The cost of a Border Wall

Border Wall

A theoretical U.S. border wall seems to be pretty expensive, with varying estimates for costs. Some border wall designs, from Boeing for instance, could range from around 2.4-3 million per mile[1][2], while other estimates predict that a border wall could be up to 25 million per mile[3][4]. This would be around 18-187.5 billion dollars total, for a 7500 mile U.S. border.

The costs would probably be a few million per mile for a decent border wall, and there are at least 7500 miles of U.S. border with Canada and Mexico, therefore meaning a border wall would be on the order of 10's of billions of dollars. However, over 20 years or so the cost of the wall may only be a few billion per year; at 3 million per mile, a border wall, to cover the entire U.S. including the Alaskan and Canadian border, would be approximately 22.5 billion dollars, or around a billion dollars per year. Rather than just accept a cost, I decided to go out and do the mathsz myself!

From calculations, I gathered it would take between 60-90 billion dollars to build a well defended fortification, depending predominately on the price of the building material, the value of building material, and the need to flatten out certain areas in order to place the wall (in some areas, geography could bump the price up to 21 million dollars per mile). The wall would be more of a combined arms defense fortification, the wall intended to slow people down and various weapons intended to engage the enemy, ranging from 155mm howitzers, 40mm anti-aircraft bofors guns, surveillance drones, machine guns, roads, military HUMVEE's for border patrol vehicles, and a host of other things. This equates to approximately 3-4.5 billion dollars per year over the next 20 years; it could potentially last longer if made from crack deflecting, potentially fiber glass infused concrete, although the downpayment would be higher.

The largest cost would come from border security and guards, in the guard towers, with their combined salaries, not even including their training, costing between 6.75 to 13.75 billion dollars per year, compared to the 3-6 billion, max dollars for the wall and it's protection, meaning the wall itself, even if at ludicrous prices, would be substantially cheaper than border patrol is even now.

To learn more about it, read below!


Border Length 
Largely, the expense of a border wall depends on how well constructed the border wall is. In some areas, the cost will be higher due to unusual geography, sloped areas, or unstable ground. In some cases, according to the The Congressional Budget Office, This could be up to 21 million dollars per mile.[1][2][3][PDF] But since most of these specific geographic issues make up the minority of cases, I believe it would be relatively easy to get a rough baseline for the cost of a border wall, excluding potentially difficult areas, by getting a rough average on relatively stable ground.

The Border with Mexico is approximately 3,169 km (1,969 mi) [1] in length, while the Canadian U.S. Border 8,891 kilometers (5,525 mi) long, including 2,475 kilometers (1,538 mi) shared with Alaska [1].[2] Combined, the U.S. and Canadian border makes up approximately 7,494 miles, or around 7,500 miles.




Mathsz
Accepting 3 million dollars per mile, for a 7500 mile long border, to cover all of the U.S.'s border, including the Alaskan Canadian border, this would be approximately 22.5 billion dollars. Over 20 years, this would be a little under a billion per year; or, approximately, 1/3600th of the U.S.'s annual budget. Not so bad.

But this would be a wall largely like boeing's design. A dug trench, with a decently flat dirt road, some cameras, a few lights, razorwire and two relatively sturdy iron/steel fences. This could be theoretically moved by shifting mud, dirt, sand, and other things, as well as bad weather or heavy rains. It likely wouldn't stop rampaging vehicles or completely stop people from crossing and likely parts of it would fall over or be removed due to shifting ground issues, like run off with mud. In my opinion, it would be great, but it's only a good start. It also provides baseline for the costs of flattening an area, adjusting for costs in rugged terrain, digging a trench, and a walk/drive way for vehicles.

