3 ways Mexico could pay for the wall

But is there any way for Mexico to fund a border wall without officials there dipping into their country’s coffers?

Let’s crunch the numbers on a few possible options that have made the rounds in Washington:

1. Tapping into money immigrants send home

Mexican immigrants sent nearly $27 billion home in 2016, according to the country’s central bank. And most of that money came from people living in the United States.

Generally, immigrants report that the money they send funds things like food, clothing, housing and education for their families. What if some of it went to building a wall on the border?

On the campaign trail, Trump said he’d change the Patriot Act and cut off a portion of remittances to Mexico unless the country agreed to pony up. Since then, a less aggressive approach has circulated in some policy circles: taxing wire transfers, the most common way immigrants send money home.

That idea is unpopular with money transfer companies and immigrant rights advocates.

And Mexican authorities have vowed to do everything they can to ensure that no one messes with the money immigrants send. It’s Mexico’s largest source of income — higher even than the amount of money it earns from oil exports. Even though remittances are a small portion of Mexico’s GDP, they have a big impact in some of the country’s poorest communities.

In the Mexican state of Michoacán, for example, migrant remittances made up almost 10% of the state’s gross domestic product in 2015, according to data from the Bank of Mexico and BBVA Bancomer.

Past proposals to tax remittances have never gotten off the ground in Washington. But at least one US state has taken this approach.

In 2009, Oklahoma started charging a fee on individual wire transfers of $5 plus 1% on any amount over $500. Since then, the measure — which applies to funds sent through licensed money transmitters like Western Union and MoneyGram — has raised more than $67.2 million for a fund at the state’s Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control, according to state tax records.

The case: For those who resent that undocumented immigrants not only live in the United States, but also send money out of the country, a remittance tax is an attractive option, as the National Review’s Jim Geraghty has noted.

“In their eyes,” he wrote in 2015, “illegal immigrants from Mexico effectively steal from the United States by entering the country, offering unethical employers a labor force that isn’t covered by wage, workplace safety, and other laws, getting paid under the table, and then sending the money out of the country.”

The catch: Wire transfer companies don’t ask for or track the immigration status of people who use them. If they did, analysts say undocumented immigrants simply would find other ways to send money. So it’s likely a tax would end up applying to anyone who sends remittances — something critics say would unfairly punish Americans and immigrants who came to the country legally. Oklahoma tried to get around this by creating a tax credit for its fees; but critics argue that many people eligible for credits don’t take them.

Critics also say a tax on remittances would likely push Mexicans to find other ways to get cash over the border.

“In the paranoid atmosphere that’s been created by certain anti-immigrant statements, I think it would make people even more reluctant to use official channels,” says David Landsman, executive director of the New York-based National Money Transmitters Association.

The chances: The numbers might add up, but it’s still a tough sell. Congress is loathe to levy taxes in general, though a tax reform package to be discussed this year could offer an opportunity. Congressional leaders have priorities in that package that they will not want derailed if a plan to tax remittances becomes too controversial. Relations between the US and Mexico would also surely factor into the debate.

2. Seizing money from drug cartels

US Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin, introduced a proposal last month titled the BUILD WALL Act of 2017. Its aim: to use money seized from drug traffickers to fund security at the border.

The case: Sensenbrenner’s proposal calls for the US Attorney General to study ways the Justice Department can increase assets seized from cartels. He dubbed the approach “a creative solution to a complex problem.”

