David Frum: “Of course the border cannot be sealed.”

Of course it can. Several bloggers have done the feasibility study, and

even costed it. See Parapundit here, for example. On a generous

estimate, Parapundit costs sealing the US-Mexico border at $16bn–chump

change for the feds. Worked-out proposals include one for a 60-ft high wall

made from prefabricated slabs of concrete.

Sealing the border is perfectly feasible, and way less expensive than, oh,

trying to democratize Iraq. The political question is: do we want to do

it? If we want to, we can. There are all sorts of explanations for why we

might not want to, none of them reflecting much credit on our society. E.g.

—Our elites have got used to cheap domestic labor and are unwilling to

give it up;

—The administration dreads a political explosion in Mexico and regards

illegal immigration as a safety valve for that country;

—We are all too PC-whipped to speak up against a flood of sad stories;

…and so on. But if we want to seal the border, we surely can, for the

cost of a few Space Shuttle flights.