[gregpilling]

I am surprised by the number of Tucson, AZ residents (where I live) that think there already is a large wall, all across the USA. You certainly see a large wall in Nogales, AZ/ Nogales SON. It is only there for the TV cameras, since a few miles out of town it is back to dual strand barbed wire cattle fence. Everybody who lives within a few miles either side of the border knows this - people in Tucson 60 miles away are not so clear.

They watch the evening news, see a big wall on TV, hear Trump talk about extending the wall, assume it's the same wall all across the USA, and then continue on with their life like normal humans.

http://tomohalloran.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/wall-noga...

compare that to the photo of the barbed wire fence along the border in the other comment.

[umanwizard]

I'm from Arizona too and lived in Tucson for four years :)

I'm genuinely surprised by your experience. Maybe I was simply lucky enough to only talk about border issues with more educated than average people. I guess it's because I was in college when I lived there, and mostly hung out with Latino college students.

[vacri]

I visited a couple of locals on the US side of the Nogales border, and they showed me the sights. "Here is the border fence... and 8 miles further (drive drive) here is where it runs out, and they come over those hills there (drive drive) these houses being built are where the immigrants spend their first nights before heading inland...".

We drove past a border patrol depot, and there were literally hundreds of vehicles. "Wow, the border patrol must have a huge number of staff to keep most of those active at once" > "No, those are just for the TV cameras - border patrol doesn't have anywhere near that number of staff"

Other oddities that stuck out for me in the area were that the border ingress to Mexico was literally just a turnstile, and that the distance markers about 20km short of the border on the US side were, indeed, in km instead of miles.

[umanwizard]

yup, search for "metric": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_19

[chei0aiV]

Aren't borders such silly concepts?

[loteck]

Borders delineate jurisdictions of legal authority, and accommodate the ability for different communities to enact different laws. If you are a fan of the rule of law, you should appreciate borders.

[dinkumthinkum]

Why are borders silly? I guess it's fun to say but what does that mean? Is it silly that people that live in Vermont have access to the kind of legal due process and protections afforded by the U.S. government that people in Colombia do not?

[13of40]

> Is it silly that people that live in Vermont have access to the kind of legal due process and protections afforded by the U.S. government that people in Colombia do not?

Yes, that's the point. For a country whose first words were "all men are created equal" we've built up a mindboggling apparatus for demonstrating that that's not true.

[Snackchez]

From the perspective of a humanist, borders are kind of arbitrary. Simply because you had the shit luck of being born maybe a few kilometers South of the most southern states, you end up getting a way worse experience in life and your ticket is almost entirely predetermined.

I agree on law and order, but again, isn't it a little crazy that in one state you have one set of laws and then once you cross an imaginary line you get an entirely new set of laws?

[dinkumthinkum]

Oh, I think the "states" are unnecessary in the US. I agree with that. But borders between nations are, outside of a worldwide utopia, are rather necessary.

[conceit]

but they aren't essential