President Trump frequently dramatizes the need for a border wall by citing sexual assaults, the flow of drugs, terrorists and criminals, as justification for building a wall. There is certain illogic about much of this argument.
First of all, unless an individual has previously had a sexual assault record he could enter the U.S. as a legal immigrant; you can’t tell who is a potential rapist by merely looking at them. And, as far as fear of rape is concerned, the reality is that almost all of the many thousands of rapes committed annually in the U.S., virtually all are committed by American-born citizens. The majority of those committing sexual assaults are known to the victim. It is called “acquaintance rape," the same sort of assault as described during the hearings on the most recent Supreme Court justice. Undocumented rapists likely didn’t travel across the barren desert to get here, but rather entered through a normal port of entry. A wall is useless in addressing such events.
As far as drugs are concerned, it has been widely reported that while certain drugs come from primarily from Mexico, many of those are simply driven into the U.S. hidden in a motor vehicle, not through the desert. Many other drugs are brought in from China through normal postal delivery services. Of course, we have sadly found that much of our current drug addiction problem is homegrown. U.S. pharmaceutical manufacturers, responding to American physicians who have overprescribed for pain, have provided vast quantities of drugs for wide distribution by American pharmacies, producing an epidemic of addiction. A wall will have little success in dealing with these problems.
As far as terrorists are concerned: zero attacks within the U.S. have been attributed to someone entering the U.S. across the southern border. However, the building of the wall itself at a very high cost would likely be viewed as a win for terrorists who would love to see America waste its resources and reputation on such a boondoggle.
