How people illegally cross the Mexican-US border
To the north, the 5,525-mile, 8,891-kilometer line separating it from Canada represents the longest border in the world. To the south, the 1,954-mile, 3,145-kilometer US-Mexico border is perhaps one of the most significant in the world.
It separates two of the most economically and socially interlinked countries in the world.
The US buys more from Mexico than any other country, Mexico buys more from the US than any other country, and Mexico sells more to the US than any other country. Beyond that, there are some 37 million people living in the US with Mexican ancestry, which is a truly staggering statistic.
That means there are more Mexicans living in the US than there are people living in Canada, full stop.
Both the US and Mexico rely hugely on this continuous flow of people and money back and forth, which means how well this border functions are directly tied to the success of both countries. Unfortunately for both, though, this border, while significant, has its issues.
A border and its effectiveness involve far more than the line itself — it’s about how well the overall immigration system between the two countries functions — but, at the end of the day, that line is still quite important.
The Mexico-US border is crossed more than any other restricted border in the world, meaning it’s actually quite porous.
There are fifty spots where one can legally cross the border by land. The smallest is the tiny Boquillas Port of Entry in Big Bend National Park where about 11,000 annual travelers are processed remotely using video inspection kiosks — mostly to make day-trips to the small Mexican town of Boquillas del Carmen while vacationing in the National Park.
On the other hand, the largest crossing is the San Ysidro Port of Entry, processing 11 million pedestrians and 26 million cars per year — thereby making it the busiest land border checkpoint in the western hemisphere. As part of the primary route between San Diego and Tijuana — two cities between which people commute on a daily basis — this crossing is never not busy.
The rest of this 1,954-mile, 3,145-kilometer line, beyond these 50 checkpoints, is secured as, to go from Mexico to the US, or the US to Mexico, you have to go through immigration checkpoints — at least to do it legally.
Each and every year, hundreds of thousands or millions of people attempt to cross into the US, via the southern border, without the legal right to do so. In short, they try to migrate illegally.
Now, the vast majority of these undocumented immigrants are not successful in their endeavor — an estimated 55 to 85 percent of them are caught and sent back to their home country — but to many people, these odds are worth it.
There is enormous economic disparity between the US, where average income is at $65,000 per year, and Mexico, where that number stands at $9,500 per year. Also, while low compared to other wealthy countries, the US scores much better than Mexico on social mobility meaning a poor person is more likely to become wealthier in their lifetime in the US than Mexico.
In short, while there are certainly nearly infinite reasons why someone might choose to migrate to the US — including, quite often, family reunification or an escape from violence — research has shown that money, and the attempt to escape poverty, is typically the strongest and primary one.
Of course, the question is, why don’t these people migrate to the US legally?
It would certainly be safer and cheaper. Well, overwhelmingly the answer is because they can’t. For some people, there is no legitimate route to legal status in the US, and, to others, there’s no practical way.
Many forms of American immigrant visas have annual caps that are not proportional to immigration demand from a given country.
That means that, for example, if you were a married, Mexican citizen who was the son or daughter of a US citizen, the wait time to have your visa processed currently stands at twenty-four years. That means that now, in September 2020, they’re currently only processing applications submitted up until August 1st, 1996.
Faced with the prospect of waiting 24 years, more than a fourth of their life, until they can live and work in the same country as their parents or, for example, take care of them in old age, many people seeking this and other classes of visas choose not to wait, and rather take the faster, yet riskier option of immigrating without authorization.
While dangerous, the process of crossing the border illegally is a path generally not taken alone. Back twenty years ago, people had to figure out this process themselves, but nowadays, upwards of 95% of first-time crossers hire a smuggler to help them.
That’s an expensive proposition, with the average fee hovering around $3,500 per person — about four month’s wages for the average Mexican. In exchange for their fees, these smugglers will generally group migrants together, transport them to the border, give them instructions on how to cross, and then arrange for transportation on the other side.
The migrants and smugglers really have two choices in terms of which obstacle to face — the border security itself, or nature. There is never no security, but in many places, there is minimal as hundreds of miles of empty, dry, desert plains lay between the border and the nearest city, where migrants can disappear into the crowd.
This sheer isolation is a big reason why there is no physical man-made barrier on the border in almost all of Texas, and across many other stretches in New Mexico, Arizona, and California. It’s tough to get an exact figure, as it’s ever changing and poorly recorded, but currently, only about a third of the border is secured with a barrier.
In fact, the majority of that third takes the form of a vehicle barrier, intended only to stop a car or truck from driving across the border, rather than a full pedestrian barrier.
Generally, there’s only a pedestrian barrier in heavily populated areas like Brownsville, El Paso, Yuma, and San Diego. Even in these populated areas, one doesn’t have to go far to find a gap in the wall. Starting from the western end of the border at the Pacific Ocean, the first wall-less section appears less than 15 miles or 23 kilometers to the east, at the first section of steep terrain.
Any barrier, though, doesn’t tend to be too much of an issue for smugglers. Often, they’ll have scouts on both sides, wait for border patrol to leave the area, then install a ladder and quickly climb over. Cartels have been known to go even a step further and build tunnels under the border.
