U.S.–Mexico Border Issues

The U.S.–Mexico border is 3,145 kilometers (1,954 miles) long. Rural areas and small towns are guarded by only a handful of agents. Crossing the border on foot legally is possible in several places. Elsewhere, the border runs mostly through sparsely inhabited regions.

The United States has constructed a barrier covering approximately one-fourth of the border (Figure 3-52). Several large urban areas are situated on the border, including San Diego, California, and Tijuana, Mexico, at the western end, and Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoros, Mexico, at the eastern end. Driving across the border in the urban areas can be fraught with heavy traffic and delays.

U.S.–Mexico Border Fence, Arizona

A joint U.S.–Mexican International Boundary and Water Commission is responsible for keeping official maps, on the basis of a series of nineteenth-century treaties. The commission is also responsible for marking the border by maintaining 276 6-foot-tall iron monuments erected in the late nineteenth century, as well as 440 15-inch-tall markers added in the 1970s. Actually locating the border is difficult in some remote areas.

Border Disputes

Americans are divided concerning whether unauthorized migration helps or hurts the country. This ambivalence extends to specific elements of immigration as reported by the Pew Hispanic Center:

• Border security. A majority of Americans would like more effective border patrols so that fewer unauthorized immigrants can get into the country. However a majority oppose spending money to build more fences along the border. Since 2010, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has deported an average of more than 300,000 unauthorized immigrants annually.

• Workplace. Most Americans recognize that unauthorized immigrants take jobs that no one else wants (Figure 3-53), so they support some type of work-related program to make them legal, and they oppose raids on workplaces in attempts to round up unauthorized immigrants. Most Americans support a path to U.S. citizenship for unauthorized immigrants.

• Civil rights. Americans favor letting law enforcement officials stop and verify the legal status of anyone they suspect of being an unauthorized immigrant. On the other hand, they fear that enforcement efforts that identify and deport unauthorized immigrants could violate the civil rights of both U.S. citizens and non-citizens.

• Local initiatives. Polls show that most Americans believe that enforcement of unauthorized immigration is a federal government responsibility and do not support the use of local law enforcement officials to find unauthorized immigrants. On the other hand, residents of some states along the Mexican border favor stronger enforcement of immigration laws.

Mexican Immigrants Harvest Celery, Niland, California

Diverse Border Crossings

The 67 border crossings between the United States and Mexico look very different depending on where one is trying to cross (Figure 3-54). Compare conditions for pedestrians and vehicles at different U.S–Mexico incoming border crossings.

U.S.–Mexico Border

What are the attractions and challenges of trying to cross the border at each of the four locations?

Pause & Reflect 3.4.3

Why at border crossings is traffic entering the United States backed up further than traffic entering Mexico?