Demonstrators in El Paso, Texas in June 2018. USA TODAY Network/SIPA USA/PA Images. All rights reserved.
"Walls”, “fencing”, “barriers”, “steel slats” – many are the terms being bandied around by lawmakers in the United States as they seek compromise on the further fortification of the US-Mexican border. Although a second government shutdown tomorrow looks unlikely, President Donald Trump's remarks to his supporters that “we’re building the wall anyway” indicate that he will continue to search for ways to forcefully fulfil one the central promises of his 2016 presidential campaign.
The southern border of the United States has been portrayed by the US government as a national security threat for much longer than Trump has been in office. Although barriers first started to go up in the major border cities in the early 1990s, it was the fall of the twin towers on 9/11 and the start of the ‘war on terror’ that precipitated the Secure Border Initiative and the doubling of the border protection budget to $12 billion. The existing barriers – initially constructed from recycled landing strips used in the Vietnam War – were fortified at a cost of $775 million, and a primary fence nearly 700 miles long was constructed at a cost to the US tax payer of $3.9 million per mile. Before the US spends more on more of the same, it’s worth asking how much of an actual security function the existing wall plays.