So, what else is required? Well, a large concrete wall would be nice. But just how large? It's difficult to know for sure, but concrete typically costs around 75-150 dollar per cubic yard[1][2], potentially up to 200 dollars per cubic yard, depending on the price of energy, labor, the quality of concrete, and many other things. Using mostly the Corps of Engineers and the National Guard to construct the fencing, the cost to build a wall was about $2.8 million a mile, while the fencing constructed in 2008, using mostly private constructors, cost about $5.1 million a mile. [1][PDF] Higher strength concrete contains fiberglass, but depending on the amount required to keep the concrete from expanding, cracking, or changing from water and weather damage, it could be anywhere from 200-1200 dollars per cubic yard. As well, there are varying life's of concrete; depending on weather resistant, water resistant, the expansion of the reinforced metal (which can rust), or resistance to temperature changes, can all impact the general life of the concrete, on top of whatever load it's expected to bear. The thickness of the wall is a driving factor in cost; due to the nature of multiplication, it would expand the over-all cubic yardage significantly. For a 9 foot by 3 foot thick wall, or 3 yard tall by 1 yard long wall, this would be approximately 3 square yards. Over a mile, or 1760 yards, this would require approximately 5280 cubic yards of concrete per mile. Assuming 75-150 dollars per cubic yard, the concrete itself would only cost about 400-800,000 dollars per mile, or 3-6 billion dollars total. Not that bad. Of course you need to consider the cost of pouring, steel reinforcement, construction, paving and many other factors, although readying an area typically only costs 10-20 dollars per square foot, and could be cheaper if done by the army core of engineers (since time is money for most commercial construction companies, and this could be included in the total 3 million cost by Boeing). Readying say, a 10 foot wide area, might cost half a million dollars per mile, at most, depending on the geography, or an additional, 3.75 billion dollars. By using the army core of engineers, variable costs, such as time for construction, delays due to rain and weather, and issues of flattening out an area, are all largely alleviated. Since the army core of engineers gets dirt for free, among other things, it would be significantly easier for them to construct a wall, all resources considered on their end, which would reduce prices.

Rebar reinforced concrete generally isn't a whole lot more expensive than regular concrete; indeed rebar is relatively cheap and often times even provides somewhat of mold for the structure. Fiber reinforcement, which can greatly increase the longevity of the concrete, it's flexibility, resistance to water damage, and many other things, can be significantly more expensive. I'm not entirely sure of the cost per cubic yard, or what percentage of fiberglass to concrete ratio should be used, among other things, and due to varying costs and purposes (such as most fiber reinforced concrete going on to form the foundation for bridges, which can be much more expensive than concrete that's simply stronger, albeit perhaps not as strong as a bridge), it's difficult to ascertain what the cost of a probably stronger, but more expensive wall would be. Other types of concrete also escape direct calculations due to the variability.

But, it stands to reason that rebar reinforced concrete with steel webbing should be okay, enough, in the very least, and it's much easier to calculate for. The walls could be constructed and then transported to sight in molds, with the foundation being laid for it to be mounted on, and possibly sunk into later on, making it easier to assemble instead of pouring the molds on sight. Additionally, it could allow the concrete molds to be made in factories or warehouses, increasing the ease of construction and eliminating issues with on sight construction, potentially reducing the cost or other complications that could be associated with the wall.

How long would the wall last; what would it's life be? This is more difficult to calculate. 

However! What about an even bigger wall? 


Even bigger wall!
So what about an even bigger, stronger wall? Well, 20 foot tall sounds fairly insurmountable, on foot, and even with a ladder it would be hard to sneak in a at this level over the wall, assuming you made it through the trench (which could be designed to make carrying a 20 foot, or say a 16 foot or so ladder, incredibly difficult given the angle of the trench) and the razor wire with a large ladder. With the right design, over hanging razor wire, getting a decent grappling hook or otherwise something similar over could be near impossible, given the angle required, meaning it could potentially eliminate these things as an immediate hazard.

Thickness could vary. Only approximately 3-4 feet in thickness are probably needed. For a 1.3 x 6.5 yard wall, or 20 tall by 4 foot wide wall, this would only be approximately 14,872, or 15,000 cubic yards per mile (1.3 x 6.5 x 1760 yards per mile). At 75 dollars per cubic yard, this would be approximately 1.125 million dollars per mile, or about 8.5 billion dollars total; double this for 150 dollar concrete. Not really that bad.

So what of a HUGE wall? Say, 30 feet tall, 9 feet wide? Well, that's only about 30 square yards; per mile, this would be approximately 52,800 cubic yards. This would be about 3.6 times as expensive, or around 4.05 million per mile, or around 30.6 billion dollars total. Not that bad; over 20 years, it would only be 1.5 billion dollars a year. In my mind a 20 feet wall would do, so say a 24 foot tall wall by nine foot thick would be a little cheaper, while a 24 foot by 6 foot thick wall would be around 2.1 million dollars per mile. But let's go with the crazy awesome cranked up 30 foot tall 9 foot thick wall with razor wire on top; that would be virtually impenetrable.With the boeing ditches, gates, and roads, and whatnot this would be around 18 billion + 30 billion, or potentially 18+ 8.5 to 17 billion dollars, for the 20x4 foot or 24x6 foot walls.

What else would be needed?


