re: #853 garhighway

Has there ever been a realistic estimate of the cost of an effective wall? And of the cost of maintaining and staffing it?

I am not trying to be provocative or snarky, I really haven’t heard such an estimate and am curious about the price tag.

This is from January 2009, but it gives an idea of the money we’d be talking about here:

heraldnet.com

The fencing erected along the U.S.-Mexico border in the past three years by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has cost more than expected, a government report shows.

The 140 miles of pedestrian fencing put up under the Secure Border Initiative before Oct. 31 of last year cost an average of $3.9 million per mile, a Government Accountability Office report released this week found. Costs ranged from $400,000 to $15.1 million a mile.

That per-mile average is more than the $3 million estimated by the Congressional Budget Office in August 2006 and much more than the $2.2 million estimate the Senate used during the immigration reform debate that same year. Even the highest estimate at the time, $3.2 million per mile from U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., ended up being too low.

Pedestrian fences, sometimes called primary fences, are 10-foot-or-higher steel barriers designed to slow down people on foot.

Project 28, the Boeing Co.-led virtual-fence test project anchored by nine camera and radar towers along a 28-mile stretch of border flanking Sasabe, Ariz., was delayed eight months by glitches and plagued with problems, a previous GAO report found. The second generation of virtual fences was scheduled to go up in late 2008, but the work was abruptly halted in August.

In reviewing Customs and Border Protection estimates of total contracts for fencing segments — the GAO did not independently verify or validate the information — the report offers a preliminary analysis of the actual costs of the biggest and fastest buildup of border barriers in U.S. history.

“It gives you an idea of what the fence is going to cost,” said Richard Stana, director of homeland security issues at the Government Accountability Office.

Final costs are still pending.

Now take all that money and multiply it by a 2,000 mile fence along the Mexican border. A fence/wall would be stupidly expensive, and none of this includes annual maintenance.