wait for the appropriate time frame for the person to provide additional proof of that verification. Most of the time, the employer does not, which is technically a violation of the law and a fine to boot. And I think that needs further enforcement from the government side. Further, e-verify works very well if it is the blatantly obvious, but if an immigrant changes from a H-1b to a green card, or a green card to a naturalized US Citizen, it has a 50% to 60% accuracy rate, and that needs to be improved before you roll this out nationally. Third, it will increase the cost of small businesses who have to do this while using a third-party provider in most cases, and they will up their fees for this type of thing, and that puts pressure on small businesses not to hire at all. Since 70% of all jobs come from small businesses, this will cause huge economic issues I don't think your realize.
Third, I have no idea what "bond visas" are. I think this is Senator Vance's idea for B1/B2 visas. This will have a significant impact on people coming here for pleasure or business, and will ruin the tourism industry in ways I don't think you understand. It is already expensive by airplane to get here, especially for Asia where they are paying in upwards of $5k to get here, along with all the other stuff they have to do. In addition, this bill is not going to pass the Senate or even get a floor vote, even if McConnell was the Majority leader. This idea does not work and only allows the very rich to come here, which is not in the interest of government or business. ''
Fourth, the estimate, current estimate by DHS in which illegal immigration in the US is around 12 million. FAIRUS estimates around 16 million and CIS estimates in upwards of 20 million, which includes the children of illegal immigrants born here. However, "sorting them out" is not something we do like at Hogwarts. A vast majority of visa overstayers, some are undocumented, and others are visa violators. There is a form I-539 that can get a immigrant who has overstayed in the good graces of immigration again based on facts and circumstances. They can also marry a US citizen without any penalty and get a green card, and there are some other ways. But for EWI, their choices are severely limited, and the only saving grace is for DACA recipients.

But in the final analysis, all you are doing is trying to solve the symptoms of illegal immigration and not the root cause, which is based on the home country and why they are coming here. We too are not totally innocent because we do have a high demand for illicit drugs and other such things. And that too is part of the problem. So first we must determine why they are coming here to begin with before we start blantantly making grandiose accusations using group think from a group.

 

Not really. They were there to begin with. Covid had some things to do with the decrease in 2020, but not much. But you may want to travel on IH 10 from Flagstaff Arizona to El Paso and beyond. There you will be stopped by CBP just outside of El Paso. You will be asked for your identification, your reasons for traveling, if you have traveled to Mexico, and your car inspected by sniffing dogs. One for bombs and the other for drugs. If they don't smell anything and you answer all their questions to their satisfaction, you are free to go.

That being said, our economy is opening up, which means that more migrants are coming. So, blame our economy if you want, but that is the reason why they are coming

 

Looked I lived in Texas all my life and had been to the Border plenty of times. Went on a white water rafting cruise in the 1980s for three days on the Rio Grande in the Big Bend National Park. We literally slept on the Mexican side of the border with no trouble at that time. And I have gone across the border accidentally plenty of times when I was on the Texas Side trying to chase down some cows when I was young. Thus, the border has never been secured. We had this problem in the 1980s and we had a compromise, and it still came. It then began to appear in the 1990s as part of the GOP's "law and order" political points, and again in the 2000s so the GOP decided to put up some more walls. It again appeared in the Obama Administration, It was never secured in the Trump administration, and there was no "intentional" to let the borders open. Our borders were more open than you can possibly imagine in the 18th, 19th, and the first half of the 20th century. And we started "controlling our borders" more after WW2 because of the "big red scare" politics.

The reality is our borders are controlled, not open or closed. A closed border literally means no immigrants whatsoever. Not at airports, ground ports of entry, or even on boats such as cruise lines. An open border means no paperwork whatsoever. We have, as well as every country except North Korea which literally has a closed border close to that definition.

The excuses, and yes, they are excuses, you are giving such as policy changes and so forth, is not really looking at the issue as it is. The main problem is the root cause. We have a rebousting economy where even for the low-skilled workers, are willing to come. And this has been historical in our immigration history where we had en masse immigration from the Irish to the Chinese and everything in beaten. But there is no political will to go and try to liberalize the economies of where most of them coming from. Not from the Democrats and definitely not from the Republicans who have their heads up their arses all the time. And you need to focus on the root cause.

the only way to guarantee no illegal immigration is to shut down the economy. Make the economy go into depression. Won't be any good for US Citizens, but I can guarantee you that we will have a mass exodus of illegal immigrants in this country as well as immgrants and some US citizens who will move to greener pastures.