In January 2020, US Customs and Border Protection discovered the longest ever — a 4,300-foot, 1,300 meter structure stretching from Tijuana to San Diego. This facility was so advanced that it had ventilation, electricity, a rail system, and even an elevator.
While it’s unclear exactly who built and operated this tunnel, in the past, many of these have been linked to large crime syndicates like the Sinaloa Cartel, demonstrating the unintended consequences that securing the border can have.
Demand for hard drugs is fairly inelastic, meaning people who consume them are going to buy them no matter the cost. As it gets harder and harder for drugs and other controlled substances to be smuggled across, the cartels are still going to transport their product, but they’re just going to use more advanced tactics.
These tactics are going to be too costly or difficult for smaller smugglers, but the cartels, with their vast resources, will be able to build tunnels, use drones, or use other tactics, and, with their smaller competition unable to transport goods, they’re also going to be able to raise prices. Therefore, there’s a possibility that making smuggling harder is helping the largest cartels make more money.
A related effect happens with the human side of smuggling. Naturally, the sections of the border that are most secured are those that are easiest to cross — those near population centers, roads, and areas with less treacherous terrain.
That means that, as the border is secured, that pushes migrants to more and more remote areas, where the chances of injury or death are higher and higher. One of the more common places for migrants to now cross into the US is the Sonoran Desert. This area is incredibly desolate and harsh, with high temperatures in the summer rarely dipping below 100 degrees Fahrenheit or 38 degrees Celsius, and winter nighttime lows dipping below freezing.
The most accessible section, next to a Mexican Federal Highway, has a pedestrian fence preventing crossing. As these data show, this is effective at pushing migrants further to the east. After getting dropped off near the border on the Mexican side, migrants will fairly immediately cross the border, which is usually one of the easiest components of their trips.
The closest roads in the US to the border in this area are Highways 85 and 86, but, as there are so few roads here, these are major chokepoints where migrants could be caught. In addition, US Customs and Border Protection have internal checkpoints, where they question drivers and, potentially, pull them aside for search to determine if anyone is undocumented or smuggling illegal substances.
Therefore, at the very least, migrants need to walk twenty to thirty miles to Highway 86 in order to avoid the internal checkpoint. Many might go further, all the way to Interstate 8, with the end goal of making it to Phoenix or Tucson.
As soon as a migrant gets to one of these spots, it is far easier to blend into the crowd as both cities have large immigrant populations. From there, they’ll be able to catch public transportation to their final destination. Many, however, don’t make it that far — and not because they are caught by border patrol.
This map displays the site of every confirmed migrant death in Arizona.
The true number, as these only represent those that are found, is likely devastatingly higher.
Every year, many hundreds of individuals die on their journey to a better life. In response to the staggering death toll in this area, different groups have initiated efforts to help those that are dehydrated, hypothermic, or otherwise injured.
The US Customs and Border Protection Agency itself built a system of alert beacons in this desert that those in distress can activate. In response, agents are supposed to arrive and help the individual, but, of course, in the end, they will be deported if they lack legal status.
Other, non-governmental groups have also initiated efforts. One of the major causes of death is dehydration, with there being essentially no natural water source in this area, so humanitarian groups have set up water stations at spots in the desert that migrants can use if they’re in a dire situation.
Of course, both of these interventions are controversial — humanitarian groups say that the beacons are tricking migrants into getting themselves arrested since there’s no clear indication that it’s border patrol that will arrive and ultimately arrest them, rather than an ambulance or a humanitarian group, while the border patrol says that the water stations push migrants to further continue their dangerous journey where they might perish due to another situation, such a hypothermia, therefore putting them at further risk.
At the end of the day, though, both of these interventions deal with the downstream effect of illegal immigration, rather than the actual source because of it. True, complete, physical border security can work somewhat.
It certainly cannot stop illegal immigration, but it does curb it to an extent, but it is hugely expensive and almost certainly is not the easiest solution. The cause of illegal immigration is not that the border isn’t secured, and it’s not even that the countries that migrants come from are impoverished or dangerous.
The cause of illegal immigration is that legal immigration is not an option. Nobody wants to risk their life just to move to a new country and live in fear of deportation for the rest of their life.
When Americans want to move to Canada, for example, they don’t sneak across the border, they don’t live undocumented for the rest of their life, restraining themselves to only certain, low-paid jobs. They take the easier route, the legal route, because they can. If they are denied, it is generally due to certain qualifications they lack, so they go off and gain those qualifications.
Many people in Mexico, Central America, and other less-wealthy areas, meanwhile, simply don’t even have the option of migrating to the US legally. There is no reasonable, legal path like Americans have for Canada.
Canada, a country whose immigration system certainly is not perfect, has essentially halted illegal immigration, despite bordering a country home to tens of millions of undocumented migrants. They certainly don’t let everyone who wants to live there indefinitely do so, but they at least have a reasonable, feasible path to legal status for anyone no matter their country of origin or economic situation.
When they can go through the safe, legal route, there’s no good reason for people to migrate illegally. Building physical systems to stop illegal immigration might make sense if it were a physical problem, but it’s not. People don’t cross the border outside official channels because it’s physically possible.
That’s a pull factor, but illegal immigration is caused by push factors.
It’s a social problem, so to solve it, and cut it down, you need social systems, such as a real immigration system that gives opportunities to all, not just those that are lucky.
