A Secure Nation -- All It Takes Is $$$, Says Retired CPA
by Chad Groening
March 29, 2005
(AgapePress) - The organizer of the citizens effort aimed at calling attention to the influx of illegal aliens to the U.S. says for a mere $3.6 billion a year the country could build and maintain a security fence along the southern border with Mexico. But the question remains: does the government have the will to do so?James Gilchrist is a retired certified public accountant who is spearheading the upcoming Minuteman Project on the Mexico border. His group of volunteers will spend the month of April in the Arizona desert to call attention to the illegal alien problem.
Gilchrist says it would be very easy for the U.S. government to keep illegal immigrants out.
"As a CPA, you tend to think numbers and costs and [to] analyze financial data," he confesses. "My estimate is that with $3.6 billion per year, they could literally seal that entire 2,000-mile border -- without taking the current budget away from the Border Patrol."
But Gilchrist says for less than three times that amount, the job could be done even better. "Even at $10 billion a year, which is just a drop in the bucket compared to our national budget, they could seal that border and our ports very easily with a 60-foot-wide barrier, with observation towers," he says. "It could be done."
However, the question, says Gilchrist, is whether the government has the will to do it. "It's not [a question of] can it be done or not. The question is, will they do it or not?" he says. "Three-point-six billion at a minimum to staff 12,500 more personnel on that border, with two fences that you cannot climb over easily. So ten billion on the far side -- 3.6 billion at the minimum -- to secure the 2,000-mile Mexican-American border."
Gilchrist says he is hopeful the government can be convinced that constructing a 2,000-mile security fence is the right investment for America's national security.
Chad Groening, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
