The Economist - USA (2019-12-21)

40 United States The EconomistDecember 21st 2019

2 five. If we were tracking someone, you

could smell them before you saw them.”

In cities, says Mr Baca, “we have sec-

onds to minutes...People can just blend in

once they reach the city.” Of course, no bar-

rier is completely impenetrable. Smugglers

have reportedly sawn through Mr Trump’s

wall. But slicing through a chain-link fence

is quick and easy; cutting through con-

crete-filled steel bollards takes energy,

probably multiple motorised saw blades

and most importantly for the border patrol,

a long time. Gloria Chavez, the acting chief

of cbp’s El Paso Sector, which includes all of

New Mexico’s largely rural frontier, argues

that “There’s a misconception that the wall

was built to stop the flow. It was built to

manage the flow. It’s a tool.”

What comes next for the wall builders?

The next completely new sections will be

in south-eastern Texas, and progress there

might be difficult. Much of America’s bor-

der lands are public, but in Texas, land is

mostly privately owned. The government

will have to buy it from landowners, which

can be a tricky process.

A cbpofficial points out that records in

south Texas are spotty, and ownership of

many parcels unclear. During the last big

wall-building fit in 2008, the official said

they found one parcel in South Texas with

86 possible claimants (“we’ve introduced

cousins to each other,” says the official). In

some cases, the government has to seize

land. That is unpopular everywhere, but es-

pecially in rural Texas, where distrust of

the federal government runs deep. The

government’s use of eminent domain in

2008 led to hundreds of lawsuits, some of

which are still ongoing.

Farther west along the border, in Arizo-

na, many are concerned about the wall’s

environmental impact. Along the new sec-

tions of wall in Organ Pipe Cactus National

Monument lie massive, fallen saguaro cac-

tuses in sections—bulldozed for the barri-

er. Saguaro, with their chubby upturned

arms, have a vaguely human look; the To-

hono O’odham, the local native popula-

tion, consider them embodiments of their

ancestors. They can live for centuries.

Some of those cut down were probably

standing before Arizona was a state.

But the wall’s potential environmental

harms extend well beyond fallen flora. Ac-

tivists worry that water used in mixing

concrete for the wall’s foundation will de-

plete precious desert aquifers, imperilling

not just an endangered species of fish

whose sole American habitat is Quitoba-

quito Springs, in Organ Pipe, but all desert

life (a cbpofficial contends that his agency

is not using any groundwater within five

miles of Quitobaquito). The lights planned

for the wall could disrupt the bats that pol-

linate the saguaro. The new wall, with its

deep foundation and closely built bollards,

could act as a dam and worsen floods.

Such concerns seem remote in down-

town San Diego. Yet Jerry Sanders, the city’s

former mayor and police chief, fondly re-

calls bird hunting along the border decades

ago, when the only barrier was “a cable, just

so you couldn’t drive straight across.” That

was more or less the state of fencing along

much of America’s southern border until

surprisingly recently. The first border

fence designed to stop illegal immigration

started going up just south of San Diego in

1990. Security fears spurred a fit of con-
      struction under George W. Bush.

Frontier psychiatrist

No president has made a barrier—or hostil-

ity to immigration—as central to his politi-

cal platform as Mr Trump. cbpsays it has

funding for 509 miles of construction.

From Mr Trump’s inauguration until Octo-

ber, Congress provided nearly $3.1bn to re-

place or upgrade border fencing. Mr Trump

redirected billions of dollars from defence

funding to wall construction, endangering

dozens of military-construction projects—

though on December 10th a federal court

blocked Mr Trump from using that money

on his wall. Many have raised concerns

over how much the wall costs, and who is

building it. The Defence Department’s in-

spector-general will audit a $400m con-

struction contract given to a North Dakota

firm whose boss has repeatedly sung Mr

Trump’s praises.

In total the wall could cost as much as

$25m a mile just to build, not including

maintenance. And it is far from clear what

it will achieve. A wall will certainly make

life harder for fence jumpers. But the num-

ber of people trying to evade immigration

controls to come to America to work has

fallen for years. Most of the increase in ar-

rests at the border has come from families

and unaccompanied children who want to

be caught by cbpofficers because they in-

tend to claim asylum, which they have a le-

gal right to do. For such people a wall is

much less of a deterrent.

That is why Nancy Pelosi, the House

Speaker and Mr Trump’s most effective po-

litical opponent, called the wall “an immo-

rality”. Fortifying a border is not inherently

immoral. Doing it this way, however, may

be unwise. America’s global success de-

rives not from its military might or power

projection, but from its shaping of the

world’s multilateral institutions, its open-

ness, and its ability to constantly redefine

itself as it assimilates and is changed by

successive waves of immigrants. A wall

tells the world that America is turning

away from those values.

A more effective way to stop illegal im-

migration coming from Central America

might involve increased foreign aid for po-

litical stabilisation there. Fixing America’s

overwhelmed asylum system may require

more funding for the officials who assess

claims. On remote stretches of the border

surveillance technology would probably be

cheaper and just as effective at stopping

migrants as a physical barrier. But a wall is

easier to explain, and for a president who

prides himself on his reputation as “a

builder”, politically irresistible.

A plaque honouring Mr Trump gleams

from a bollard in Calexico, about two hours

east of San Diego. Not far from that plaque,

directly on the Californian side of the bor-

der, is an outlet mall that seemed designed

to attract Mexican shoppers. Mexicali, Ca-

lexico’s twin city in Mexico, attracts Ameri-

can medical tourists who zip across the

border for procedures that cost a fraction of

what they would in America. Such enter-

prises are a reminder that—wall or no wall,

and though Mr Trump may wish other-

wise—the fates of Mexico and America are

and always will be entwined. 7

UNITEDSTATES

MEXICO

San

Diego

Calexico

Mexicali

CALIFORNIA

ARIZONA

NEWMEXICO TEXAS

Tijuana

ElPaso

Tuc s o n

Organ Pipe

Cactus National

Monument

Ciudad

Juárez

Donna

Rio

Gra

nde

N

Replacementbarrier Newbarrier Existing barriers

US-Mexico border

250 km Sources: Webuildthewall.us; The Economist

Cactus if you can