Welp, gonna have to move you into the “non-serious thinker” category.

Based on your love of Important and Very Serious Sounding Words, I’m assuming this is some sort of AI project or attempt to intimidate. Unfortunately, when used in a conversation with someone like myself who knows what those words mean it comes off as pretentious and silly — needlessly lobbing verbal handgrenades such as “Boolean,” “commentariat,”and “countenancing,” are not scary. Sorry.

Put down the thesaurus and spend that time on research. It took maybe 15 minutes to see that your numbers are absurd.

Definition of “open”

My entire point is that a custom definition is deceptive. For instance, 40% of Tr*mp supporters believe the government has “no control” of the border, which is absurd and makes that point in one number. Of course, deception was the point, so congratulations. Given the very narrow margin of victory, it’s hard to imagine the election would have turned out the way it did if the GOP had been honest. Which was, of course, the point.

Moving on.

Costs

I’ve tried to slog my way through some conservative estimates of costs, and they are very, very sketchy. There is eliding of the difference between legal and illegal immigrants, numbers that are anywhere from questionable to conjured out of thin air, and ignoring the financial benefits.

In math, we call this “hand-waving,” and the resulting breeze from this strenuous effort is blowing up a storm. I’ve even seen analyses that conclude illegal immigration is a net financial positive. I’ve never seen one that claims immigration generally — something that the GOP also attacks, directly or obliquely — is a net negative.

Outside the right-wing echo chamber, I’m struggling to find any analysis that backs up the enormous numbers Republicans are throwing around. For example, it includes “benefits to parents of U.S.-born children”…who are citizens and entitled to benefits. It also relies on state-level benefits since the impact on the federal government — where the responsibility for border enforcement lies — is minor. But much of that is a burden many states willingly take on because they don’t believe immigration is a net negative.

Once again, states’ rights only seem to figure into it when desired.

As for ongoing border control costs, the current budget for ICE is $20B. Is half that again really going to have much effect? I assume you aren’t planning to build a border wall since the costs are immense, and maintenance would probably eat your $10B by itself. Not to mention the interest on what would have to be borrowed funds.

Of course I want to control the border. Almost everyone, regardless of party, does. The “commie liberals want the border to come down” is fever-swamp nonsense.

Of course, the issue is so complex that the only way to solve it is comprehensive border reform — something the GOP opposes. The Senate Dems let the GOP write a conservative wish-list bill, but Mr. Tr*mp gave a thumbs-down. The House pronounced it DOA. The lead Senate negotiator was censured by his state party for daring to work with Democrats.

Solving the problem would strip them of one of their top campaign issues, after all.

Speaking of the wrong end of the spyglass, I don’t want to put the burden of enforcement on Americans. I want enforcement to succeed. Shouldn’t putting the money and effort where it might work be the priority(?) Your end of the spyglass is like stopping a leak in your sink by sticking your finger in the hole when the answer is to turn off the water.

Enforcement is expensive, ineffective, will harm the economy (where will you find workers to fill those jobs?), wall-building infringes on property rights and damages the environment, mass deportation will create a human rights nightmare, etc., etc.

Net result: I’m not saying my analysis is comprehensive, only that yours is waving hands and ignoring data. Go read, it won’t take long.