A happy New Year is on the agenda for most people.

A few years ago I visited South Africa where the average house was surrounded by a concrete wall. South Africa has many villages and rural communities of impoverished people where the main goal each day is to find a clean drink of water. However, people throughout many of the towns and cities lived behind walls.

Brazil is another country I’ve visited a couple of times where steel bars in windows and walls around houses are prevalent. Thieves and robbers are common in Brazil and South Africa and it is understandable why they want walls around their houses to protect their valuables and families.

Gated communities, security fences and security guards have been on the rise in America. We have security in our banks, schools, neighborhoods and churches. Any reasonable-thinking business, factory, government building, apartment complex and family must have security and a defense in place. We used to go to bed at night when I was a kid and never thought about locking the door, but I remember my mother making a change one night. She said, “We’re going to start locking our door.” There were reports of prowlers in the community where we lived and she wanted to protect us.

Today we have prowlers roaming the communities of America. There are estimates of anywhere from 11 to 27 million illegal immigrants. The Department of Homeland Security has estimated approximately 12 million illegal immigrants are in our country. The Pew Research Center has estimated just over 11 million illegal immigrants are in America. Three Yale School of Management professors published a paper in 2018 estimating the illegal population is somewhere between 16 and 29 million people. These are people who have said, “To heck with our laws and rules, we are coming to do whatever we please in America.” These people are robbers and thieves. They have no regard for what is expected in America. Their goal is to get into our country first and then gain the sympathy of America to allow them to stay here. We know many good hard workers come from Mexico. The “good” hard workers come legally.

Most Americans are sympathetic people. We give large amounts of money to charities, churches, food pantries and pay large amounts of money back into our federal government, which in turn utilizes our money to help millions of Americans, refugees and immigrants. Research how much money is paid out to refugees. The Cash and Medical Assistance Program reimburses states for 100 percent of services provided to refugees and other eligible programs, as well as associated administrative costs. Some refugees and other non-citizens can get SSI, Supplemental Security Income, for up to seven years. The cost is billions of dollars. I’m not opposed to helping true refugees, but the overall financial load is not light — $8.8 billion over the next five years or $80,000 per refugee.

The president has asked for $5 billion to build a wall on our southern border. He is trying to protect us. It’s not a silver bullet that will solve all of our problems but it’s adding a layer of security.

If we don’t build a wall along the southern border we will soon become like many other third world countries with walls around our houses and subdivisions. Trump’s $5 billion wall will look like a pocket full of change in comparison to a nation of gates and walls trying to protect ourselves from millions and millions of illegal prowlers.

Dr. Glenn Mollette is president of Newburgh Theological Seminary, Newburgh, Indiana, and his syndicated column is read in all 50 states. Contact him at GMollette@aol.com. Learn more at www.glennmollette.com. Like his facebook page at www.facebook.com/glennmollette.