The Great Border Security Wall (Common Sense Gone Awry)

With a federal court demanding that separated minor children be reunited with their parents and with the Trump administration’s scandalous reuniting efforts collapsing into utter chaos, I am almost embarrassed to broach examples of this Administration’s everyday incompetence. However, when it comes to the President’s most coveted construction project, the long-promised great security wall, the findings of an August 6, 2018 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on the building of a southern border wall are noteworthy. 

The GAO, an independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress and investigates how the federal government spends taxpayer dollars, warned that a plan which was a bad idea to start with, if carried to conclusion, promises to be a boondoggle of epic proportions. My understanding of a boondoggle is that it encompasses work or activity that is wasteful or pointless but gives the appearance of having value. According to the GAO report this project has all the markings of a boondoggle and the fiscal dereliction in this project promises to be a doozy! 

President Trump has rooted his presidency in the notion that the building of a great security wall is a national imperative. He believes our southern border is besieged by crime, drugs and massive criminal activity. He has even threatened to shut the federal government down before the midterm election over wall funding. The president has touted the supposed benefits of building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, saying it would be “easy, and it can be done inexpensively.”   He has even promised to get Mexico to pay for it. Of course, they have steadfastly refused.

Faced with dwindling public support and scores of reports warning that building the wall is contraindicated, President Trump still appears intent on pushing forward with construction of his great security behemoth. To garner support with Republicans, the president blatantly amalgamates border crime and immigration. Conflating crime and immigration creates the false understanding that border crime and immigration are synonymous behaviors, which they are not; nonetheless, his ploy appears to have worked with his base. 80% of Republicans agree that building the wall is vital. 

Since Mexican migration has been on a long and steady decline over the past few decades, building a security wall between Mexico and the United States seems to be out of touch with our current immigration reality. Currently, more Mexicans are leaving the country than are arriving. With Mexican migration currently at net zero, does building a great wall really represent a prudent and viable expenditure of billions of taxpayer dollars? The history of walls, built to keep people in or out, is also the history of people managing to get around, over and under them.  

Believe me; the historical irony in the President’s promise to build a great wall is not wasted on me. His promise was announced during the 30th anniversary year of President Ronald Reagan’s “Tear Down This Wall” speech. In his speech, President Reagan called on the leader of the former Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to open up the barrier which had divided West and East Berlin since 1961. Then, Republicans stood squarely behind President Reagan in condemning the use of walls.

The tearing down of the world’s most notorious wall brought Republicans and Democrats together in joyous celebrations over the end of the “cold war.”  Now, ironically, in a little more than a generation, almost 80% of Republicans have already forgotten the lesson of the darkest chapter of cold war history. They are almost giddy about the prospect of  walling Mexicans out as a proper course of immigration policy.

For several decades now, our southern border has been buttressed and reinforced with personnel and technology, including 23,000 Border Patrol Agents, fencing, unmanned aerial vehicles, mobile radars, satellites, aerostats, drones and unattended ground sensors. Over 900 miles of physical barriers have been constructed in critical trafficking areas where more than 95% of unlawful intrusions occur. All of this, at a cost of billions of dollars! The effort has paid off. Today, more Mexicans are leaving the US than are arriving so who are we trying to wall out? 

Even though migration from Mexico is at net zero, using hyperbole, obfuscation and deception, Republican politicians continue to keep Americans agitated, divided and confused about immigration, hoping they will be scared into supporting “get tough” immigration legislation. They warn that we must gain control of our southern border because as soon as America is made great again, millions of Mexicans are waiting to swarm in to fill American jobs and to lay waste to the American Dream. 

Here is what we need to understand about today’s southern border reality. Things in Mexico have improved dramatically since our immigration policy was formulated. Over the last 50 years, Mexico has become the world’s 11th largest economy and our 3rd largest trading partner; we buy 10% of our oil from them and we export 15% of our products to Mexico, yet our immigration policy and our view of Mexico remains locked in the 1950s and is out of step with the contemporary Mexican reality. We need a new paradigm, not a new wall.

We have more than 6,000 miles of border with Canada and we have not built a single wall on our Northern border. As of December 1, 2016, Mexicans no longer require a visa to visit Canada. Canadians and Mexicans alike can easily walk into the country looking for work, but they don’t. Canadians have economic parity with the US and the good news is Mexico is well on its way to achieving the same type of economic security. So is a wall really a viable and necessary adjunct?