Drug cartels send between $19 billion and $29 billion annually back to Mexico, according to US federal officials. And using money from criminals rather than law-abiding US taxpayers to foot the bill for anything sounds like an easy sell.
The catch: Authorities on the southwest US border have already seized a large amount of money heading to Mexico: more than $57 million in four years, according to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP). But it’s just a fraction of the smuggled money officials believe is crossing the border — and just a fraction of the estimated cost of a wall. And currently, at least some of the money seized from cartels is already spoken for. Currency CBP seizes that is forfeited goes into a Treasury Department fund that’s used for law enforcement initiatives across the country. The amount of money seized has also decreased in recent years. A recent CBP report noted “significant decreases in both the number of seizures and the average dollar value” of the amounts seized.
The chances: Harder than it sounds. Passing legislation in Congress is always difficult, and this year a lot of time is already expected to be eaten up by Obamacare repeal, tax reform and budgeting. Any bill perceived to be an element of Trump’s border security efforts will become controversial, as Democrats seek to oppose his immigration policies and have deemed the wall a poison pill in any legislation. Plus, asset seizure tiptoes into criminal justice reform, its own area of disagreement on the Hill.

3. A border tax

In January, Trump administration officials suggested a 20% tariff on imports from Mexico could be used to pay for a border wall. The idea was floated early on in Trump’s presidency, and in some circles, it sank. After the proposal drew a swift uproar from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, White House officials who’d touted it later said it was just an idea.

If such a plan is put into place, a vast array of items — including cars, mechanical equipment, produce and household goods — would be subject to a levy.

The case: When it comes to exports and imports, there’s a lot of money in play. Mexico is the United States’ third largest goods trading partner, with an estimated $295 billion in imports from Mexico crossing the border in 2015.
“By doing it that way we can do $10 billion a year and easily pay for the wall, just through that mechanism alone. That’s really going to provide the funding,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer said in January.

Later that day, he sent a softer message, saying the border tax idea was intended to be just one example of paying for the wall. “I just want to be clear that we’re not being prescriptive in saying that is the only way,” he said, “nor is the rate prescriptive.”

The catch: Critics say such a tax would punish consumers more than anyone else, it would violate NAFTA and it could spur a trade war. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham quickly dismissed the idea, posting a tweet that played off the President’s own Twitter style.

“Simply put,” Graham wrote, “any policy proposal which drives up costs of Corona, tequila, or margaritas is a big-time bad idea. Mucho Sad.”

The chances: Low. Lawmakers are already engaged in a heated debate over a proposed border adjustment tax, which would tax imports from around the world while exempting exports from US taxes. While House Speaker Paul Ryan and like-minded Republicans are in favor, the proposal still faces a heavy set of opposition from inside and outside the party. Tacking on a Mexico-specific tax is unlikely to get much traction, as we saw with Spicer’s swift walkback of the trial balloon earlier this year.

CNN’s Jeremey Diamond, Theodore Schleifer and Patrick Gillespie contributed to this report. Illustration by Kenneth Fowler.

Why is government searching phones?

These are some of the many American citizens re-entering the country who have been subjected to searches of their cellphones and questioning about their social media.

Such invasions of travelers’ private communications are extremely intrusive and have been conducted even when officials don’t apparently have reason to think the person has done something wrong. And the government has lately increased the practice dramatically — even though recent legal decisions raise serious questions about its constitutionality.

Because people keep ever more of their personal details on their phones and computers, it is particularly egregious that the government should claim some right to unfettered access to these devices simply because a person travels abroad.

On Monday, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University — whose mission is to defend free speech in the digital age — filed a lawsuit seeking to compel the government to release information on the number of travelers whose devices have been searched, the policies related to searching cellphones containing sensitive and confidential information, and the findings of internal audits about the device search program.

Border searches of electronic devices by the Department of Homeland Security have risen exponentially in recent years, from about 5,000 device searches in 2015 to about 25,000 in 2016, according to press reports that cited DHS data. During the Trump administration, the intrusions appear to have become even more frequent; in February 2017 alone, border officials searched 5,000 devices.
And why is this happening? A US Customs and Border Protection policy since 2009 authorizes officers to seize and search a traveler’s electronic devices even if the person is not suspicious. The policy was always legally dubious, but it has become indefensible in light of the Supreme Court’s 2014 landmark decision in Riley v. California.

