The President’s recent tweet storm threatening to close the U.S.’s land border with Mexico and order military action to counter a “dangerous” caravan of asylum seekers, highlights his interest in making border security a key issue in the midterm elections. Rhetoric aside, the Republican-controlled Congress continues to reject his effort to fund the building of a new wall along the nation’s roughly 2,000 mile border with Mexico.
Congress did appropriate $1.6 billion earlier in the year for enhancing existing barriers, but declined a White House push to add more money for new walls in last month’s spending bill. Congress not only declined to provide more money, but also stipulated that the money could only be used to augment existing fencing, not to build new walls. The Administration will have another crack at securing money for new building in the next spending showdown - when a lame duck Congress has to fund other arms of government - in early December.
Will Mexico pay for the wall? In a word, no.
-Gerónimo Gutiérrez, Mexico’s Ambassador to the United States, October 18, 2018
Setting forth a few facts: President Trump implied during his campaign, that there are no physical barriers along the U.S. border with Mexico. That’s wrong. Walls have been up along highly-trafficked parts of the border since 1994. President Clinton initiated, and President Bush pushed through, construction of a 14-mile wall on the California – Mexico border in 1994. And after 9/11, with a rise in illegal migration, Congress approved funds for more fencing. By late 2005, the U.S. was well on its way to having more than 650 miles of fence line. That fencing has been augmented over the years with more personnel, sensors, cameras, helicopters, drones and excess defense articles like tethered aerostats, that provide persistent surveillance and other enhancements to trigger detection and response operations.
Walls have made a substantial difference in reducing unfettered, illegal crossings into the United States, especially near population centers and choke points. Barriers funnel those attempting illegal entry into more detectable zones and give responders more time to conduct interdiction operations. Physical barriers have been successful in preventing unauthorized entry of economic migrants in-between the formal Ports of Entry from Mexico. They have been far less successful, however, in keeping drugs and transnational organized crime out of the homeland.
The data tells us that between 1 – 1.6 million people were arrested trying to enter the country illegally each year between 1980 and 2005. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported recently that it has arrested 566,281 people in 2018, who they say were attempting to enter the country without permission. The 2018 figure includes the relatively new phenomena of persons from Central America and elsewhere coming to the U.S. with an intent to be arrested, so that they could seek asylum in the U.S. Border Patrol arrests in the Yuma, Arizona, area were up nearly 130 percent in the first 11 months of 2018, compared to the same period in 2017. Apprehensions in Tucson, Arizona, more than doubled.
Arrests rates are a flawed means for measuring border integrity for multiple reasons, and DHS is correct in trying to continually revise its counting metrics. But arrest rates have been used since the 1980s, and are our best long-term statistic for generating trend analysis. A new study by the DHS puts the border patrol’s interdiction rate at the Mexican border in the 55-80 percent range, and trending upward.
Statistics on unauthorized entry into the United States, though, indicate that the U.S.’ ability to gain operational control of its shared border with Mexico remains elusive, but whether this is a national security matter, is a wholly different question. President Trump characterizes economic migrants and asylum seekers as ‘national security threats’, infamously saying during the campaign that Mexicans are “not our friend, believe me…they’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”
Despite the President’s dark generalizations, a porous border is vulnerable; creating a vulnerability that trans-national criminal organizations as well as terrorists can exploit. There is little evidence that Mexican criminal organizations are, or want to, cooperate with terrorist groups (it’s bad for business) but this nexus exists in other parts of the world and officials must remain vigilant for the potential of criminal and terrorist organization cooperation.
“Increasing situational awareness is paramount and the next infusion of agents and technology should go a long way to enhancing the government’s ability to detect, classify, and identify all incursions,” said former CBP Chief Mike Fisher. “Furthermore, the end state needs to be realistic, and we should not continue making perfect the enemy of good, nor should we conflate border security with immigration policy.”
Despite illegal entry attempts still being unacceptably high, the Republican-controlled Congress does not seem to agree that more walls in remote locations is a priority action. Texas Senator John Cornyn said recently that “People can climb over the wall, or go under the wall, or through the wall. We’ve seen that in different places…If it’s just unattended without sensors, without technology, without people, then it won’t work.” Senator Richard Shelby, Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said funding for more walls would jeopardize funding for the military.
There are other reasons that Congress is correctly not prioritizing static wall building in remote areas, over improving capacity at high-traffic areas, or addressing push factors that drive migration. Federal resources are finite, making tough choices necessary. The Administration keeps attempting to reduce funds for Central American development and security programs, known collectively as the Alliance for Prosperity, and Congress keeps putting that money back in the budget. CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said at a public forum on October 18, that we need balanced investment in people, technology and walls where there are population centers on both sides of the border, and that push factor assistance programs with Central American partners, are central parts of the equation.
There also are practical reasons why Congress is not providing funding for more walls. Most potential sites for wall building are on privately-owned land. Unless property owners and businesses near the border agree to wall building and permanent government presence on their land, the Government will have to make eminent domain claims and expropriate the land. This almost certainly would lead to lengthy court proceedings and risk political backlash. And there is one more reason; President Trump only requested $1.6 billon in his Fiscal Year 2019 budget submission.
The Administration has little choice but to yield to Congress on the wall unless it wants to force a government shutdown over the matter. With the possibility of Democrats making gains in the November election, with a probability of controlling the House, it is almost certain that the legislative branch will not fund the President’s Great Wall of America. Perhaps he will have more luck with Mexico?
