Betsy McCaughey posted an article at Townhall today about the cost of not having a border wall.

The article reports:

Look what it costs us when a Central American teen crosses the border illegally without an adult. Uncle Sam spends a staggering $775 per day for each child housed at a shelter near Florida’s Homestead Air Reserve Base. There they have access to medical care, school and recreation. They stay, on average, 67 days at the Homestead shelter before being released to a sponsor. Do the math. That’s almost $52,000 per child. American parents would appreciate the government spending that money on their kids. Imagine the government handing you a check for $52,000 for your teenager.

However, there are bigger costs ahead. The number of illegal border crossers just hit an 11-year high with a total of more than 76,000 during the month of February alone. U.S. and Mexican officials predict hundreds of thousands more in the coming months.

The migrants use the word “asylum” as their get-in-free card. When they say it to a border agent, they gain entry to the U.S. 80 percent of the time according to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. They are temporarily housed and eventually released with an immigration court date. But half never go on to file an asylum claim, disappearing into the U.S., said former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Asylum is supposed to be reserved for people facing persecution and danger in their home country whose safety depends upon their leaving that country. People who simply want better lives are asked to go through the legal process. Unfortunately our southern border is so porous that it is very easy for people to come here illegally and then simply disappear. We need a wall. It is sad that Congress is playing political games in order to avoid building one. Congress has never wanted a secure southern border–the Democrats see future voters and the Republicans see cheap labor for the corporate sponsors. No one is looking at the security of America right now except the President and very few members of Congress.