The court held that police generally can’t seize a person’s cellphone as part of an arrest without first obtaining a warrant that is backed by evidence that the cellphone contains evidence of a crime and is signed by a judge.

A cellphone contains “the sum of an individual’s private life,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court. The search of a smartphone is nothing like the search of a duffle bag. What people store on their cellphones — including Internet browsing history, medical records, family photos, GPS location data, financial information, and apps related to dating, addiction and hobbies — is vastly more sensitive than what people used to carry in their pockets, backpacks, or purses, or even keep in their homes.

Searches of electronic devices when there is no basis for suspicion to search them raise serious concerns relating to the freedoms of speech and association. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor observed in another recent Supreme Court case, “[a]wareness that the government may be watching chills associational and expressive freedoms.” Americans will be justifiably concerned about speaking freely if, simply because they travel internationally, the government is given unlimited authority to read through their emails, texts, social media posts and the like.

The implications may be especially significant for a free press. Suspicionless searches of cellphones threaten the ability of journalists and their sources to report on important international issues, which deprives the public of its right to know about those issues.

Numerous reports show that journalists, lawyers and activists — particularly those who cover civil wars and terrorism or travel to conflict areas — have had their cellphones and devices searched at the US border, where officers have demanded their passwords and read their communications with sources.

Those sources will likely be leery of sharing information with journalists and activists if their identities and reports may be revealed to the US government at the border.

Anecdotal evidence about how the government is using its authority to conduct suspicionless electronic device searches is disturbing but incomplete. The public has a right to see a fuller picture, as many civil liberties groups have asked the government to provide.

Our freedom of information lawsuit request seeks a range of information, but one of the items we seek may be especially revealing: We’ve asked for the database of the Treasury Enforcement Communications System that houses information about every device-search at the border, including the reason for the search, the country of origin of the traveler, and the traveler’s race and ethnicity.
The government created this database in response to concerns voiced by the Department of Homeland Security’s civil rights office several years ago about the possibility that searches might be conducted in a discriminatory or otherwise unlawful way.

Disclosure of the database — perhaps with narrow redactions to protect legitimate national security and privacy interests — would help the public understand the answer to basic questions about the government’s program: How often do border officers search travelers’ cellphones and other devices, and for what reasons?

Why did the incidence of cellphone searches sharply increase in the past 15 months? Does the department follow its own rules for taking special measures to protect searches of privileged and other sensitive content stored on cellphones, and what are those rules?

The courts should require the government to disclose this information and quickly, and the practice of delving into travelers’ private lives at the border without reason to suspect them of wrongdoing should ultimately end. Everything we know about the government’s searches of devices at the border suggests the government is dramatically expanding an unconstitutional program.

3 ways Mexico could pay for the wall

But is there any way for Mexico to fund a border wall without officials there dipping into their country’s coffers?

Let’s crunch the numbers on a few possible options that have made the rounds in Washington:

1. Tapping into money immigrants send home

Mexican immigrants sent nearly $27 billion home in 2016, according to the country’s central bank. And most of that money came from people living in the United States.

Generally, immigrants report that the money they send funds things like food, clothing, housing and education for their families. What if some of it went to building a wall on the border?

On the campaign trail, Trump said he’d change the Patriot Act and cut off a portion of remittances to Mexico unless the country agreed to pony up. Since then, a less aggressive approach has circulated in some policy circles: taxing wire transfers, the most common way immigrants send money home.

That idea is unpopular with money transfer companies and immigrant rights advocates.

And Mexican authorities have vowed to do everything they can to ensure that no one messes with the money immigrants send. It’s Mexico’s largest source of income — higher even than the amount of money it earns from oil exports. Even though remittances are a small portion of Mexico’s GDP, they have a big impact in some of the country’s poorest communities.

In the Mexican state of Michoacán, for example, migrant remittances made up almost 10% of the state’s gross domestic product in 2015, according to data from the Bank of Mexico and BBVA Bancomer.

