I've never been in favor of building a physical wall, especially in areas where private land owners would lose property to imminent domain, but I am all for securing the borders, particularly the southern one, as well as funding immigrant services to make it speedier to become permanent residents or citizens.

Trump is expending a lot of political energy right now by allowing a partial shutdown (about one fourth) of the U.S. government to prolong over this one issue. How many people are being affected by it, to me, is unclear, but that doesn't stop the media and opposing politicians from presenting the worst cases for all to see.

So far, Trump has been able to carry on with everything he has tried to do without major losses, and quite a few wins. His own party has been as much a thorn in his side as the Democrats have. Now that the latter has control of the House, who control the federal purse strings and determine how much and where money will be allocated, it's going to take a significant political win for Trump to get such a bill through Congress.

He has already talked about using military funding to build a wall, declaring a national emergency, but I think he would rather go through Congress, too. It makes it more permanent, more official, and longer lasting. Otherwise, the next president could come in and undo any executive order for this with a flick of the pin.

Maybe that means he has to wait until 2020, hope to be re-elected and retake the House without losing the Senate. Or, he finds the way to outlast the Democrats and get most of what he wants in some form of compromise where he can take credit for securing the borders while the Democrats get some kind of victory out of it, too.

As always, this is mostly a political game, where the doing the right thing is secondary, if not farther down the list, than political points and appearances. What's interesting about all of this is the looming threats of some form of impeachment proceedings. Most politicians would back off there agenda if it meant saving face and retaining power. Instead, Trump has been holding his ground and risking his political career even further.

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