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Huckabee Promises a Double Fence Across the Southern Border

Joyce Russell/IPR
GOP Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee at the Westside Conservative Breakfast Club

A double-wall fence across the entire southern U.S. border would work to keep immigrants out, and it could be built within one year of a new administration in Washington.  

That’s from Arkansas Governor and now GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee, addressing a crowd of about a hundred people at the Westside Breakfast Club at the Machine Shed Restaurant in Urbandale.  

Huckabee would model the fence on a double wall in San Diego that reduced the apprehension of immigrants from Tijuana, Mexico. 

He says the border patrol was apprehending nearly half-a-million unauthorized immigrants a year.   

“They built a double wall in the 12-mile corridor,” Huckabee says.  “Apprehensions went down to 30-thousand, a 95 per-cent decrease in illegal apprehensions.”

Huckabee says the San Diego approach is not perfect.

“But double fence plus personnel plus the electronic monitoring means we can do something our country has to do to be a country,” Huckabee says, “and that's secure our borders.”

Huckabee says during World War II the 1700-mile Alaska highway through Canada was built in a year, so a border fence could also go up that fast. 

He says his proposed tax overhaul which he calls a fair tax would eliminate the incentive for employers to hire undocumented workers.

On other issues, Huckabee dismissed concerns over global warming, saying Democrats care more about a sunburn from climate change than national security.   He says Hillary Clinton would be a formidable opponent in the general election, and he’s the man to go up against her because of his experience opposing the Clintons in Arkansas.