Past proposals to tax remittances have never gotten off the ground in Washington. But at least one US state has taken this approach.

In 2009, Oklahoma started charging a fee on individual wire transfers of $5 plus 1% on any amount over $500. Since then, the measure — which applies to funds sent through licensed money transmitters like Western Union and MoneyGram — has raised more than $67.2 million for a fund at the state’s Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control, according to state tax records.

The case: For those who resent that undocumented immigrants not only live in the United States, but also send money out of the country, a remittance tax is an attractive option, as the National Review’s Jim Geraghty has noted.

“In their eyes,” he wrote in 2015, “illegal immigrants from Mexico effectively steal from the United States by entering the country, offering unethical employers a labor force that isn’t covered by wage, workplace safety, and other laws, getting paid under the table, and then sending the money out of the country.”

The catch: Wire transfer companies don’t ask for or track the immigration status of people who use them. If they did, analysts say undocumented immigrants simply would find other ways to send money. So it’s likely a tax would end up applying to anyone who sends remittances — something critics say would unfairly punish Americans and immigrants who came to the country legally. Oklahoma tried to get around this by creating a tax credit for its fees; but critics argue that many people eligible for credits don’t take them.

Critics also say a tax on remittances would likely push Mexicans to find other ways to get cash over the border.

“In the paranoid atmosphere that’s been created by certain anti-immigrant statements, I think it would make people even more reluctant to use official channels,” says David Landsman, executive director of the New York-based National Money Transmitters Association.

The chances: The numbers might add up, but it’s still a tough sell. Congress is loathe to levy taxes in general, though a tax reform package to be discussed this year could offer an opportunity. Congressional leaders have priorities in that package that they will not want derailed if a plan to tax remittances becomes too controversial. Relations between the US and Mexico would also surely factor into the debate.

2. Seizing money from drug cartels

US Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin, introduced a proposal last month titled the BUILD WALL Act of 2017. Its aim: to use money seized from drug traffickers to fund security at the border.

The case: Sensenbrenner’s proposal calls for the US Attorney General to study ways the Justice Department can increase assets seized from cartels. He dubbed the approach “a creative solution to a complex problem.”

Drug cartels send between $19 billion and $29 billion annually back to Mexico, according to US federal officials. And using money from criminals rather than law-abiding US taxpayers to foot the bill for anything sounds like an easy sell.
The catch: Authorities on the southwest US border have already seized a large amount of money heading to Mexico: more than $57 million in four years, according to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP). But it’s just a fraction of the smuggled money officials believe is crossing the border — and just a fraction of the estimated cost of a wall. And currently, at least some of the money seized from cartels is already spoken for. Currency CBP seizes that is forfeited goes into a Treasury Department fund that’s used for law enforcement initiatives across the country. The amount of money seized has also decreased in recent years. A recent CBP report noted “significant decreases in both the number of seizures and the average dollar value” of the amounts seized.
The chances: Harder than it sounds. Passing legislation in Congress is always difficult, and this year a lot of time is already expected to be eaten up by Obamacare repeal, tax reform and budgeting. Any bill perceived to be an element of Trump’s border security efforts will become controversial, as Democrats seek to oppose his immigration policies and have deemed the wall a poison pill in any legislation. Plus, asset seizure tiptoes into criminal justice reform, its own area of disagreement on the Hill.

3. A border tax

In January, Trump administration officials suggested a 20% tariff on imports from Mexico could be used to pay for a border wall. The idea was floated early on in Trump’s presidency, and in some circles, it sank. After the proposal drew a swift uproar from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, White House officials who’d touted it later said it was just an idea.

If such a plan is put into place, a vast array of items — including cars, mechanical equipment, produce and household goods — would be subject to a levy.

The case: When it comes to exports and imports, there’s a lot of money in play. Mexico is the United States’ third largest goods trading partner, with an estimated $295 billion in imports from Mexico crossing the border in 2015.
“By doing it that way we can do $10 billion a year and easily pay for the wall, just through that mechanism alone. That’s really going to provide the funding,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer said in January.

