RESEARCH STARTER

United States-Mexico border fence

The United States-Mexico border fence, a complex system of barriers and surveillance measures, was established primarily to address concerns regarding unauthorized immigration and drug trafficking. The initiative began in the mid-1990s, gaining momentum after the September 11, 2001, attacks heightened national security concerns. The Secure Fence Act of 2006 authorized the construction of approximately 850 miles of barriers, which vary in form from traditional walls to electronic monitoring systems, reflecting the diverse landscape along the 1,951-mile border. While urban areas saw the earliest and most extensive fencing, remote regions often received lower priority for immediate construction.

The effectiveness of the fencing has been debated, with some data indicating a decrease in unauthorized crossings, while critics argue that smugglers and migrants can circumvent the barriers. Political discourse surrounding the border fence intensified during the 2016 presidential election, particularly with Donald Trump's proposals for a more expansive wall. After significant funding discussions and a national emergency declaration, the Biden administration halted further construction in 2021, redirecting resources to existing barriers and addressing environmental concerns. The border fence remains a symbol of broader immigration debates and reflects the complicated interplay of security, economic factors, and community impacts along the border region.

Full Article

  • THE EVENT: Construction of barriers to prevent undocumented immigrants and potential terrorists from entering the United States along its southern border
  • DATE: Construction began in 1994
  • LOCATION: United States–Mexico border

SIGNIFICANCE: Barriers along the US border with Mexico gained attention beginning in the mid-1990s, in response to the drug trade and the growing number of undocumented immigrants entering the United States. The US congressional decision in 2006 to build hundreds of miles of additional fencing along portions of the 1,951-mile (3,140.5-kilometer) United States–Mexico border touched off a diplomatic dispute with Mexico, angered Latino communities in the United States, and was almost unanimously condemned by human rights organizations, who believed the policy would result in a large number of deaths among immigrants seeking to enter the country via more dangerous unfenced stretches of borderland. The issue received further attention during the 2016 US presidential campaign, as Republican candidate Donald Trump emphasized his intent to expand the border wall, a goal he continued to pursue, with limited success, after being elected in both 2016 and 2024.

The tightening of the US border with Mexico began during the mid-1990s, in response to the drug trade and the growing number of undocumented immigrants entering the United States. Containing the latter quickly became a security concern in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. After five years of congressional debate, the Secure Fence Act of 2006 authorized the construction of an additional 850 miles (1,367.9 kilometers) of barriers along the United States–Mexico border.

Fencing the Border

Although the terminology evokes images of a conventional, high, and perhaps barbed-wire fence stretching across the border separating Mexico from California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, the fence that has been erected is as varied as the landscape along the border. A substantial portion consists of walls as well as border-control points and obstacles to vehicle movement, constructed where major highways link Mexico to such metropolitan areas as San Diego. Other sections include pedestrian barriers—often parallel walls separated by no-go zones—but many segments are or will be of a "virtual" electronic variety, using cameras, motion-detection devices, and observer personnel to monitor the border.

To a significant degree, the form of the border fence and the pace and site of its construction have been determined by the border landscape. The more desolate and dangerous the area on the US side of the border, the lower the priority becomes to fence it immediately. The first barriers were thus erected near the urban areas that beckoned drug dealers and undocumented immigrants. In 1994, the administration of President Bill Clinton launched Operation Gatekeeper to construct a barrier along a 14-mile (22.5-kilometer) stretch south of San Diego. Similarly, most of the nearly 500 miles (804.6 kilometers) of border that were covered by either pedestrian or vehicle border barriers under the administration of President George W. Bush lie along the zones nearest to the US highway network, not the long stretches of desert borderland.

Fencing must take into account not just the likelihood of traffic but also the environmental considerations of the landscape. For example, sections of fence near the Rio Grande have been designed to accommodate floodwaters from the river. Between Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego, California, the fence extends into the Pacific Ocean. Other sections must deal with shifting sand dunes or rocky hillsides. In addition to the remoteness of much of the border region, these factors complicate efforts to establish a cohesive physical barrier. According to US Customs and Border Protection, in 2024, approximately 684 miles (1,100.7 kilometers) of vehicle and pedestrian fence stretched along the 1,951-mile (3,140.5-kilometer) border.

