Well, reading this exchange has been interesting. I'm with @mikehamm.
I will only add that if we had a wall, which we should, the money we save not chasing down illegal immigrants, paying their medical, education, housing, food and whatever else expenses, we'd save 5 billion....these savings would pay for The Wall. All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
I don't particularly care who pays officially. US citizens are paying too much towards those who are already here. Use my tax dollars wisely...build a wall, add cameras, drones, people, fences or whatever but secure the borders.
@bluefinstudios has some good points though it's just hard to verify his data. I looked at local press releases from the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and found a significant number of drug apprehensions occurring between checkpoints. I couldn't find summary reports that detailed out where drug apprehensions were being made along the border and it is probably that when an arrest happens they are taken to the checkpoint for processing.
The VISA overstays was a little easier. USA Today reports that over 600,000 people overstayed their visas in 2017 and compares this number to slightly more than 300,000 people caught crossing the southern border. The article goes on to point out the number of people overstaying their visas drops over time and by May of 2018 the 600,000 number had dropped to 421,325. It's still more than the 300,000 but it's more comparable.
Comparing these numbers has a problem. It's comparing apples and oranges. The 600,000 is the number of people overstaying visas making it the total number of that group in the country illegally. The 300,000 people crossing the border represents those that were caught. There is no way everyone is caught crossing the southern border, The CBP goal (from the CBP 2016 Annual Report) in 2016 was to catch 81% of those crossing the border illegally. That brings the number of people detected crossing the border up to around 370,000. The number that can only be estimated is how many illegals got across the border without being detected. If you assume half the people crossing the border illegally get detected, it would mean that 740,000 people attempted to cross the border in 2016. But no one can really tell you how many cross the border without being detected, if they try to you have to wonder how they count people they can't detect but I am sure liberals have a way to do that.
Facts are facts. Figures are figures. The agent that spoke in Texas with Trump emphasized the number of different countries the illegals at the southern border contained. I would guess if someone from Pakistan is trying to come illrgally from Mexico, there is a reason.
We will never know how many are here illegally. They can't track the legal ones.
I can't see why we can't just hold everything off until laws, security and funds are in place, then, slowly open the border using control and laws. We have to get control before we can manage.
How much can our county withstand and for how long? We can't, or don't take care of our homeless, poor nor those held hostage in neighbors taken over by he influx of immigrants. But we are sure worried about other's from those conditions.
Sorry, but citizens first.
Well put @nana-nini.