In August 2016, Donald Trump made a memorable visit to Arizona. Then-candidate Trump had been rumored to be pivoting toward a softer immigration stance. But he put that rumor to rest when he addressed a rally in Phoenix.
Trump called once again for the building of “a great wall along the southern border,” for which Mexico would pay. He additionally promised to end the “catch and release” policy for those apprehended while crossing and announced a “zero tolerance” policy for criminal aliens, of which he said there were at least 2 million in the United States. Finally, he promised to “block funding for sanctuary cities” that refuse to cooperate with immigration authorities in handing over criminal aliens for deportation.
Today, Trump has either made good or made progress on three of those four main promises. His efforts to deprive sanctuary jurisdictions of some funds have already caused some of them to drop the distinction, although others have promised to sue. Catch-and-release was abolished in April, and the immigration service has arrested and expelled about 84,000 charged and convicted criminals, fugitives, and repeat violators since Trump took office.
Among those removed: 2,700 gang members, more than 30 percent more than were removed in all of fiscal 2016.
But what about Trump’s most conspicuous promise, which he has not fulfilled? Without having devoted more than a trifling sum to his “great wall,” it appears that Trump’s simple announcement of his intention to enforce existing immigration laws has all on its own sharply curbed illegal border crossings. During the first six full months of Trump’s presidency (February through July), apprehensions at the southwest border are down 56 percent from the prior year.
But Trump promised a wall, over and over again. And on Tuesday in Phoenix, he made the case for it once again. “The American people voted for immigration control,” he said. “That is why I’m here.”
We have previously discussed the wall as a mostly symbolic issue. It’s flashy and great as a marketable concept, but visa overstayers today comprise a majority of new illegal immigrants.
Still, there is no one way to control illegal immigration. There is a reasonable case to make for walls in some places and in some cases, and the Arizona desert has proven to be one of them. Illegal crossings in the Yuma sector, which Trump visited Tuesday, have plummeted since a 57-mile-long barrier was installed in 2007. In fiscal 2006, there were 119,000 apprehensions of illegal crossers in Yuma. Since this February, there have only been about 3,000.
The story in San Diego is older and even more dramatic. As many as 600,000 apprehensions were made along the border there in 1986 alone. A 46-mile wall was built there in 1989, with additional barriers coming later. Today, despite the density of population on both sides of the border there, San Diego is one of the quieter sectors along the border, with fewer than 2,000 crossers apprehended each month so far this year.
Trump likes to say that “walls work,” even though he has already proven that illegal immigration can be sharply curtailed without them. But he is not wrong to believe that a large barrier will set a more lasting standard for enforcement than anything he can say or do while in office. The next president can and might relax enforcement, but he or she will still probably be grateful if border lawlessness is no longer a pressing political headache.
A wall can only take immigration policy so far. At the heart of the current illegal immigration problem is its main driver — the continued undersupply of opportunities for legal immigrants. Trump has paid lip service to this idea, but then he recently backed a bill that would cut legal immigration in half.
If he wants a compromise with Congress on immigration, including the funding he needs for the border wall, Trump should be looking for a better immigration bill as well. Former President Ronald Reagan once spoke of America as a shining city on a hill, noting that “if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors, and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.”
If illegal crossings continue at their current low levels or become lower, then Trump, wall or no wall, will have the opportunity to make this happen, if he chooses to.
