I hope you are ready to write some big tax payments.

And as to those 11 million? Bullets or imprisonment?

There are mandatory sentences for those found guilty of illegal entry, a misdemeanor, and those ground guilty of unlawful re-entry after removal, a felony, but they are capped well short of life imprisonment. Do you have any idea how much it would cost to incarcerate for life? And what about those who have already crossed illegally. Does the government hunt them down and shoot them on the spot or just incarcerate for life? Any idea how much it would cost to give life sentences to 11 million people? Your idea of "profound" enforcement at the border sounds like a potential blood bath to me. Count me out but thanks for your candor. Now we know what you are proposing. I wonder if this is Trump's idea also and whether he would be as straightforward as you in the coming presidential debates? We will see.

Yes, walls can work to a certain degree. In fact, they "work" now. Imagine how many people would be crossing without walls at all!. In the southern sector of
California, they have decreased crossings significantly everyone agrees. But walls alone don't solve the problem in themselves. Note that all your cited walls required lethal force to be really effective. Do you (or does Trump) advocate shooting border crossers like Kira? And you didn't answer my questions about real issues regarding conviction and sentencing of illegal crossers. More prisons? Longer sentences?

Even though you deem this issue non-debatable, please let me respond. You have now shifted the issue to another subset of people. Instead of the ludicrous myth of the nefarious Mexican government policy of finding their convicted violent felons and purposely sending them into the U.S. (the Trump theory), you are now focusing on the individuals who cross illegally and are convicted and sentenced under U.S. law, serve their time and then are deported. Some of these people successfully recross into the U.S. and then commit new violent crimes in the U.S. You decry that the Mexican government "let them go." In fact it is the U.S. government that "let them go." Perhaps you think they should have served longer terms in the U.S. If so, then say so. Perhaps you think there should be a new category of felony for repeat illegal crossers (there already is). If so, then say so and let's start building more federal prisons with your tax money. But don't blame the Mexican government for "let[ting] them go." What are they to do? Imprison all deportees even though they have already been convicted and sentenced in the U.S.?
By they way, Trump does none of this analysis. He just bloviates about building more walls. Just like the law of gravity you cite, if you build more walls people seeking opportunity will find a way over, under or through them.

So are you saying that they were previously convicted but the nefarious Mexican government officials who decide to send their rapists and murderers into the U.S. had their criminal records expunged before sending them across the border or are you saying that they had no previous records but we can just assume that anyone committing a violent crime must have done so before?

It is not true "[o]f course" that anyone who is convicted of a violent crime was convicted of one or more previous violent crimes. The truth is that very few illegal crossers were convicted of violent crimes in Mexico before crossing. You and Mr. Trump apparently disagree. I can only go by what I have observed personally and it varies substantially from that contention.

You seem to not understand what I am saying. Felony cases in Federal Court represent a different set of people than those crossing illegally. Trump says that the later group is composed of people who already committed and were convicted of rape and murder. They were then hand picked by the Mexican government to come to the U.S.. I am saying that in fact a very low percentage of the illegal crossers previously were convicted of felonies. You may not wish to believe that for some weird reason, but it is true.

I am not defending or imputing validity to Trumps statements. What I am saying is that nobody has good numbers to prove out either way.

Trump did not make the tautological argument that illegal entrants were criminals as a result of their illegal entry. Contrary to what you say, I do not deny that. He asserted something very different, that they were also already felons of a specific and very different nature: rapists and murderers sent here by the Mexican government. As to my personal statement, yes it is anecdotal, but it is powerful anecdote. What do Trump and you cite as evidence for his absurd assertions?

I am not resistant to facts, nobody has the facts. What you just stated as "fact" is the very definition of anecdotal.

Since they are here illegally they are all criminals by definition. That is a FACT, much as you might choose to deny it.

I don't have accurate numbers, neither do you or anybody else.

I have seen thousands of these defendants in court over the last almost four years and have personally reviewed their criminal histories as reported by federal court pretrial services and talked with the defendants themselves under oath. What is your source of information? And what is Donald Trumps' source? More to the point, why are you so resistant to facts?

How can anyone possibly prove any numerical assertion? Nobody, I repeat, nobody, is accurately collecting or reporting those numbers.

I dispute your assertion and everyone else's as being anecdotal, not factual.

I'm saying, of personal knowledge, that those who cross illegally into the U.S. from Mexico less than 5% (in fact, much fewer) of illegal crossers have prior felony convictions. Do you dispute this?

What do you mean by "this way"? Do you mean that they had already committed the same or similar felonies in Mexico before crossing the border? That is what Trump is saying. In fact, he says more. He says the Mexican government is deliberately selecting its felons for importation into the U.S. This a ridiculous assertion, of course. What I am saying is that few of those arrested at the border for unlawful entry have prior criminal histories of any kind.