If you’ve watched the news at any point during Trump’s first year as president, you’ve probably seen the debate over one of his largest projects, the border wall with Mexico.

This promise of a wall, which he made during his presidential campaign, has been enclosed in controversy and debate. Even to the point of shutting down the United States Government in Jan. 2018.

Trump’s plan, as in his campaign promise, was to build a wall on the border with Mexico and make Mexico pay for it. While it’s entirely implausible that Mexico will pay for the wall, the wall might still happen.

“I would build a great wall and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great great wall on our southern border and I’ll have Mexico pay for that wall.”

With illegal immigration becoming a larger and larger problem in the U.S. every day, the need for a border wall is growing. There are about 12.5 million known undocumented immigrants in the U.S. today, and with that number ever-increasing, the debate on illegal immigration is at an all time high.

The border wall wouldn’t be cheap by any means, but the wall would save money in the long run. In Trump’s plan to congress, he hopes on getting from 18 to 20 billion dollars over a 10 year period for building the border wall. This is a hefty price, but when you take into account that in just California alone they pay around 21.8 billion dollars a year on illegal immigrants, that wall looks a little better.

A president that supports a border wall is nothing new. Many before, and most likely many after, have supported the securing of our border to the south.

In 2006, a bill for a border wall was put up for debate and then Senator Barack Obama said, “The bill before us will certainly do some good.” He praised the legislation, saying it would provide “better fences and better security along our borders” and would “help stem some of the tide of illegal immigration in this country.”

A border wall has become a necessity. With so much of our country unprotected, anything and anyone can enter. Drugs, gangs and any criminal can hurt U.S. citizens and our country, and all of them are making their way across our border.

While it is understood that not all illegal immigrants are drug dealers or murderers, entering the United States illegally is still a crime. There should be no clemency for those who enter the U.S. without authorization. There are many paths that people from all countries can take to become legal U.S. citizens. Just crossing the border does not make you a citizen.

Ann Coulter, an American conservative social and political commentator said, “We know gang members are pouring across the border and filling up our prisons. We have a huge drug problem in this country now in places that never had an opiate problem. Why is that? Because this is brought in – because we do not have a border.”

The longer the government puts off securing our border the longer the American people suffer. In 2015, illegal immigrant Jose Ines Garcia Zarate was arrested for the murder of Kate Steinle on a San Francisco pier. Zarate, 45, who had been deported to Mexico five times since first entering the United States as a juvenile, was found not guilty by a California court in 2017, even when he pled guilty.

“Thousands of Americans have been killed by illegal immigrants,” said Trump.

With more and more Americans being hurt by illegal immigration, the time to build a wall is now. It will protect and secure our country from all those a seek to harm it.

“Great countries need to secure their borders for national security purposes, for economic purposes and for rule of law purposes,” said American Politician Jeb Bush.