Talk is cheaper than building fences and walls

Frank Cerabino and a half north of the Juno Beach Pier on Monday morning. And a day later in another boat about a mile away from the first landing, five undocumented Chinese adults were caught.

And it stands to reason, with all this talk about building walls, that we might want to consider a wall in the Atlantic Ocean. Sure, this sounds unreasonable, but only marginally less reasonable than an effective wall that seals off the 2,000-mile border with Mexico.

What happens to the Haitians who sneak into this country? They end up blending in, filing for asylum and finding work.

A U.S. Census Bureau survey of urban Haitian refugees in Fort Lauderdale had this to say about those who don’t get caught on the beaches when they arrive:

“The majority of the entrants are essentially illiterate, monolingual speakers of Haitian Creole, with little for-

mal education or skills. They have found work in the service industry as maids, janitors, dishwashers, busboys and in restaurant prep activities and, also, in construction and lawn service.”

OK, so let’s say President Donald Trump, while speaking in a loud voice that makes other nations obey him, orders Haiti to pay for the Atlantic Ocean wall. I guess Haiti would pay for the wall with whatever’s left from the nearly $4 billion in aid that the U.S. gave the nation since its devastating earthquake five years ago.

That sounds like a lot of money, but an ocean wall extending hundreds of miles can be pricey, and probably most of the money to build it has been spent.

So we may have to settle for a gigantic ropeand-float perimeter barrier, like the kind you see as lane markers in swimming pools.

The real expense, though, will come with losing all those maids, janitors, dishwashers, busboys, and construction and lawn service workers.

With all that cheap labor gone, normally we could rely on the Mexicans, but they’re the most reliable workers to build the wall on the Mexican border that’s supposed to keep them out.

This will mean we’ll have to find way more willing and able natural-born Floridians to mow our lawns, make our hotel beds, clean our toilets and wash our dirty dishes in our favorite restaurants.

With the need to suddenly rely on all this harder-to-exploit labor, prices for things like meals out, landscaping services, home construction and hotel rooms will go up.

And Florida’s key industries of tourism and agriculture will take a hit.

As for the illegal Chinese immigrants: Without them, the price of a manicure will end up being about $40.

American women may be forced to paint their own nails.

So, I guess what I’m trying to say, Anderson, is that it costs nothing to talk about building walls, but actually building them is another story.