Evaluating the Operation

Assessments of the success of the fencing operation in controlling unauthorized immigration have been mixed, although most concede that the US-Mexico border is one of the most challenging law-enforcement areas in North America. In this region, bandit gangs in Mexico, volunteer spotters from right-wing groups in the United States, paid smugglers of human cargo (the armed "coyotes"), drug dealers, impoverished Mexicans living in shantytowns just south of the border, Mexican authorities, and 90 percent of the US Border Patrol (at times augmented by National Guard troops), coexist and often collide. According to some reports, in some areas, the fence divided communities that had worked together before September 11, 2001, such as those of Jacumba, California, and Jacume, Mexico. Families were separated by a two-hour drive instead of a fifteen-minute walk, and businesses were interrupted and cut off.

Increased surveillance and fencing on parts of the border have affected the pattern of unauthorized immigration. Many would-be immigrants have been forced to try to enter the United States by way of the often lethal, less monitored desert access points, and thousands have died in the 50-mile (80.5-kilometer) trek necessary to reach roadways. For those choosing the less dangerous crossing points, interception by authorities has become easier, given the combination of high physical walls, cameras, and sensors lining those areas. Furthermore, the rate of unauthorized immigration seemed to slow beginning in 2008, although it was not clear whether this slowdown resulted from the increasing number of miles of fencing or from the fact that a US economy in recession discouraged many from seeking employment north of the border.

A principal criticism of the fence was that it constituted too little, too late. By the time the Secure Fence Act was passed in 2006, it was conservatively estimated that there were at least 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, nearly 60 percent of whom were Mexicans. Moreover, the same year that the Secure Fence Act passed, the governors of New Mexico and Arizona declared states of emergency on the grounds that their states were suffering significant financial hardship because the federal government had failed to control the drugs and undocumented immigrants entering from Mexico. By approximately the same time, forty-three states had legislation pending that was designed to limit undocumented immigrants' access to employment, education, and social welfare benefits.

In part due to the lack of agreement on the effectiveness of border fencing, as well as ongoing concern over undocumented immigration and drug smuggling, the issue became a key element of the 2016 US presidential election. Republican candidate Donald Trump ran a campaign based largely on anti-immigration policies, including a proposal to build a wall along the entire US-Mexico border, which he claimed Mexico would be compelled to pay for. When Trump was elected, debate over the worth of such a proposal, which would effectively finish or expand the work begun in 2006, was inflamed once more. Trump's inflammatory racial comments and frequent inaccurate or misleading statements regarding immigration and the wall further contributed to an intense partisan political atmosphere around the subject.

Critics of Trump's proposed border wall argued that there would be too many ways for smugglers and migrants to get around the wall for it to be effective—a claim supported by a US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released in February 2017, which found that the then-existing 654 miles (1,052.9 kilometers) of border fence had been breached more than 9,200 times between approximately 2010 and 2015. Experts noted that the wall posed little obstacle to the flow of illegal drugs, given the power of drug cartels and the fact that many drugs, such as opioids, came from sources other than Mexico. Opponents of a border wall also considered it unnecessary based on statistical trends: the number of unauthorized Mexican immigrants apprehended at US borders decreased from 1.6 million in the fiscal year 2000 to just 192,969 in the fiscal year 2016; the number of undocumented Mexican immigrants living in the United States declined from 6.9 million in 2007 to 5.6 million by 2015–2016; and the total number of people leaving Mexico to live in another country (usually but not always the United States) declined from 6.4 migrants per 1,000 residents in 2008 to 3.6 migrants per 1,000 residents in 2015. Another concern was the financial burden construction would entail, particularly given the extra costs required to build on the inhospitable terrain along some stretches of the border.

Supporters of the proposed wall argued that it remained the best available solution to unauthorized immigration. Some analysts suggested that statistics indicating decreasing illegal immigration were evidence of the impact of existing fencing. To many, the wall proposal became a symbol of Trump's presidency, and some conservatives sought to frame opponents of the project as weak on crime or supportive of open borders.

