Mass migration
as a travel business
US-Mexico Border Barriers
1st construction of new (non-replacement) barrier (Fox, Oct. 25, 2019)
How much built so far (CNN, Jan. 19, 2019)
Trump's "wall" update (BBC, Jan. 4, 2019)
Use, don't refuse 'the wall' (Thiessen, Wash. Post, December 13, 2018)
National Guard Deployment "colossal waste" (LA Times, May 25, 2018)
Trump tours border wall mockups (NPR, March 13, 2018)
Semantics of border barrier (LA Times, February 27, 2018)
$200m for four 30 foot prototypes (BBC, September 1, 2017)
Construction firms preparing bids (Economist, March 25, 2017)
Historical background
1848 Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo specifying border line
1889 International Border and Water Commission
1924 US Border Patrol
1970 US-Mexico Boundary Treaty
1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (US)
1994 Operation Gatekeeper (Calif. + similar border tightening by US
borders in Arizona and Texas from 1983-97)
1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA) (US)
2006 Secure Fence Act (US)
Since 2016:
2017 Trump's Executive Order on Border (Jan. 2017) (see also here)
2018 Fund and Complete the Border Wall Act (proposed Aug. 2018)
2019 Trump's National Emergency Declaration (Feb. 15, 2019)
Border statistics
Total US Border Patrol budget (billions): 1991 $.3, 2000 $1, 2016 $2.6.
US-Mexico border (fiscal 2016): 86% of agents, 98% of apprehensions (of which about 1/2 were nationals of Mexico, about 1/4 from the "Northern Triangle" (Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador) and 1/4 other).
Statistics on existing fencing: By 2012 about 300 miles of pedestrian fencing and 250 miles of vehicle barriers had been installed on the 1989 mile long US-Mexico border. When Trump took office, in 2017, 654 miles of barrier had been erected. As of end of 2018) "40 miles of replacement barriers have been built or begun." In 2019, construction was "expected to start" on 61 more miles of replacement barrier and two extensions of barriers for 14 additional miles along Texas-Mexico border.
By January, 2021, under the the Trump administration, barriers had been erected on 47 miles of border where there had been none before.
Sources: Press stories (embedded links), Wikipedia, WALO, USBCP.
Pictures: from National Geographic (2016)
Smugglers sawing through (CNN (WaPost), November 2019)
Dispatches from the US-Mexico border (NPR, 2018)
Biggs' funding bill (introduced, August 2018)
The Berlin Wall and refugee flows in historical perspective
Fenced stretches per Washington Post (26-Jan-17)
Fenced stretches per New York Times (26-Jan-17)
This page last updated 12 January, 2021