President Trump’s Border Wall Campaign Divides Countries

On Jan. 22, 2017, the newly sworn in 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump, ordered a wall to be built on the border between the United States and Mexico. Addressing the Department of Homeland Security at its headquarters, President Trump discussed one of his most recent executive directive that called for the immediate commencement of the construction work.

With the president issuing this order, it serves as a confirmation of his campaign manifestos even before he was elected late last year into office. During the campaigns that were extensively conducted by his team, Trump on several occasions condemned immigrants whose number he termed as a security threat.

Trump while campaigning in Portland, Maine, on Aug. 4, 2016, categorically sated that the United Stated should not allow in immigrants from many countries even if they followed the legal process of entering the country.

“We’re letting people come in from terrorist nations that shouldn’t be allowed because you can’t vet them,” Trump said. “There’s no way of vetting them. You have no idea who they are. This could be the greatest Trojan horse of all time.”

President Trump’s order comes as an aggressive measure seeking to put an end to illegal immigration into the country amid claims from the public that he was taking the matter a bit overboard.

While signing the order, Trump said, “A nation without borders is not a nation,” before adding that, “Beginning today, the United States of America gets back control of its borders.”

The president was signing the orders for constructing the wall along the US Mexico border together with John Kelly, the new Secretary of Homeland Secruity.

Earlier this year, as the president waited to be sworn into office, speculations had been rife on whether or not the president would stay true to his word during the campaign. The “build that wall” chant had filled all his campaign rallies, and his supporters expected that he would not let them down on that. This in deed spurred a lot of controversy as experts sought to understand if the United States really needed that wall. So how much would it cost to build this great wall on the Southwest border with Mexico?

President Trump had given his own estimation to the tune of about $8 billion to get done with the wall. However, experts had something different to say. According to them, it would cost much more that $8 billion to build the wall. A research conducted by Bernstein Research Group, for instance, found out that it would cost between $15 billion to $25 billion to get the wall done.

While the cost of building the wall may be a concern for experts, will the Congress really sign that check? The Antideficiency Act prohibits expenses by the government that are not allowed by the Congress. As such, as it stands, the Congress has to be fully involved, and whether or not the wall will be built depends on what the Congress will have to say of the over $20 billion project.

Commenting on this, Mr. Trump said “We do not need new laws,” before adding that, “We will work within the existing system and framework.”

As days pass by, it is apparently evident that the president is determined to live up to his word and is ready to take all the necessary steps within law and budget to do just that. However, a question that many people ask is: “will the wall ease the security situation in the country, considering the fact that many shootings in the country are done by Americans?”