A Great Wall?

Related Video Walls Within Walls

What’s wrong with trying to keep more illegal immigrants from coming across the border? Doesn't having a thick, high fence keep out more illegal immigrants than not having a fence?

Additional border enforcement and fencing has definitely had some important effects over the last decade, just not the intended one of reducing undocumented migration. Because of new fencing and manpower at the border, undocumented migrant flows have been rerouted overland through dangerous desert and mountain areas, underground through sophisticated tunnel systems, and over seas along our coasts. The deterrent affect is not to stop but to reroute flows to other places and means of entry. Indeed, there has been a proliferation of criminal smuggling networks, document fraud and visa overstays—the last of these accounting for as much as a third of all unauthorized immigration.

Tragically, from a humanitarian perspective, we have also seen far too many migrants exposed to greater physical risks to cross the border. Thousands on average, more than one migrant a day, have died over the last decade. Numbers of deaths jumped from double to triple digits soon after we started putting in fencing in major metropolitan areas in the early 1990s.

Won’t there always be illegal immigration as long as Mexico¹s economy suffers?

Ultimately, the real challenge is to promote economic development and poverty reduction in Mexico. This is a long-term issue, and most of the burden falls on Mexico, but it would happen much faster if the United States and Canada offered to help. On the one hand, Mexico will need to enact far-reaching reforms in its domestic economic policy, promote education, deregulate some public-sector enterprises, regulate its monopolies and provide better infrastructure—particularly in Mexico’s underdeveloped South. On the other hand, explicitly addressing Mexico’s development as part of the NAFTA equation—either through general development programs or by working to promote development in specific migrant-sending communities—could help move toward a more equitable and integrated partnership between Canada, Mexico and the United States.