Tijuana wall
"If a dishwasher can sneak across the border, so can a terrorist"

It is said that the 3,200 kilometres long border between the United States and Mexico is the world’s busiest one: each year, 17 million cars and 50 million people cross it, legally. In 1992 the United States Border Control apprehended 1,2 million want-to-be passers, illegal ones. The number of how may better-life seekers succeeded in crossing is unknown. In any case, still too many according to the U.S. government... The fact that not only migrants but also smugglers and even terrorists cross the border became a major concern for the American authorities.

The main immigration route goes from Tijuana to San Diego. The U.S. government decided to issue some special measures for it. In 1990, in San Diego sector, they employed the Prevention Through Deterrence strategy. It consisted in increasing human resources and using physical surveillance along the line of the actual border with Mexico. Still, people of Mexico didn’t want to give up their quest for better living conditions and did not stop crossing the border illegally. They have even invented the “banzai run”: up to 50 illegal crossers start running towards the American agents standing on the state border, with the idea that at least a few of them will successfully cross the security net.
In 1996 the Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act, which authorized the building of physical barriers-walls and fences, which were already under construction since the previous year. The barrier is made of thick, rusty corrugated metal. It runs from the surf of Pacific beach up and down the Californian hills that separate Mexico from the U.S. city of San Diego. Further inland it turns into a 5 meter high fence, made of a metal mesh so fine that prospective climbers can’t even get their fingers through it. Furthermore, the overhanging position makes it scaling even more difficult. It stretches eastern for 22,5 kilometers. To top up the fence, a 242 kilometer long vehicle barrier was built on the U.S. territory. A secondary layer of fences was also planned. However, because of the environmental concerns of the California Coastal Commission as parts of the fence were being built in protected areas, the construction was stopped mid-way. The building of the barrier had polluted sea waters. The beaches in Coronado where the U.S. Navy used to train have been closed for more than on month. "The guys we need to train to protect our country can't train because the water is too polluted," said Serge Dedina, the executive director of WildCoast, a non-profit group that works to protect coastal area. "How is that helping with national security?"

The statistics show a 76% decline of immigration around San Diego sector after the beginning of the wall building in that sector. But at the same time, the immigration in the Yuma sector went through a 591% increase. Even if the 200.000 arrests in San Diego area in 1992 dramatically dropped to 9112 in 2004, the number of arrests across the whole border line remains equal throughout the years.
In 2005 the Real ID Act was passed by the U.S. Congress. It authorized the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to waive all legal requirements in order to expedite the construction of border barriers. The first order was to complete and reinforce San Diego fence as well as to erect new fences where necessary. It went with technological modernization. The patrols were provided night vision goggles, portable radios, more four-wheel drives, light towers, seismic sensors, new helicopters and 10 kilometers of permanent lighting. Once so well equipped, they can watch over the “primary and secondary defense lines”. The "Primary" or most southern barriers are comprised of the following types: Nothing. Three wire cattle fence. Vertical railroad rail. Horizontal railroad rail with 6" drill stem uprights. Concrete filled thin wall six inch steel tube of staggered height. Corrugated steel plate. Perforated corrugated steel plate (landing mat). Square tubing. Crushed cars. Then there is a No Man’s Land, followed with the "Secondary" barriers which are comprised of the following types: Climb proof expanded metal fence. Climb proof chain link fence. Concrete column or "Bollard" barrier.
The consequence of these security measures was that immigrants tried to cross in more remote and riskier locations. The Mexican Migration Project showed that 70% crossed through Tijuana-San Diego or El Paso-Texas. Only 30% chose other crossings. In 2002, the situation was the opposite. The remote border passages were chosen by 64% of the illegal immigrants. The number of deaths has tripled as immigrants have to pass through the Arizona desert or river streams. Some die of heat stress or hypothermia; some drown; some become a prey of unscrupulous human smugglers. There is an average of nine deaths per week. More resourceful immigrants started building tunnels under the barrier. The largest to be discovered, near San Diego, was 800 meter long. And of course, there is also a booming industry of faked identity documents.
Although the statistics show a drop of migrations from half a million to 130,000 per year, the Republican Duncan Hunter suggested that a wall in be built along the 3200 kilometers of the U.S.-Mexico border – an Herculean task that would cost the taxpayers no less than 8 billion dollars. Other proponents of the wall cite national security concerns as the top priority. U.S. Border Patrol spokesperson Salvador Zamora says that agents now look at the border much differently than they did before September 11, 2001. "If they can smuggle a pound of cocaine in a glove compartment, they can smuggle a dangerous chemical or a virus in, too," Zamora says. Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank that supports tighter immigration controls, points to the case of apprehended Hezbollah supporter Mahmoud Youssef Kourani, who paid to be smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border in 2001. "If a dishwasher can sneak across the border, so can a terrorist," Krikorian says.
Duncan’s proposal was considered unnecessary. The Border Patrol knows that the vast majority of people who cross the border are only looking for jobs. "Most of those we apprehend aren't combative," Zamora says. Although walls have been successful at keeping vehicles loaded with Mexicans from driving across the border, agents admit it is not a long-term solution to immigration and security problems. "The fence might slow them down, but it won't stop them," says San Diego border agent T.J. Bonner, also a spokesperson for the National Border Patrol Council, the agents' union. “If the U.S. government enforced sanctions against employers who hire illegal immigrants”, Bonner says, “Agents' job would be considerably easier. What we really need is to turn off the employment magnet. After all nobody wants to live behind the new Berlin wall”. That would surely be a departure from the philosophy that prompted then President Ronald Reagan, standing before Berlin's Brandenburg Gate, to challenge his Soviet counterpart to "open this gate ... tear down this wall”. In 2006 the U.S. Congress passed the Secure Fence Act. The building of the wall was approved, but not along the whole border, only one third of it: 1,100 km...