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Crossers
climbing the 'triple fence' near San Diego, California (Photo by
Laura Garcia)
All
of the imagined benefits of the border wall flow from the assumption
that if walls are built they will stop undocumented traffic from
coming across. Politicians claim that building 700 miles of wall
along our 1,933 mile long southern border, while ignoring the 3,987
mile long northern border and 12,479 miles of coastline will somehow
allow the Department of Homeland Security to achieve the Secure Fence
Act's goal, to "achieve
and maintain operational control over the entire international land
and maritime borders of the United States."
In
fact, the Border Patrol's own statistics show that the border walls
have not brought about a decrease in illegal entries. The border
patrol uses the number of border crossers apprehended in a given
sector to gauge the overall number of attempted crossings.
Apprehensions
dropped dramatically between 2005, the year before the Secure Fence
Act was passed, and 2007, the year after. But the decrease did not
occur in areas where border walls had been built.
On the contrary, the greatest reductions in apprehensions, which
according to the Border Patrol would indicate a successful strategy
for stopping undocumented immigration, were seen in sectors that did
not have walls. Texas' Rio Grande Valley sector saw a 45.3% decrease
in apprehensions, bringing them to a 15 year low. The Del Rio, Texas,
sector saw a 66.5% decrease. Neither sector had an inch of border
wall before 2008. In sectors such as Tucson, which saw walls built
shortly after passage of the Secure Fence Act, the reduction in
apprehensions began before any wall posts were erected. The areas
that saw an increase in crossings were California's San Diego and El
Centro sectors, both of which have had border walls for over a
decade. At the same time that the unwalled border witnessed dramatic
decreases in crossings, heavily fortified San Diego saw a 20.1%
increase.
Even
before the passage of the Secure Fence Act, it was clear that border
walls did not reduce the number of people entering the United States.
The Congressional Research Service found that the
number of border crossers apprehended nationally in 1992 was the same
as the number apprehended in 2004,
after walls in San Diego had been erected. They concluded that
migrant traffic had simply shifted to more remote areas in Arizona
and that "increased enforcement in San Diego sector has had
little impact on overall apprehensions." Migrants were not
stopped by border walls; they simply went around them.
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End of a border wall section in Arizona (Photo by Jay Johnson Castro)
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Nothing
More Than a Symbol
Other
researchers have studied the effectiveness of the border wall and
border enforcement by analyzing how successful migrants are at
getting through it. The Migrant Policy Institute found that 97%
of undocumented immigrants eventually succeed in entering the United
States,
a number that has been unchanged since the first border walls went up
in 1995. Wayne Cornelius, Director of the Center for Comparative
Immigration Studies at the University of California-San Diego told
the House Judiciary Committee that according to his research.
Assertions
by pundits and politicians that walls will allow the U.S. to "secure"
its southern border are patently false. Spokespersons for the Border
Patrol tend to describe it much more modestly. Del Rio, Texas, Border
Patrol Chief Randy Hill said, "We're going to see steel barriers
erected on the borders where U.S. and Mexican cities adjoin. These
will slow down illegal crossers by minutes." Not stop crossers,
or allow the Border Patrol to "achieve and maintain operational
control" of the border, but slow them down by "minutes."
As Border Patrol spokesperson Mike Scioli said, "The
border fence is a speed bump in the desert."
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Ladder beside the border wall near Naco, Arizona (Photo by Cecile Lumer)
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Mile
upon mile of border wall have been built, with no apparent thought
given to efficacy, because the Secure Fence Act only mandated a mile
count. There is no requirement that border walls have any measurable
impact on immigration or smuggling, and in 2009 the Government
Accountability Office found that the Department
of Homeland Security had made no effort to determine whether or not
walls were having any effect.
Even the Border Patrol has questioned whether walls are being built
in some locations for political, rather than operational, reasons. In
a 2007 email obtained by the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in
Washington (CREW) through a Freedom of Information Act request, the
Assistant Chief Patrol Agent for the Yuma sector asks, "will
we be getting fence where we don't need it in our sector for the sake
of putting up the required mileage?"
The miles of unnecessary border wall that he referred to have since
been built through the Imperial Sand Dunes of Southern California.
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Border wall on Tecate Peak, California (Photo by Jill Holslin)
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Skyrocketing
Costs
Despite
its "symbolic significance" and its possibly arbitrary
placement, the border wall comes with a real price tag. In 2007 the
Congressional Research Service estimated that the border wall could
cost as much as $49 billion to build and maintain. Since then the
costs of construction have risen dramatically. The Army
Corps of Engineers reported
that the cost of building "pedestrian fences" has increased
from an average of $3.5 million per mile to $7.5 million per mile.
The cost of building vehicle barriers on the border is now $2.8
million per mile. Some sections of border wall are particularly
expensive: the walls that have been inserted into the levees in south
Texas averaged $12 million per mile; in California, a 3.5 mile
section that involved filling in canyons cost taxpayers $57
million.
In 2008, the Department of Homeland Security asked Congress to
allocate
an additional $400 million
for border wall construction, because the $2.7 billion already spent
was not enough to finish out the year.
Why
would members of Congress vote to spend billions of taxpayer dollars
on border walls that do not work?
Simply
put, for members of Congress who do not live beside the border, and
do not count on the votes of those who do, the border wall is an
abstraction. The reality that the border wall has little or no impact
on border crossings is irrelevant. The reality that more than 400
property owners have had their property condemned is irrelevant. The
reality that federally designated wilderness areas and wildlife
refuges have been severely impacted is irrelevant. The politicians
who voted for border walls were voting for a symbol, something that
could be used to give voters a false sense of security during
election cycles, and nothing more.
