Subject: Re: The immigration debate is over'
Fencing has long been used along the Southern border, but there is little evidence that it reduces border crossings. This has become a partisan issue. Effective border security is bipartisan, but there is disagreement about the effectiveness of a physical border. To some politicians, effectiveness is not needed, as the wall is only a symbol to rally around.

Maintaining 2000 miles of wall sounds expensive. What is the expected return on the 452 miles of Trump's wall? Maybe zero, because the migrants will just go to the gaps.

The Secure Fence Act of 2006 authorized the construction of 700 miles of fencing along the Mexican border. The Act received bipartisan support. DHS built 654 miles of fence during Obama's administration.

An additional 52 miles of wall were built during Trump's administration, with 452 total miles built, much of it replacing outdated existing barriers.

For FY 2019, Congress appropriated $1.4B for the construction of border fencing. The Biden administration is spending that money for its allocated purpose. Biden continues to say border walls do not work.

=== links ===
click and zoom on the map to see more information about the Border Wall System
https://www.cbp.gov/border-sec...

Biden says border walls don't work as administration bypasses laws to build more barriers in South Texas, October 5, 2023
"the money was appropriated for the border wall. I tried to get them to reappropriate it, to redirect that money. They didn't, they wouldn't. And in the meantime, there's nothing under the law other than they have to use the money for what it was appropriated. I can't stop that,' Biden told reporters in the Oval Office. Asked whether he believes the border wall works, Biden answered, "No.'
https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/05...

CBP Moves Forward on RGV Barrier and Yuma Andrade and El Centro Calexico Fence Replacement Projects to Mitigate Immediate Life, Safety and Operational Risks, 06/30/2023
"Today, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) authorized U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to move forward with the planning and execution of up to approximately 20 miles of border barrier system, with steel bollard panels placed in U.S. Border Patrol's (USBP) Rio Grande Valley (RGV) Sector, as mandated by the DHS Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 border barrier appropriation... The Administration continues to call on Congress to cancel or reappropriate remaining border barrier funding and instead fund smarter border security measures, like border technology and modernization of land ports of entry, that are proven to be more effective at improving safety and security at the border."
https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/l...

Pause of Border Wall Funding, May 6, 2021
"President Biden's January 20 Proclamation did not in any way defy Congress. To the
contrary, the Proclamation represented an important step to align Executive Branch actions with
the policies Congress established in its appropriations legislation. By terminating the national
emergency that had provided the predicate for diverting military construction funds to the border
wall, the Proclamation ensured that those funds would return to the purposes for which Congress
had originally appropriated them"
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-...

The Biden administration says it may restart construction of the border wall, Apr 7, 2021
"Biden had pledged to halt construction, but the homeland security chief said "gaps" needed filling.
The White House press secretary said "limited funding" had been allocated to construction."
https://www.businessinsider.co...

Biden Would End Border Wall Construction, But Wouldn't Tear Down Trump's Additions, August 5, 2020
""There will not be another foot of wall constructed on my administration, No. 1," he told NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro during an interview with journalists from the National Association of Black Journalists and National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

"I'm going to make sure that we have border protection, but it's going to be based on making sure that we use high-tech capacity to deal with it. And at the ports of entry ' that's where all the bad stuff is happening," the former vice president said during the virtual interview on Tuesday.

Biden committed to fully ending land confiscations, a more aggressive stance than President Barack Obama took when he came into office after President George W. Bush had approved border fencing to be built in the Southwest.

"End. Stop. Done. Over. Not going to do it. Withdraw the lawsuits. We're out. We're not going to confiscate the land," Biden told Garcia-Navarro.

Obama oversaw the construction of a fence along the Southern border following Bush's signing of the Secure Fence Act in 2006. As the Austin American-Statesman reported, the Department of Homeland Security built 654 miles of fence at a cost of $2.4 billion. Significant amounts of private land were seized by the federal government for to clear space for the barrier. "
https://www.npr.org/2020/08/05...

Secure Fence Act of 2006
"A 2019 National Bureau of Economic Research paper by Dartmouth College and Stanford University economists found that the "total impact of the border wall expansion including all general equilibrium adjustments was to reduce the (long-run) number of Mexican workers residing in the United States by about 50,000, a decline of approximately 0.4%.""
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Mexico'United States border wall
"Between the physical barriers, security is provided by a "virtual fence" of sensors, cameras, and other surveillance equipment used to dispatch United States Border Patrol agents to suspected migrant crossings. In May 2011, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stated that it had 649 miles of barriers in place. An additional 52 miles of primary barriers were built during Donald Trump's presidency. The total length of the national border is 1,954 miles, of which 1,255 miles is the Rio Grande and 699 miles is on land. On July 28, 2022, the Biden administration announced it would fill four wide gaps in Arizona near Yuma, an area with some of the busiest corridors for illegal crossings."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...