There Is Something That Doesn’t Love a Wall

In yesterday’s column at the Wall Street Journal Jason L. Riley expresses puzzlement that President Trump is so insistent on his wall:

Congress has refused to authorize most of the border-security funding the president has requested, so he’s been forced to get creative. A favorable federal appeals court ruling last week allows the administration to take money originally intended for military construction projects and antinarcotics programs and spend it on new fencing. The White House is elated, but given what the administration has shown can be done to combat illegal immigration without more physical barriers, will it be money well spent?

Last spring there was a surge in illegal immigration from Central America. As The Wall Street Journal reported this week, “the Trump administration responded with a series of policies that have helped cut border crossings by more than 75% from their peak in May.” Those policies include forcing migrants who travel through Mexico en route to the U.S. to return there and await a hearing. One result is that the number of migrants arriving in families is down, as is the number of illegal entries by juveniles. The administration has delivered a strong message to sending countries and the migrants themselves that the U.S. is serious about cracking down on illegal crossings, and a wall apparently wasn’t necessary to make this clear.

The decision to immigrate is a major decision although it’s not as big as it was a century ago. There are both pull forces and push forces involved. It would be nice to have a better understanding of their relative significance.

Analyses like these concern me:

The Department of Homeland Security reports that in 2017, for example, border patrol caught about 310,000 people attempting to cross into the U.S. illegally. Meanwhile, 700,000 people who entered legally that year overstayed their visas, and more than 85% of them simply never left. A wall can’t address this trend, or the fact that in recent years asylum seekers who voluntarily surrender to border agents now constitute an absolute majority of the people coming illegally.

The number of apprehensions tells us exactly nothing about illegal immigration or the effectiveness of enforcement. We don’t know whether 90% of those making attempts to cross our borders illegally are being apprehended or 9%. I suspect it’s closer to the latter. It also tells us little about repeated attempts.

I think that this is probably about right:

Because Mr. Trump promised his supporters a wall, he’s likely to continue pushing for one regardless of whether it would make much of a difference. And because the “resistance” left has become so unreasonable on the topic of border security, the issue will almost certainly help him in the fall. Liberal lawmakers and judges refuse to revisit asylum laws that are clearly being exploited by phony applicants who crowd out real refugees. Some leading Democratic presidential candidates would eliminate criminal penalties for entering the country illegally, while others want to offer undocumented immigrants free health care. Yet polling shows that most voters favor repairing the border, not erasing it.

IMO the most important pull factor is the lure of a job while the reality of the United States in the 21st century is that a lot has changed since 1883. We don’t need a reliable supply of low-skill workers and the mere presence of such a supply encourages business models that are not in the U. S. interest. That reliable supply now tends to keep the wages of blacks and recent immigrants low.

What we really need is a skills-based immigration system like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, an enhanced eVerify system, and sharp penalties for employers who evade the system. Making it tougher for people here illegally to get a job would do much more to discourage illegal immigration than the highest wall.