The illegal crossings, immigration and smuggling happen almost exclusively through the regulated entry ports. The consensus seems to be that the wall wouldn't help much, if at all, even if fully built.
And it wouldn't be fully built. The $5 billion was meant for a 100-mile section of the wall. That's largely symbolic to fulfill a campaign promise and as far as money is concerned, it's not just regular "wasting" with the amounts they are talking about. That tiny wall section they were fighting over is almost twice the budget of all American National Parks, or close to the annual budget of FBI (the actual national security budget). It's also about enough to connect fiber optic internet infrastructure to every home in 10 large cities, from scratch. While there are no accurate estimates, to fully wall the US-Mexico border would cost at least 35 times as much - about $70 billion. That's a lot of money for what seems to have no true benefits and would make for a rather embarrassing monument - the longest man-made object on earth that also serves little to no purpose.
The wall is largely a psychological barrier to calm American fear of terrorism and decreasing crime safety - occurrences that are in reality purely internal issues (not border control issues). It's Americans (and legal immigrants) behind almost all major incidents so far. I don't think it's a Trump issue, although I have no idea how he managed to actually mix up those issues with illegal immigration through the unsecured border crossings with Mexico. It's a completely unrelated solution to a bunch of real problems that are much more difficult to solve. I don't think anyone said the wall is racist though, I don't know why would they. It's just a pointless expense.
I never followed American politics, I wasn't really interested in Trump. The situation is currently very amusing though, so I've been following it. I live in Canada and I deal with American businesses occasionally. It was hilarious to receive e-mails stating something isn't operational because the government got shut down. I didn't even think it's possible for a government to shut down out of nowhere and I'd be freaking out if it happened wherever I lived. I would think it's something I'd hear during some doomsday event or something, not because the president is arguing over a border wall.
There have been shutdowns in the past but not for as long or over something like a wall before. It was certainly unprecedented this time, because of the length and the topic over which it was shut down.
I don't think the wall will do anything and you gave the reasons why. Companies love the cheap/free labor from people that come here with nothing so there's no reason for them to not "employ" these illegals. Plus, it's not like they don't send their manufacturing overseas either, so what good will a wall do there?
People are also amped up about crime rates of these illegals. I don't have information on that but I think the numbers are still much higher, and percentages too, of Americans committing crimes against other Americans.
As Masta said, the amount of money to build a relatively tiny wall could be better used on improving our country in other ways. The wall won't do shit but it'd be great to see it put in to infrastructure or even those Parks departments that Masta mentioned. Something to enrich the country.
I don't know what the solution is to people crossing the border illegally. I realize there may be an uptick in the number trying to cross because many South American countries are going through crises and they're looking to escape but the flip side of Trump's argument are idiots that want the concept of borders completely absolved and consider borders to be man-made and racist.
People arguing
for the wall point to the crimes committed in European countries that have granted asylum to migrants, like Sweden and Germany and, I guess, France. Those numbers might be true or might be exaggerated but the alt-right here in the US really loves to harp on those crime stats which makes me question just how bad they really are.
I think Trump was asking for 5 billion this time around? I don't know about the 70 billion number but it just seems pointless either way. I'm all for increasing border security of any country but not by the means of a wall. In the end, I don't think it's going to happen. If Donnie is done after 2020, I think that all but guarantees it won't happen. If he gets a second term, then I think 8 years of his dick slapping might get some part of the wall built but we'll always look back at how pointless it was for him to grand stand over the Wall and ignore every other issue this country faced in that time.