While President Trump called for as much as $25 billion for a long-term wall construction project, in March 2018, Congress approved $1.6 billion in funding for one year to replace some existing fence sections and erect about 33 miles (53.1 kilometers) of new wall, mostly focused in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. The Trump administration continued to push for further funding, but by October 2020, Customs and Border Protection reported that only 15 miles (24.1 kilometers) of new primary barriers had been completed since Trump took office, along with 350 miles (563.3 kilometers) of replacement barriers or secondary structures. Another 221 miles (355.7 kilometers) of both new and replacement barriers remained under construction. However, after President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, one of his first executive orders was to halt the construction of the border wall and redirect the funds that had been dedicated to the project. Work that continued on the border wall under the Biden administration was limited to repairing existing structures and attempting to rectify environmental issues created by the wall’s construction.

When Trump took office for a second term, following his successful 2024 presidential campaign, he again focused on anti-immigration policies, including the deployment of 1,500 US troops to the US-Mexico border and a plan to complete the border wall by 2029. The former action was one also undertaken during the Biden administration and helped contribute to a significant decline in border crossings during 2024—whereas about 250,000 migrant apprehensions were recorded in December 2023, that figure had dropped to less than 48,000 by December 2024. By 2025, the federal government had also awarded new contracts for additional border infrastructure, with CBP and the Department of Homeland Security announcing a $4.5 billion plan to construct 230 miles (370.2 kilometers) of new “Smart Wall” barriers along the US–Mexico border.




Bibliography

Alden, Edward H. The Closing of the American Border: Terrorism, Immigration, and Security Since 9/11. HarperCollins, 2008.

Batalova, Jeanne. "Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States." Migration Policy Institute, 12 Mar. 2025, www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states. Accessed 4 Dec. 2025.

Bigelow, Bill. The Line between Us: Teaching about the Border and Mexican Immigration. Rethinking Schools, 2006.

Bronstein, Scott, et al. "Border Wall Breached 9,000 Times. Does It Even Work?" CNN, 16 Feb. 2017, www.cnn.com/2017/02/16/politics/gao-border-wall/index.html. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025.

“CBP Releases December 2024 Monthly Update.” US Customs and Border Protection, 14 Jan. 2025, www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/cbp-releases-december-2024-monthly-update. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025.

Gonzalez-Barrera, Ana, and Jens Manuel Krogstad. "What We Know about Illegal Immigration from Mexico." Pew Research Center, 28 June 2019, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/02/what-we-know-about-illegal-immigration-from-mexico/. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025.

Guerette, Rob T. Migrant Death: Border Safety and Situational Crime Prevention on the US-Mexico Divide. LFB Scholarly Publishing, 2007.

Hill, Jessica. "Fact Check: Biden Executive Order Halts Border Wall Construction, Redirects Funding." USA Today, 3 Feb. 2021, www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/02/03/fact-check-joe-biden-executive-order-trump-border-wall-construction/4337994001/. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025.

Holley, Peter. "Trump Proposes a Border Wall. But There Already Is One, and It Gets Climbed Over." The Washington Post, 2 Apr. 2016, www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/04/02/shocking-video-shows-suspected-drug-smugglers-easily-crossing-u-s-mexico-border/. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025.

Holpuch, Amanda. "What Exactly Is Trump's Border Wall and Why Does He Want $5.7 Billion For It?" The Guardian, 15 Jan. 2019, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/15/trump-mexico-border-wall-status-migrants. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025.

Krogstad, Jens Manuel, et al. "5 Facts about Illegal Immigration in the US." Pew Research Center, 12 June 2019, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/27/5-facts-about-illegal-immigration-in-the-u-s/. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025.

Merchant, Nomaan. "US Prepares to Start Building Portion of Texas Border Wall." AP News, 4 Feb. 2019, apnews.com/e653d5a305114835bb399e480ac44ab8. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025.

Rodgers, Lucy, and Dominic Bailey. "Trump Wall: How Much Has He Actually Built?" BBC News, 31 Oct. 2020, www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46824649. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025.

Romero, Fernando. Hyperborder: The Contemporary US-Mexico Border and Its Future. Princeton Architectural Press, 2008.