 

You write lots of words to cover for a failed policy that is wrecking local communities and economies. The progressives say Biden has allowed 2 million in. The conservatives say the number is 5 million. Whatever it is, it’s going to wreck the education systems in some communities, raise crime rates, add to homelessness and expand the low skilled, poverty population, The progressives don’t care because they figure the immigrants will vote Democrat. Fat cat Republicans will sit in their gated communities and benefit from cheap labor. In case you missed it, New York City has hit the wall.

I am not opposed to immigration. I am opposed to uncontrolled immigration. We don’t need more criminals and terrorists. We don’t need to be stuck with millions more unskilled workers who will continually one step from unemployment. We can only take so many people per calendar year. Biden doesn’t care. He just knows it will make the Democrat Party more powerful.

 

But how do you define uncontrolled?

We need low-skilled workers. That is evident because no person who is a US Citizen is going to go into that type of job where immigrants who are low skilled are being hired unless you are willing to allow child labor to be uncontrolled.

Our immigration is complex. Our immigration policy is still built around the Cold War mentality. We have just put bandaids on top of bandaids in those policies. That is why we have TPS or DACA for these situations in which the immigration codes does not address. It addresses a lot of things, but not these situations. And that is one problem there in Congress has failed to address BTW, both Democratic-controlled and Republican Controlled.

Second, Biden has not allowed anyone in. What you are getting confused is the DHS Southern Border Sector report on how many migrants they encountered. That does not mean they were all allowed in. If you look further into the report you will see the numbers were less than 10% of the total that were allowed in. The rest were rejected and sent back or detained in the ICE detention center until their case is resolved.

For me, I like the blue card for low skilled workers as long as there are no quotas. If they meet the eligibility requirements, then they should get the card, period. And how many of these cards will be based on how well our economy is doing. A US citizen can apply, but not be guaranteed a job simply because that person is a US Citizen. They have to be just as good as the immigrant in order to keep the job. And that is called competition, something that conservatives love to hear and want. Low-skilled workers are not going to expand poverty. You are confusing from low skilled to low paying jobs and they are not the same.

Homelessness too is a complex issue. We know about one-third are veterans. We also know that many of the homeless population are illicit drug users and prostitutes, and have no access to mental health and their mental health issues, and so forth. There has been some progress in Philadelphia and some other cities, but not much else. The main problem is how to get them access to mental health care which would involve state and federal government funds. And Conservatives are already wanting to get rid of social safety nets, make drastic changes to SS, Medicare, and even Medicaid, and so forth. So the problem is more political than anything else. Or we can do what Trump said, round them all up and put them in concentration camps.

 

One thing has nothing to do with the other. Its that simple.

That's a cool soundbite, but most people know only citizens can vote

 

Eliminating that incentive would cause massive racial profiling to exist and that cannot happen either. And that too is the problem. Private businesses do not have the expertise to determine what is credible, authentic identification or not. I can probably give you ten photos of people or ten driver's licenses and tell you that two of them are fake. None of which had the obvious clues. My bet is that you will pick out at least one of the people who is providing a fake DL but not the other. Hence the problem is that we tend to gravitate towards people that we don't politically accept in our society as a whole. In other words, if we had 10 million illegal Irish, Italian, German, French, Canadian, and Belgian living in our country illegally, do you think we would be taking these types of measures like we do now? And that too is another problem we have. the other problem, especially with education is Phyler V Doe but that is for primary and secondary education. College education is when they pay international rates, which is the full rate not subsidized by the government, in most states. But many go to a junior college or even go online. If they have good credit, they can get private loans not subsidized by the government. And none of these strong arm policies will work effectively because it will too involve US Citizens and green card holders in that sweep because of racial profiling.

yes, no administration has adequately solved the root cause, but some have tried with mixed results. We had Reagan and Bush Sr in Columbia and Mexico. We had Clinton in El Savador and Honduras. We had Obama with Mexico. Trump with Mexico and El Salvador, and nothing I heard from Biden.

 

The Democrats will fast track them to citizenship as soon as they regain control of the House, Senate and presidency. The Democrats will put those who don’t want to work on the dole to buy their votes.

Some local communities are giving the vote to non citizens. It’s not much of a stretch give them rest of the ballot. Are you in favor of non citizen voting?

 

DOD has nothing to do with the borders. Also the US military is not allowed by law to operate in the U.S. The border is the responsibility of homeland security and, as we know, federal government doesn't want the borders secured. Hope that helps understand things.