U.S.-Mexico border: the wall of strife

Abstract

So much has been said about the US southern border in the first two years of Trump presidency that it may seem he was the author of the wall project. Meanwhile it has been 100 years since the US-Mexico border fencing construction began. The first fence was put up during the First World War, chapter two in the history of the wall (1993-2000) led to 200 km of fencing. 2006 marked the beginning of an ongoing third and most ambitious stage of the thousand-kilometer barrier construction. Sealing off the remaining 2 000 km of the border became D. Trump’s main pitch during the election campaign, but in two years of his presidency no additional segments were actually built. After Congress refused to finance construction to the extent requested by the president, D. Trump declared a state of emergency, which implies redistributing Ministry of Defense budget funds, bypassing Congress in order to re-equip 376 km of the fence and build about 160 km of the wall. But the history of the American wall and the Israeli security barrier (which D. Trump likes to exemplify) shows that the construction is effective only as long as it is combined with the high-tech tracking methods that in the US can be introduced as of now, without building a physical barrier.