Guard Towers
Any good wall is only as good as their surveillance. The point of a wall is to slow down, not completely hinder individuals from getting over. Given enough time and resources an individual could find crafty ways over the wall, without much concern. The object of the wall is to slow people down, enough, say several hours or days, to get by, so that by the time they get to the wall, and possibly over it, and had a chance of escape, they would be noticed. Or requiring tunneling, which could be detected with sonar over long periods of time. All of this essentially requiring them to go to great lengths to get great resources that could be easily spotted miles away without much concern, allowing for adequate time to fight back. These types of situations would allow guards enough time to spot potential trespassers, and have the border patrol respond and move in on people's positions without people simply getting too far inland to catch.

So, how would one construct a guard tower? Well, the most likely scenario is guard towers that are built into the border wall itself. A walk way could be present on top of the concrete wall, allowing passage, with guard rails and a way to avoid getting too close to razor wire (possibly raised up over it), or simply ladders/stairs leading up to each guard tower itself. Each guard tower area would be a little thicker than the surrounding area and probably support a box at the top that was substantially larger than tower itself. So, each guard tower would be, for good measure, somewhat thicker over-all down to the base of the concrete structure, and probably a lot thicker at the top, to house a lot of people, perhaps 20 x 20 foot. I'm not entirely sure how heavy or expensive this would be.  But at about 40 foot tall, it stands to reason that not a lot of extra material would be needed. For good measure, a guard tower at about every quarter mile or so, or every 440 yards, that was 40 foot tall, and operated by 6 people total (two people every 8 hours, for morning, mid day and night shifts) seems reasonable and effective.

In my mind, they should use stairs, to prevent potential accidents, and make entering or leaving the facility relatively easy, as climbing up a ladder could result in potentially falling 40 or so feet, possibly with an additional ladder in case of the need of quick way out of the facility; there are some building codes for stairs, but it's usually a good idea to exceed those.

Without alleviated costs, the 12 x 12 foot structure, at approximately 40 feet tall, or 4 x 4 x 13 yards, would be around 15,600 dollars if made of pure concrete, not really that expensive. Assuming it's built into the wall, this would only require approximately 3600 more dollars due to the extra concrete. However, the inside would likely be hollow, to allow for the stair case; assuming a foot gap in the middle and sides for handguards, and a 6 foot wide stair case, 13 by 12 foot long (including flat spaces), that had around 3 foot thick walls, would only be around 3600 dollars. So the guard towers, made out of concrete, wouldn't be that expensive, and hopefully would have some I-beam support.

What type of cameras and surveillance equipment should be used? To eliminate problems with spotting living targets, that could be hiding, and problems at night without distortions from headlights, flood lights, or other issues, thermal vision is probably best. Since thermal vision can focus on living creatures, which generally tend to be warmer than the background, and don't depend on the level of light, unlike night vision which can be unusable during the day or a particularly bright day, or during foggy times etc. thermal vision is probably best for all ranges during the day. However, thermal vision can be expensive; at around 6-15,000 dollars per unit, it's can be a tad pricey, and is about 10 times the cost of night vision on average. Expensive scopes or binoculars can range anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 dollars, all the way up to 10,000 dollars, depending on their value or purpose (so, star gazing scopes or their equivalent could be considerably more expensive). In addition, flood lights, surveillance cameras, TV's, and a place for four people to operate might add on to the cost. Air conditioners would also be required, with standard units being up to 5000 dollars per, and requiring some source of electricity or energy.

Some form of sniper rifle, gun, or otherwise way to warn off or engage attackers would be necessary. Non-lethal long range sound weapons, microwave (ADS system), tear gas launchers (say from 40mm automatic grenade launchers, or mortars) or otherwise some type of device would be required for border patrol to engage targets non-lethally. Since these are relatively under developed it would be difficult to know how to implement them. Due to difficulties with a sniper rifle, including needing a trained sniper, a place to shoot out of, so an open space in the armor of the guard tower, and having a person always being on scope, a .50 caliber machine gun mounted at the top of the guard tower would be preferable. Utilizing a remote controlled CROWS or arrows system, the need for an operator to expose themselves could be eliminated, and long ranged camera and scope based systems could be used to aim. Depending on the variant, they might be around 10,000-46,000 dollars per unit, depending on their sensitivity or speed of target acquisition, which may not be very much if stable (as in, could be cheaper than a mobile version).