Simon, Johnny. "To Understand Trump's Speech, Look at the US-Mexico Border As It Exists Today." Quartz, 20 July 2022, qz.com/1517907/what-the-us-mexico-border-wall-actually-looks-like-right-now/. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025.

"Smart Wall Frequently Asked Questions." US Customs and Border Protection, 24 Oct. 2025, www.cbp.gov/border-security/border-wall/border-wall-system-frequently-asked-questions. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025.

Yousif, Nadine. "Six Big Immigration Changes Under Trump—and Their Impact So Far." BBC News, 27 Jan. 2025, www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyn2p8x2eyo. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025.



Full Article

  • THE EVENT: Construction of barriers to prevent undocumented immigrants and potential terrorists from entering the United States along its southern border
  • DATE: Construction began in 1994
  • LOCATION: United States–Mexico border

SIGNIFICANCE: Barriers along the US border with Mexico gained attention beginning in the mid-1990s, in response to the drug trade and the growing number of undocumented immigrants entering the United States. The US congressional decision in 2006 to build hundreds of miles of additional fencing along portions of the 1,951-mile (3,140.5-kilometer) United States–Mexico border touched off a diplomatic dispute with Mexico, angered Latino communities in the United States, and was almost unanimously condemned by human rights organizations, who believed the policy would result in a large number of deaths among immigrants seeking to enter the country via more dangerous unfenced stretches of borderland. The issue received further attention during the 2016 US presidential campaign, as Republican candidate Donald Trump emphasized his intent to expand the border wall, a goal he continued to pursue, with limited success, after being elected in both 2016 and 2024.

The tightening of the US border with Mexico began during the mid-1990s, in response to the drug trade and the growing number of undocumented immigrants entering the United States. Containing the latter quickly became a security concern in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. After five years of congressional debate, the Secure Fence Act of 2006 authorized the construction of an additional 850 miles (1,367.9 kilometers) of barriers along the United States–Mexico border.

Fencing the Border

Although the terminology evokes images of a conventional, high, and perhaps barbed-wire fence stretching across the border separating Mexico from California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, the fence that has been erected is as varied as the landscape along the border. A substantial portion consists of walls as well as border-control points and obstacles to vehicle movement, constructed where major highways link Mexico to such metropolitan areas as San Diego. Other sections include pedestrian barriers—often parallel walls separated by no-go zones—but many segments are or will be of a "virtual" electronic variety, using cameras, motion-detection devices, and observer personnel to monitor the border.

To a significant degree, the form of the border fence and the pace and site of its construction have been determined by the border landscape. The more desolate and dangerous the area on the US side of the border, the lower the priority becomes to fence it immediately. The first barriers were thus erected near the urban areas that beckoned drug dealers and undocumented immigrants. In 1994, the administration of President Bill Clinton launched Operation Gatekeeper to construct a barrier along a 14-mile (22.5-kilometer) stretch south of San Diego. Similarly, most of the nearly 500 miles (804.6 kilometers) of border that were covered by either pedestrian or vehicle border barriers under the administration of President George W. Bush lie along the zones nearest to the US highway network, not the long stretches of desert borderland.

Fencing must take into account not just the likelihood of traffic but also the environmental considerations of the landscape. For example, sections of fence near the Rio Grande have been designed to accommodate floodwaters from the river. Between Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego, California, the fence extends into the Pacific Ocean. Other sections must deal with shifting sand dunes or rocky hillsides. In addition to the remoteness of much of the border region, these factors complicate efforts to establish a cohesive physical barrier. According to US Customs and Border Protection, in 2024, approximately 684 miles (1,100.7 kilometers) of vehicle and pedestrian fence stretched along the 1,951-mile (3,140.5-kilometer) border.

Evaluating the Operation

Assessments of the success of the fencing operation in controlling unauthorized immigration have been mixed, although most concede that the US-Mexico border is one of the most challenging law-enforcement areas in North America. In this region, bandit gangs in Mexico, volunteer spotters from right-wing groups in the United States, paid smugglers of human cargo (the armed "coyotes"), drug dealers, impoverished Mexicans living in shantytowns just south of the border, Mexican authorities, and 90 percent of the US Border Patrol (at times augmented by National Guard troops), coexist and often collide. According to some reports, in some areas, the fence divided communities that had worked together before September 11, 2001, such as those of Jacumba, California, and Jacume, Mexico. Families were separated by a two-hour drive instead of a fifteen-minute walk, and businesses were interrupted and cut off.

