About a month ago, a man named Brian Kolfage started a GoFundMe page for Trump’s wall. Many who saw it probably laughed at the ridiculousness of this. How would you actually get this money to the government? How do you know this money will be taken? Why is the goal 1 billion when the actual price of the wall is 5.7 billion? Surprisingly, people actually started donating, and in droves. At the moment, 20 million dollars have been donated. This has been accumulated through hundreds of thousands of American  donations. This is surprising, especially because it’s coming from those in the political party which usually despise taxes; yet if this were some alternate universe, they would literally be paying their own optional tax. The U.S. might be in a bit better shape if people were as enthusiastic about paying for infrastructure or social programs.

This money will obviously not be even close enough to the cost even if the goal is reached, but the bigger question is, would the wall work? The main argument for the wall is that people are crossing the border illegally and are causing mass crime. However, a study done by the CATO institute in 2018 shows that there are 56 percent fewer convictions of illegal immigrants than native born citizens per capita, and 85 percent less in legal immigrants. Now crime is one thing, but most people don’t want to have people just coming into the country unregistered, crime or not. According to many, the wall would prevent this. The huge problem with this argument is that according to a study done by CMS, 66 percent of undocumented immigrants are that are entering the United States legally, but overstaying their visas. This means that the vast majority of illegal immigration would be completely unaffected by the building of a wall. A better way to ensure immigrants are accounted for would be an easier path to citizenship

If you put all the talk of illegal immigration aside and gave in on that point despite all the facts against it, the wall would still be a terrible idea. Environmentally, it would be an utter disaster. According to The wall would go through rivers, causing flooding the flooding of valuable bodies of water and dams. It would isolate and reduce some of the rare and more valuable animals in the ecosystems, such as jaguars, ocelots, bobcats, and armadillos. And according to a study done by the Fish and Wildlife Service, over 100 threatened and endangered animals like those mentioned earlier could be dangerously impacted by a complete border wall. There are already a number of fences and walls at the border which have already undeniably done damage to the ecosystem. If the wall were to be built, the effects our current borders have on the ecosystem would be exacerbated exponentially.