“When Mexico sends its people,” said Trumpty, “They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

‘I don’t know what you mean by “rapists”,’ Alice said.

Dumpty Trumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t — till I tell you. I meant “they’re amazing, spectacular, hardworking people.” ′

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“We did discus the wall,” said Trumpty. “We didn’t discuss payment of the wall.” That was his story after meeting with Mexican President Peña Nieto. When Nieto heard that, he tweeted: “At the start of the conversation with Dumpty Trumpty I made it clear Mexico will not pay for the wall.”

So Trumpty got beat and lied about it. But of course Trumpty never believed Mexico would pay for the wall. He says things just to entertain his audience. He’s a good showman but a bad egg.

A Don’t-Let-Them-Out Wall

Nieto also noted that illegal immigration by Mexicans peaked years ago and had since fallen to net negative levels. Net negative levels. More illegals are leaving than are coming in. So what the hell is the point of the wall? To stop them from leaving? This is old news. Here’s the graph from the (US) PEW Foundation, Nov 2015.

As you can see, in the last five year period, 130,000 more illegals left the country than came in. So building a 2,000-mile-long wall is very, very silly.

On top of that, there’s a much easier way to fix this problem, and if Trump were any kind of businessman, he would think of this. When the great recession hit, the flow of immigrants immediately changed from in to out. They come for the jobs.

Just penalize employers for hiring them, and most will stop. Even more will return to Mexico. If we don’t build a wall to stop them.