Increased surveillance and fencing on parts of the border have affected the pattern of unauthorized immigration. Many would-be immigrants have been forced to try to enter the United States by way of the often lethal, less monitored desert access points, and thousands have died in the 50-mile (80.5-kilometer) trek necessary to reach roadways. For those choosing the less dangerous crossing points, interception by authorities has become easier, given the combination of high physical walls, cameras, and sensors lining those areas. Furthermore, the rate of unauthorized immigration seemed to slow beginning in 2008, although it was not clear whether this slowdown resulted from the increasing number of miles of fencing or from the fact that a US economy in recession discouraged many from seeking employment north of the border.

A principal criticism of the fence was that it constituted too little, too late. By the time the Secure Fence Act was passed in 2006, it was conservatively estimated that there were at least 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, nearly 60 percent of whom were Mexicans. Moreover, the same year that the Secure Fence Act passed, the governors of New Mexico and Arizona declared states of emergency on the grounds that their states were suffering significant financial hardship because the federal government had failed to control the drugs and undocumented immigrants entering from Mexico. By approximately the same time, forty-three states had legislation pending that was designed to limit undocumented immigrants' access to employment, education, and social welfare benefits.

In part due to the lack of agreement on the effectiveness of border fencing, as well as ongoing concern over undocumented immigration and drug smuggling, the issue became a key element of the 2016 US presidential election. Republican candidate Donald Trump ran a campaign based largely on anti-immigration policies, including a proposal to build a wall along the entire US-Mexico border, which he claimed Mexico would be compelled to pay for. When Trump was elected, debate over the worth of such a proposal, which would effectively finish or expand the work begun in 2006, was inflamed once more. Trump's inflammatory racial comments and frequent inaccurate or misleading statements regarding immigration and the wall further contributed to an intense partisan political atmosphere around the subject.

Critics of Trump's proposed border wall argued that there would be too many ways for smugglers and migrants to get around the wall for it to be effective—a claim supported by a US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released in February 2017, which found that the then-existing 654 miles (1,052.9 kilometers) of border fence had been breached more than 9,200 times between approximately 2010 and 2015. Experts noted that the wall posed little obstacle to the flow of illegal drugs, given the power of drug cartels and the fact that many drugs, such as opioids, came from sources other than Mexico. Opponents of a border wall also considered it unnecessary based on statistical trends: the number of unauthorized Mexican immigrants apprehended at US borders decreased from 1.6 million in the fiscal year 2000 to just 192,969 in the fiscal year 2016; the number of undocumented Mexican immigrants living in the United States declined from 6.9 million in 2007 to 5.6 million by 2015–2016; and the total number of people leaving Mexico to live in another country (usually but not always the United States) declined from 6.4 migrants per 1,000 residents in 2008 to 3.6 migrants per 1,000 residents in 2015. Another concern was the financial burden construction would entail, particularly given the extra costs required to build on the inhospitable terrain along some stretches of the border.

Supporters of the proposed wall argued that it remained the best available solution to unauthorized immigration. Some analysts suggested that statistics indicating decreasing illegal immigration were evidence of the impact of existing fencing. To many, the wall proposal became a symbol of Trump's presidency, and some conservatives sought to frame opponents of the project as weak on crime or supportive of open borders.

While President Trump called for as much as $25 billion for a long-term wall construction project, in March 2018, Congress approved $1.6 billion in funding for one year to replace some existing fence sections and erect about 33 miles (53.1 kilometers) of new wall, mostly focused in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. The Trump administration continued to push for further funding, but by October 2020, Customs and Border Protection reported that only 15 miles (24.1 kilometers) of new primary barriers had been completed since Trump took office, along with 350 miles (563.3 kilometers) of replacement barriers or secondary structures. Another 221 miles (355.7 kilometers) of both new and replacement barriers remained under construction. However, after President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, one of his first executive orders was to halt the construction of the border wall and redirect the funds that had been dedicated to the project. Work that continued on the border wall under the Biden administration was limited to repairing existing structures and attempting to rectify environmental issues created by the wall’s construction.