Bullet proof glass is also expensive; polycarbonate, plastic, and acrylic glass all form general mixtures for bullet resistant glass, and in order to stop 7.62mm rounds, or powerful sniper or armor piercing rounds, might take up to 2.5 inches of material[1]. Since bullet proof glass costs can range from 10-200 dollars per square meter, a cost of say, oh, 2 meters, by 24 meters long (for 20 x 20 foot wide area, that is over 6 foot tall), would only be, at max, around 10,000 dollars.

In essence, a lot would go into a guard tower. Costs would depend primarily on the value or thickness of various materials. But it's reasonable to assume that it probably wouldn't be much over 100,000 dollars per guard tower. A guard tower every quarter of a mile, or 440 yards, at 100,000 per guard tower, for 7500 miles, would only be about 3 billion dollars. It's easy to see how there would be room for growth, in terms of cost, for a 200,000+ guard tower, depending on what's added per guard tower, meaning that any potential problems could likely be alleviated with money.

One thing a raised, visual identification guard tower couldn't do is detect for underground tunneling. Sonar detectors, pressure sensors, and otherwise abilities to detect vibrations in the ground would be necessary. These could be in the guard towers, but likely this job should fall to border patrol. To locate, investigate, and figure out whether or not any potential tunneling was occurring. I wouldn't even know where to begin finding out the cost of something like this. Maybe the Mythbusters Chinese drums could work out, or fish finders, or any kind of passive sonar system capable of detecting tunneling and vibrations underground. Fish finders usually aren't much over 500 dollars.

You would also need some kind of long range communication system. High powered radios and possibly local radio towers might be necessary.



Cars and other Weapons

Cars
Cars can be pretty expensive. From 10,000 dollars for regular cars, to 40,000 dollar V8 SUV's, to armored vehicles, the price of transportation vehicles can vary given the circumstances and desired paths. It's difficult to come up with an estimate for a would be car and it's quality in terms of reliability, speed, and power on all forms of terrain and in all kinds of weather.

So I figured military HUMVEE's  should suffice for a decent patrol car. With consistent, well tested variables, and ensured reliable performance, they would make a good candidate for border protection, or at least be easy for calculation. At 6,000+ pounds, capable of carrying an automatic 40mm grenade launcher or .50 caliber machine gun, and generally being a behemoth of a vehicle, with armored variants capable of stopping fragmentation and armor piercing 7.62mm rounds, they would probably eliminate any issues with being attacked and any issues of terrain. The armored variants range from around 140,000-150,000 dollars. Due to the Iraq war, and the replacement of HUM VEE's, which MRAP's, the military has procured and is now retiring many Hum Vees, which could be implemented or re purposed as border security vehicles, and essentially be free.

At around, oh say, the equivalent of four per every mile, this would only take about 30,000 vehicles. At 150,000 per, this would be about 4.5 billion dollars; not so bad. While gasoline costs would need to be factored in, it's arguable that the vehicles would only move when required, and they would mostly be stationary. The gas mileage isn't too bad, and probably no worse than about 8-10 MPG. Assuming 1 billion's dollars worth of gasoline annually, and HUMVEE's with a range of about 200-300 miles, a 25 gallon tank, and the price of gasoline at 4 dollars per gallon, this would be approximately 10 million tank fulls, enough for 300 trips for approximately 30,000 vehicles, or 60,000 to 90,000 miles of range per year. A billion dollars worth of gasoline would probably cover all the border patrol needed a year, making gasoline costs a non-issue.

Drones and Areal Surveillance
Drones are a new technology available to border security, already in use and planned to increase in the future. I'm not entirely sure how expensive they would be; drones are somewhere around 1-4 million dollars per vehicle, in the case of MQ-1 predator drones, and all the way up to 36 million per vehicle with MQ-9 predators drones, cover variable ranges, and have variable costs per flight time. For the drones used presently by border security, they cost around 3000 dollars per hour, to fly, and flew for a combined 5700 hours a year, at around 18 million dollars annually. Not so bad. For around a billion dollars, you could have up to 250 MQ-1 drones, or up to a 1000 or so with 4 billion dollars, which would likely be enough to match current border patrol surveillance and then some, with flight times and maintenance only being in the millions of dollars, so mostly a negligible cost.


155mm Howitzers
Important to a border security wall, would be big guns. While .50 caliber machine guns (preferably with rubber, general purpose, and high explosive incendiary armor piercing rounds) are powerful, they'd do little to stop an oncoming tank or otherwise a large armored vehicle. As a result, relatively large guns would be required. The general standard for these types of things tends to be a 155mm howitzer. Old howitzers, basically retired, and out of use, would be ideal for this. Able to take out tanks, having a 15+ mile range, and otherwise being incredibly powerful, they would be ideal and already in line with modern military equipment.

