Dem
47
GOP
53
Remember back in 2016 when Donald Trump claimed he would build a wall along the 2,000-mile long Mexican border—and get Mexico to pay for it? Well, he didn't build the wall and Mexico didn't pay for it. On the face of it, if the goal is to reduce illegal immigration, making it physically difficult to cross the border outside an official entry point makes sense. It is much easier to stop people from getting in the country in the first place than trying to round them up and deport them after the fact. It has a lot more support and less blowback. But somehow, Trump didn't get much wall built in his first term and hasn't talked about it since then.
Now wall-building is back in vogue, largely due to $47 billion in the BBB. About 3 miles a week are now being built. But it is also controversial for a variety of reasons.
One of the objections is the environmental impact. The 2005 REAL ID Act standardized drivers' licenses nationwide but also made multipple changes to immigration law. For example, it authorized immigration judges to demand documentary proof of an applicant's case for asylum. It also made border security projects like, you know, walls exempt from two key environmental protection laws that often delay projects in the courts for years. It also allows border security projects to skip time-consuming public hearings and negotiations with local officials.
Construction of a wall in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas could deplete scarce groundwater. Crews are already pumping 1 million gallons of groundwater a day for a wall construction project near Tucson. It would also interfere with animal migration patterns, and disturb the flora and fauna of the area. Aaron Flesch, a research scientist at the University of Arizona, said: "A jaguar is not going to climb a nine-meter wall." Nor will the bears, antelope, and bighorn sheep that need to cross the border to survive and keep the species going. Bright LED lights along the border could disorient bats, birds, and insects. In some cases, there is already a wall present but it has been deemed ineffective, so second wall is being built 200' inside the U.S., on private property, with landowners losing some of the their property to the no-man's-land between the walls. It would also trap some animals.
Part of the problem now is that there are large national and state parks on the border and the wall would go through them. Wall opponents say that the wall would ruin the wilderness experience the parks were designed to provide. They say the arid landscape, scarcity of water, brutal heat, sheer cliffs, mountains, distance from roads and predators in the parks and adjacent areas are barrier enough. That isolation has also created a bond between people on both sides of the border, since just surviving in such an inhospitable area is tough. There is also a tourist industry. People near the Big Bend National Park's hot springs can walk 40' to Mexico and buy $10 tamales from a local family. Several companies offer canoe trips in the Rio Grande. Here is a small section of the border:
Yet another problem is parts of the border are sacred to Native Americans who have lived there for thousands of years. Pumping out the groundwater would make it impossible for them to continue living there. All in all, a substantial piece of the wall will be very contentious and opposed by the people who live near the border.
One thing that could be done to stop illegal immigration with much less environmental cost is to have the Army Corps of Engineers dredge the river to make it 10' deep in the middle and then put buoys connected by steel chains in the middle to block boats. That doesn't seem to be on anyone's radar, though. (V)