When Trump took office for a second term, following his successful 2024 presidential campaign, he again focused on anti-immigration policies, including the deployment of 1,500 US troops to the US-Mexico border and a plan to complete the border wall by 2029. The former action was one also undertaken during the Biden administration and helped contribute to a significant decline in border crossings during 2024—whereas about 250,000 migrant apprehensions were recorded in December 2023, that figure had dropped to less than 48,000 by December 2024. By 2025, the federal government had also awarded new contracts for additional border infrastructure, with CBP and the Department of Homeland Security announcing a $4.5 billion plan to construct 230 miles (370.2 kilometers) of new “Smart Wall” barriers along the US–Mexico border.




Bibliography

Alden, Edward H. The Closing of the American Border: Terrorism, Immigration, and Security Since 9/11. HarperCollins, 2008.

Batalova, Jeanne. "Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States." Migration Policy Institute, 12 Mar. 2025, www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states. Accessed 4 Dec. 2025.

Bigelow, Bill. The Line between Us: Teaching about the Border and Mexican Immigration. Rethinking Schools, 2006.

Bronstein, Scott, et al. "Border Wall Breached 9,000 Times. Does It Even Work?" CNN, 16 Feb. 2017, www.cnn.com/2017/02/16/politics/gao-border-wall/index.html. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025.

“CBP Releases December 2024 Monthly Update.” US Customs and Border Protection, 14 Jan. 2025, www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/cbp-releases-december-2024-monthly-update. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025.

Gonzalez-Barrera, Ana, and Jens Manuel Krogstad. "What We Know about Illegal Immigration from Mexico." Pew Research Center, 28 June 2019, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/02/what-we-know-about-illegal-immigration-from-mexico/. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025.

Guerette, Rob T. Migrant Death: Border Safety and Situational Crime Prevention on the US-Mexico Divide. LFB Scholarly Publishing, 2007.

Hill, Jessica. "Fact Check: Biden Executive Order Halts Border Wall Construction, Redirects Funding." USA Today, 3 Feb. 2021, www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/02/03/fact-check-joe-biden-executive-order-trump-border-wall-construction/4337994001/. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025.

Holley, Peter. "Trump Proposes a Border Wall. But There Already Is One, and It Gets Climbed Over." The Washington Post, 2 Apr. 2016, www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/04/02/shocking-video-shows-suspected-drug-smugglers-easily-crossing-u-s-mexico-border/. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025.

Holpuch, Amanda. "What Exactly Is Trump's Border Wall and Why Does He Want $5.7 Billion For It?" The Guardian, 15 Jan. 2019, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/15/trump-mexico-border-wall-status-migrants. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025.

Krogstad, Jens Manuel, et al. "5 Facts about Illegal Immigration in the US." Pew Research Center, 12 June 2019, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/27/5-facts-about-illegal-immigration-in-the-u-s/. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025.

Merchant, Nomaan. "US Prepares to Start Building Portion of Texas Border Wall." AP News, 4 Feb. 2019, apnews.com/e653d5a305114835bb399e480ac44ab8. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025.

Rodgers, Lucy, and Dominic Bailey. "Trump Wall: How Much Has He Actually Built?" BBC News, 31 Oct. 2020, www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46824649. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025.

Romero, Fernando. Hyperborder: The Contemporary US-Mexico Border and Its Future. Princeton Architectural Press, 2008.

Simon, Johnny. "To Understand Trump's Speech, Look at the US-Mexico Border As It Exists Today." Quartz, 20 July 2022, qz.com/1517907/what-the-us-mexico-border-wall-actually-looks-like-right-now/. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025.

"Smart Wall Frequently Asked Questions." US Customs and Border Protection, 24 Oct. 2025, www.cbp.gov/border-security/border-wall/border-wall-system-frequently-asked-questions. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025.

Yousif, Nadine. "Six Big Immigration Changes Under Trump—and Their Impact So Far." BBC News, 27 Jan. 2025, www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyn2p8x2eyo. Accessed 30 Nov. 2025.



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