There are many retired, but still serviceable 155mm howitzers, with 10,000 or so old M114 howitzers now being replaced by future variants, which could essentially be re purposed for free. Obviously, for one every mile, this would require 7500; with one every two miles, this would only require 3,750 or so. From the M114, to M198 versions, they would all likely be cheaper than the new titanium M777 howitzers, that are about 4.5 million dollars per unit. At around 500,000 dollars for an M198, this would only be around 3.75 billion dollars to cover the entire border, if one was used at every mile. Depending on how many are in storage, the cost of their shells, and many other factors, the cost of 155mm howitzers may be negligible. Due to the issues of needing to man these weapons, with a crew of 5-11 people, the primary costs comes not from the gun itself but from the potential crew manning it. Hence some form of remote operated feature would be required. Preferably with some kind of advanced or computerized targeting system; despite being on the more expensive M777, it's reasonable to assume that the actual electronic targeting systems probably aren't too expensive. Even assuming the same price of the M777 (although limitations on titanium are a major concern, so they'd likely be steel, which would likely cut out the bulk of the price), spaced out every 5 miles instead, this would require only about 1500, or around 6.75 billion dollars.

Likely, these would need to be behind the border wall, on American soil, as to remove any suspicions of guns on foreign soil. As well, they would likely need to be remote operated, to remove the 35,000 to 75,000 odd crew men that would need to be stationed around the area, which would be 1.75 to 3.75 billion dollars in wages alone. Unless transformed into a practice artillery range for soldiers, of some kind, the equipment pieces would likely need to be remote operated in some way. To eliminate issues with accidental, hacked, or corrupted people firing them, it's possible this could be controlled by the national guard or military units, and then positions called in by the guard towers; as in, multiple people would be required to fire the weapon. They could provide videos on potential suspects, linked to U.S. operators, who could decide if the targets were worthy of or called for 155mm Howitzers, and then determine how to respond. Additionally, smoke screens or other such non-lethal rounds could be utilized to mask a position or make it difficult to progress.

Cruise missiles and Anti-air Weaponry
Cruise missiles are pretty expensive; at about 500,000-1,000,000 dollars per, say the Tomahawk BGM-109 cruise missiles, 1 missile every 2 miles would be around 3,750 missiles, or around 1.875-3.75 billion dollars. They would be tactical weapons at best, utilized only in dire situations as a last ditch effort. Say, to take out tanks in the worst case scenario of a large scale enemy land invasion. As a result of their cost and this unlikely scenario, they may be superfluous.

But anti-air guns seem reasonable. There are plenty of weapons; .30 caliber, .50 caliber, even 20mm guns that could all be viable. Air bursting flak rounds which explode when they are within range of a target (whether by utilizing radar, magnetic, or other forms of proximity detection) are probably best to cover the skies in annoying levels of shrapnel. My preference is for the 40mm bofors; relatively cheap, with lots of old unused models, and potentially updated targeting systems, the 40mm bofors serves as a general purpose anti-aircraft weapon. With rounds up to 900 grams, traveling at 1030 m/s, reaching 41,000 feet, and around 460,000 joules, the weapon promises about 2.5 times the power of even the 30mm GAU-8 minigun, and 23 times the power of a .50 caliber rounds, and substantially higher, air bursting payloads, allowing for the easy acquisition of aircraft. Probably at no more than 100,000 dollars per unit, and one placed every mile, this would only at max be around 750 million dollars, and it could potentially be much cheaper, well under 20,000-50,000 dollars per unit, if not free. Yet it would likely eliminate almost any issues with aircraft trying to invade America.

STINGERS, that is standard FIM-92 Stinger 's, likely fired out of ground based unmanned tubular launching platforms, similar to those on the AN/TWQ-1 Avenger vehicles, would likely be a lot more expensive. Despite their incredible range, targeting systems, and anti-aircraft capabilities, each unit costs somewhere on the order of 38,000 dollars per unit, or for one every mile, around 285 million dollars. Depending on the desired usage, you could have around four per mile, say one every guard tower, or four per box, but this would be closer to 1.15 billion dollars. Given their one time use, expense, and potential for accidents, these weapons would only be used as a last line of defense against air based attacks, but they could, in theory, in addition to 40mm bofors rounds, eliminate almost all aircraft issues, being UV based instead of infrared, capable of targeting the exhaust of jets with relative ease.


