Hillary Clinton said Wednesday that the U.S. cannot afford a wall on its southern border.
"Can we afford to build a wall along the southern border or ship everyone back?" FOX5 anchor Christine Maddela asked Clinton.
"Well, I don’t think so," Clinton said.
Clinton said that the U.S. has spent too much money on border security to justify the extra expense of a border wall.
"I think it’s particularly challenging for those who are advocating that to respond to the fact that we have spent many hundreds of billions of dollars tightening the border security on our southern border," Clinton said.
The U.S. Border Patrol received $3.6 billion in FY 2015 to secure the entire U.S. border, according to information from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
It is estimated that a full border fence—supplementing the patchwork of fencing and vehicular barriers that exists as a result of a 2006 law—would cost between $15 billion and $25 billion, considerably more if the fence was upgraded to a wall. That is a pretty penny, but it is much less expensive than some of the programs that Clinton has proposed, and which she ostensibly believes are affordable.
Last year Clinton touted her votes to fund border fencing "to prevent illegal immigrants from coming in."
Transcript below:
CHRISTINE MADDELA: Can we afford to build a wall along the southern border or ship everyone back?
HILLARY CLINTON: Well, I don’t think so. I think it’s particularly challenging for those who are advocating that to respond to the fact that we have spent many hundreds of billions of dollars tightening the border security on our southern border. And we do have barriers in many areas. The terrain is very, very difficult.