Tonight, President Trump addressed the nation, with the primary focus being the completion of a southern border wall. I say completion as some wall already exists, but as those who live near the southern border know, there are many gaps along the southern border. Immediately following President Trump’s speech, US Senator Chuck Schumer issued a rebuttal calling a wall “ineffective.”
Leaving politics aside; is a wall ineffective? I’ve heard this argument time, and time again. Mostly from those in politics that a wall doesn’t stop illegal immigration. Is it true? Well in the context of talking about ‘just a border wall’, yes it would be true. If we, or anyone for that matter simply installed a wall, that alone would be ineffective at combating illegal immigration.
As a Law Enforcement Officer, security is something for which I am very familiar, and here is the problem with the ‘ineffective’ argument. Security is not a singular implementation of a device or barrier. It’s layered. Lets take your home for example. Your home is first constructed of four exterior walls. Established in at least one of those walls is a door. That door provides access control – a controlled entry and exit point for which people are forced to use. The door is also equipped with locking mechanisms. Next, your home may also be equipped with a alarm system, which allows for the security of your home to be continually monitored – even remotely. Your home might even be equipped with surveillance systems allowing the home to be viewed both internally, and externally. As a home owner, you may also have a firearm, less lethal weapon, or a dog as part of your security measures.
Your home security still doesn’t stop there. Your neighborhood may implement a neighborhood watch. Finally, you pay taxes. Those taxes fund police officers, firefighters, and EMTs. All of these systems are in place to help secure your home. It goes beyond just those four walls. It is layered, with each layer not only taking responsibility for a part of the security plan, but other layers offering fail safes in case a layer fails.
The border security is much the same way. It does not simply use Border Patrol Agents. Nor do the Border Patrol Agents simply not patrol the areas with a wall. The security at the border is layered with several different systems in use to monitor and secure the border. If security at the border is already layered, why do we need a wall? As I said in the opening of this post , yes, there are some walls at the border; but they are ineffective in their current implementation. The border wall as it sits now is ineffective because of the many known gaps. Those gaps – which represent a large portion of the southern border (1,279 miles unfenced as of 2019), allow for the free and unchecked entry of immigrants. Yes, there are Border Patrol Agents, but that layer cannot effectively patrol such a large, unchecked border.
If you’re still wondering, will a border wall be effective, there are many examples all over the world where physical barriers were installed at borders, the best example being Israeli’s West Bank Barrier Wall. Their wall is 440 miles and was started in 2000. Between 2000 and 2003, which when the first continuous segment was completed, suicide bombings fell from 73 to 12. The wall itself also uses many layers of security to protect the border, from intrusion detection technology, to anti-vehicle ditches. It is also patrolled by the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces).
So are walls effective? Yes, as a part of a security protocol, they are, and history has shown this. Don’t believe so? I bet your house still has a door.
Shield273 