As a result, it's easy to see how the guns, cars, and other things at the border patrol wall would probably be relatively cheap. At a combined cost of likely less than 10 dollars, for drones, military HUMVEE's and Howitzers, the guns would only amount to a relatively small cost of the over-all cost of the wall.



Employees

Employees would likely make up the bulk of the cost of the border wall. There are approximately 22,000 border patrol personnel, and disregarding costs for vehicles, weapons, training, or other such things, if they received a decent, and average salary of around 50,000 per year, this would cost about 1.1 billion dollars per year, alone. Assuming we quadrupled the border patrol amount, this would be around 4.5 billion dollars a year in wages alone. The entire cost of the U.S. customs annual budget is around 11.84 billion dollars, so an additional 4.5 billion dollars would be over 25% increase in cost. [1][2]

But what of the guard towers? 4 people per guard towers to ensure constant 24 hours surveillance, and then one extra person, for four towers every quarter of a mile, or 30,000 towers, would require 120,000 personnel. Quite possibly, to ensure two people in the facility at any one time, you would need six people per tower daily if taking 8 hours shifts. Assuming 12 hours shifts, this would still require four people. That means this might take up to 120,000-180,000 personnel, guards, watching over the area rather scrupulously to look out for any potential deadly assassins!

Which would be about 6 to 9 billion dollars, a year, to fund. Considering how close this is to the 12 billion dollars of the entire U.S. customs budget and the raw volume of people required to do this, this could be rather huge. It's arguable that this could be reserve military, military, training, or otherwise already existing military personnel, to possibly lower the price of constant surveillance. It's arguable it could be a mix of both. They could take relatively low salaries or payment to reduce the over-all cost or any number of potential cost fixes. But one things for sure, it would be rather expensive. It would be possible to spread out the guard towers to every mile or so, reducing the total amount to a quarter of that before, although they would need to be taller, at about 60 feet or so, and probably require 6 personnel per unit, putting it at 2.25 billion per year. But being so spread out might make it harder to see people coming, requiring more powerful scopes, or more attentive surveillance. You would also likely lose a lot of contact between guard towers.

All of the cost of wages would not include the price of training, arming, and providing other benefits to the employees. As a result the costs could very well be double that of what's predicted or shown. In the long run, wage and training might make up the bulk of the cost of a border wall, rather than a border wall, even extremely well protected, itself. Even at 3 billion dollars per year in the minimum predicted wage costs with only an additional 60,000 personnel, this would match the cost of a 60 billion dollars wall per year.


Over-all Cost 

The over-all cost of the wall, in my opinion, doesn't really seem to be that high. Perhaps 30 billion for the wall, excluding gates, with a 24-30 foot tall by 6-9 foot wide wall. An additional 2.4 million dollars per mile, or 18 billion dollars, for razor wire, iron gates, a trench, and a flat place to drive for cars, potentially with road barriers to stop cars from ever reaching the wall. Stretching 7500 miles, this fenced and wall protected area would cost about 48 billion dollars.

Guard towers would cost somewhere on the order of .75-3 billion dollars, with HUMVEE's, drones, howitzers, and anti-air guns only tacking on about 3 billion, 4 billion, 3.75 billion, and 750 million dollars respectively. Combined, this is an, only additionally, 11.5 billion dollar expenditure.

This reaches only 59.5 billion dollars, or about 60 billion dollars, for anti-air guns, cruise missiles, howitzers, armored vehicles, hopefully tanks, and potentially some other vehicles committed to the border wall. Over 20 years, this should be only about 3 billion per year.

With the added price of gasoline, this is around 1 billion extra per year (although it's enough for 75,000 miles a year per vehicle). With the price of employment, this could be anywhere from an additional 6.75 to 13.75 billion dollars annually, depending on the border patrol wage costs and the number of guard towers, from anywhere from 60,000 to 240,000 additional people.

It is therefore conceivable that the largest cost to the wall is not necessarily the wall itself, but employment. Even if the wall itself was twice as expensive, this would only be 6 billion per year, over 20 years, or 12 billion if double again. As a result it's easy to see how a mammoth, well protected wall would, in the long run, be relatively cheap, even compared to the surveillance designed to protect it.

Ethical considerations, political concerns, or reasons for the wall are also an issue not calculated. The value and purpose of the wall should be considered and dealt with. I personally believe that as an attempt to keep out foreign invaders and even potentially illegal contraband (90% which has been traceable to Mexican drug cartels), the wall would be preferable and a necessary precaution, but that it should, if anything, be used to streamline, and not prevent immigration into the U.S.