Effectiveness of a Mexico-United States border barrier

General Americans
Americans in 2017 generally support immigration control initiatives including


 * stricter policies to prevent people from staying their overstays
 * restriction on unqualified undocumented immigrants to receive government benefits
 * increased deportations on those who enter illegally

however the majority of Americans do not support building a wall along the border between the United States and Mexico.

The CATO Institute has tracked opinion polling on the support of a border wall.


 * Americans in the mid '90s generally opposed the construction of a border wall
 * Throughout 2007-2015, Americans generally supported a border wall- including Democrats who before 2015 generally supported the construction of a border wall
 * From 2015 and on, Americans generally opposed the construction of a border wall

Border Agents
A survey conducted by the National Border Patrol Council found that 89% of border patrol agents said a "wall system in strategic locations is necessary to securing the border." 7% of agents disagreed.

Legislators
The Secure Fence Act of 2006 "Authorize[d] the construction of hundreds of miles of additional fencing along our Southern border; Authorize[d] more vehicle barriers, checkpoints, and lighting to help prevent people from entering our country illegally; Authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to increase the use of advanced technology like cameras, satellites, and unmanned aerial vehicles to reinforce our infrastructure at the border." The Act passed the House by a vote of 283–138 and passed the Senate 80–19 with bipartisan support.

All sides used to agree on the efficacy of border fencing, dating back to the bipartisan 2006 Secure Fence Act, which called for a total of 700 miles of the border to be covered by two tiers of fencing. A 2007 law watered down those requirements, leaving the 654 miles of current coverage — about 300 miles of vehicle barriers and 354 miles of pedestrian fencing.

Even as late as 2013, the Senate compromise immigration bill called for completing the 700 miles of fencing envisioned in the 2006 law. Every Democrat in the Senate at the time voted for that bill.

Effectiveness of border barriers in other countries
Europe has built around 1,000 km in border barrier and walls since the 1990's. Europe built new barriers especially in context with the migrant crisis.


 * The Hungary-Croatia barrier was built to decrease illegal entry of immigrants during the European migrant crisis. Migrant captures decreased by around 99 percent
 * The Egypt–Israel barrier was built to curb the influx of illegal migrants from African countries. Illegal entry into Israel from Egypt decreased by around 99%
 * Jerusalem might have developed that technology for Israel’s own security, but it could just as easily be replicated to detect, interdict, and destroy tunnels under the US border. -American Enterprise Institute
 * The Israeli West Bank barrier was allegedly built for security and terrorism concerns. The fence was effective in decreasing migration as reported by the New York Times. Terrorist attacks have decreased substantially as the barrier was built
 * The Norway-Russia barrier was built to prevent the smuggling and illegal crossing of mainly Syrian migrants. The number of asylum seekers arriving in Norway decreased by around 95%
 * The Greece-Turkey barrier was built to slow down migrants from Turkey. The number of migrant crossings decreased by around 95%

Effectiveness of the Mexico-United States border barrier
The evidence is mixed on whether a barrier between Mexico and the United States would be effective


 * Yuma, Arizona- Border apprehensions decreased by 99% after the border fence on the Yuma’s sector was completed
 * San Diego, California- Border apprehensions decreased by 90% after the installation of the border fence
 * El Paso, Texas- After the border was completed, the volume of marijuana and cocaine coming through El Paso and seized by Border Patrol agents has been cut in half. The number of deportable illegal immigrants located by the US Border Patrol plummeted by more than 89% over the five-year period during which the controversial new fence was built
 * Since the fence was completed, the volume of marijuana and cocaine coming through El Paso and seized by Border Patrol agents has been cut in half according to thebh NY Post

“While advanced as a popular solution, the evidence is mixed on whether walls are effective at preventing large movements of people across borders,” -Reece Jones, a political geographer at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and an international expert on border barriers, writes in a 2016 analysis for the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.


 * In late 2017, Elaine Duke, then the acting secretary of U.S. Department of Homeland Security, wrote an editorial in USA Today explaining that border apprehensions in Yuma in fiscal year 2016 were about 10% of what they had been in fiscal year 2005. Yuma, she wrote, had been one of the first sectors along the southwestern border to receive “infrastructure investments” under the federal Secure Fence Act of 2006, which authorized the construction of hundreds of miles of additional border fencing as well as additional checkpoints, vehicle barriers and lighting.
 * The U.S. Department of Homeland Security released a report in 2011, however, suggesting federal officials were unsure why apprehensions along the entire U.S.-Mexico border fell 61% between 2005 and 2010. It “may be due to a number of factors including changes in U.S. economic conditions and border enforcement efforts,” the report states.
 * A recent report from the U.S. Border Patrol shows that the number of people apprehended in all nine sectors of the southwestern border rose from a combined 327,577 in fiscal year 2011 to 479,371 in fiscal year 2014. While apprehensions dropped to 303,916 in fiscal year 2017, they more than doubled by the end of the 2019 fiscal year to 851,508.
 * A paper forthcoming in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, however, indicates the border barrier has discouraged unauthorized entry. In the paper, Benjamin Feigenberg of the University of Illinois at Chicago looks at how Mexico-to-U.S. migration changed as a result of the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which prompted the federal government to add 548 miles of fencing between 2007 and 2010.
 * Feigenberg estimates the additional fencing resulted in a 39% decline in migration among Mexicans who live close to the border. The reduction is a bit smaller — 38% — among Mexicans who live farther away from the border, in areas of Mexico that, historically, have had little access to smugglers. Feigenberg concludes that, overall, 41,500 Mexican migrants are deterred by the barrier each quarter, and he estimates the cost of each deterred migrant to be about $4,820.
 * A 2018 working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, updated twice in 2019, also finds that border barriers curbed migration from Mexico to the U.S., but slightly. Researchers from Dartmouth College and Stanford University found the Secure Fence Act reduced the number of Mexican nationals living in the U.S. from 2005 and 2015 by an estimated 46,459 people. That accounts for about 5% of the actual decline in migration during that period.
 * The paper also finds that even if the U.S. had built a barrier along the entire length of border, that would have had a relatively small impact as well. It would have reduced migration by an estimated 129,438 people, which, the researchers note, “still comprises a small portion (13%) of the observed decline in migration flows between 2005 and 2015.”

-Journalists Resource