Nonetheless, to counter the anticipated, conjured-up invasion, President Trump,    Republican politicians and the immigration elite continue agitating for the building of a great security wall touting, it as the most viable path to immigration salvation. As it relates to the US and Mexico, what are we to make of the plan to build a great security wall? Is it founded? Should we be afraid? Is our border with Mexico really out of control? Consider these facts:

• In 2015, The New York Times reported that the “extraordinary Mexican migration” of the past three decades that brought millions of Mexicans to America finally dried up. Today Mexican migration is at net zero. This means that more Mexicans are leaving the United States than are arriving.

• In the past, Mexico was America’s largest source of immigration. This is no longer the case. China is now the #1 country of immigration followed by India. Mexico is #3. The leading country of “visa overstays” is Canada, not Mexico. 

• Department of Homeland Security research indicates more than 600,000 individuals overstayed their visas in 2017. Canadians topped the list of visa overstays.

• The majority of individuals currently here without an immigration status are those who were admitted legally and then overstayed their visas rather than entering the country surreptitiously.

• Improper entries from Mexico, the number of folks entering the country without inspection, are down for the 7th consecutive year and apprehension of Mexicans is at 40 year lows. 

• In 2017, approximately 400,000 individuals were apprehended entering without inspection. This is down from 1,300,000 in 2007. 

• 91,000 were first time entrants. The remainder were previously here and their intention was to reunite with their families.

• For the first time in Border Patrol history, more Non-Mexicans than Mexicans were apprehended attempting to enter without inspection in 2017.

• In spite of the downturn in apprehensions, the Border Patrol doubled from 10,000 in 2005 to more than 23,000 today. The Trump Administration plans to double this number again.  

• Arrests of Mexicans that frequently exceeded a million a decade ago are now down to less than 100,000 first time apprehensions annually, or about 250 apprehensions daily along our 2000 mile border with Mexico (we have 92 Border Patrol Agents available for each first time Mexican apprehension).

• The demographic composition of those apprehended is also changing. Fewer are young persons looking for work. The majority are now older persons re-uniting with families already here.

• In 2009 Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported 900 miles of secure barriers had been constructed in areas where 95% of all entries occur. The Secure Border Initiative enacted by President George W. Bush project was halted in 2010 because of unsustainable cost overruns. Maintenance cost for the current barriers, even if we don’t build anymore, is more than 6 billion dollars annually. 

• The Department of Homeland Security lowered the official estimate of the number of persons here without an immigration status from 12 to 10.5 million in 2007. That number has not increased in over 2 decades. What has changed, though, is the composition of the non-immigrated resident community itself. The number of residents who have resided here, continuously, longer than 15 years has matured to more than 80% (8,400,000) of the community. Those who have been here less than 5 years has shrunk from 31% in 2007 to less than 4% (420,000) of this population today. This indicates that for all intents and purposes, new arrivals have virtually dried up.  

To some degree, reductions in improper entry of Mexicans come about because the recession, coupled with enhanced border enforcement, made it more difficult to enter without inspection. If someone did manage to enter clandestinely, the recession made finding work manifestly more difficult. Most importantly, though, migration flows are down because more and more Mexicans believe they can find economic parity in Mexico. The creation of jobs in the sending countries has always been the solution to the problem of spontaneous migration, not the building of walls.

If our relationship with Mexico is to serve the best interests of both nations, it must be responsive to the current immigration reality which begs for deeper integration, not more isolation and “get tough” immigration legislation. On the basis of the GAO report, you can only be certain of one thing: This ill-conceived project will be breathtakingly expensive, even by the standards of ill-conceived projects.

History tells us few walls have served there intended purpose. Most, like the Great Wall of China and the Berlin Wall ended up as tourist attractions. With the dramatic polarization aroused by this administration, the debate surrounding funding for the great security wall is likely to go on for some time. So how can we cut to the most pragmatic decision? One way is to look back through history and see what lessons can be learned. Historians and researchers advise there are lessons to be learned from every major wall including their effects on immigration, the environment and history. Here is one lesson we should learn right away — there is no education in the second kick of a mule!

Ricardo Inzunza, a native of San Diego, California, was appointed Deputy Commissioner of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) by President Ronald Reagan. During his 8-year tenure, his office was the central source for the development, implementation and oversight of all immigration service policies and practices. Now as CEO of RIA International, Ltd, Ricardo is often asked to serve as a business consultant to clients such as the World Bank and the Peoples Republic of China. He can be reached at 662 418 0913 (O), 202 664 3274 (M), or riatria@aol.com