Later that day, he sent a softer message, saying the border tax idea was intended to be just one example of paying for the wall. “I just want to be clear that we’re not being prescriptive in saying that is the only way,” he said, “nor is the rate prescriptive.”

The catch: Critics say such a tax would punish consumers more than anyone else, it would violate NAFTA and it could spur a trade war. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham quickly dismissed the idea, posting a tweet that played off the President’s own Twitter style.

“Simply put,” Graham wrote, “any policy proposal which drives up costs of Corona, tequila, or margaritas is a big-time bad idea. Mucho Sad.”

The chances: Low. Lawmakers are already engaged in a heated debate over a proposed border adjustment tax, which would tax imports from around the world while exempting exports from US taxes. While House Speaker Paul Ryan and like-minded Republicans are in favor, the proposal still faces a heavy set of opposition from inside and outside the party. Tacking on a Mexico-specific tax is unlikely to get much traction, as we saw with Spicer’s swift walkback of the trial balloon earlier this year.

CNN’s Jeremey Diamond, Theodore Schleifer and Patrick Gillespie contributed to this report. Illustration by Kenneth Fowler.

This nation wants two border walls

The South Asian country wants to secure two borders that, in total, are more than double the length of the US-Mexico boundary.

Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh reaffirmed the country’s intent Saturday to completely shut its borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The government said says around 90% of the border is currently fenced, but they claim that there are still terrorists are still trying to infiltrate the country.
“We have decided to seal the border between India and Bangladesh as quickly as possible. I know that some obstacles may arise in this work, as some areas are mountainous, some have jungles, and others have rivers,” Singh said at a graduation ceremony for India’s Border Security Forces.

“We will also work as quickly as possible to seal the border between India and Pakistan.”

Indian and Pakistani border guards engage in a daily flag-lowering ceremony.

Border problems

India shares land borders with six other countries, a total of more than 8,600 miles (13,000 km), according to the CIA World Factbook.
Delhi’s chief concerns though are over its boundaries with Pakistan and Bangladesh. In the north lies the highly disputed region of Kashmir, over which India and Pakistan have been fighting since 1947.

Indian Home Ministry spokesman K.S. Dhatwalia told CNN the government plans to seal the “line of control,” the border between India and Pakistan in Kashmir.

In the east, years of illegal immigration from Bangladesh “have proved to be a huge challenge for India with serious implications for its resources and national security,” according to Sanjeev Tripathi, an analyst with Carnegie India.

Tripathi estimated there may be as many as 15 million illegal Bangladeshi immigrants living in India.

Much of the existing border is already secured, Dhatwalia said. The current effort is to seal off the remaining 10% which the government has yet to be able to secure.

“It’s a very difficult terrain,” he said, adding that the government plans to finish the project by the end of 2018.

Breaking the seal

Analysts however, are far less confident than the government, saying the difficult terrain on the two borders makes securing them nearly impossible.

“These are permeable borders, you cannot seal them off no matter how hard you try, no matter what high technologies you try to import,” said Bharat Karnad, a national security expert at the Delhi-based think tank the Center for Policy Research.

Karnad said there are areas of Kashmir where heavy snow wipes out any fences that are built, while the Bangladesh side is littered with marshlands and rivers.

Ajai Sahni, executive director of India’s Institute for Conflict Management, said however permeable borders may be, fencing and other security measures do have an effect.

After India and Pakistan signed a ceasefire agreement over Kashmir in 2003, Sahni said, India constructed wire fences along the highly-militarized “line of control,” significantly cutting down on the flow of illegal migrants.

A spokesman for the Indian Border Security Force — which jointly patrols the “line of control” with the Indian army — said that it has more than 250,000 troops, making it the world’s largest border force.

“Infiltration does continue, but it’s not as easy as it was,” Sahni said.

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