Illegal Immigration Dropped 80 Percent in El Paso Due to Border Wall, Border Chief Says
Kyle Perisic, American Military News, February 28, 2020
Illegal immigration in one area of Texas has dropped more than 80 percent thanks to the new border wall system that includes multiple layers of fencing, roads, lights, and extra personnel, the acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection Mark Morgan told Congress on Thursday.
Speaking at the House Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee on the Fiscal Year 2021 budget, Morgan said, “We’ve seen apprehensions and illegal entries and gotaways all being reduced by over 80% in that 20-mile stretch,” referring to a portion of the wall near El Paso, Texas.
Morgan said the new system allows border agents to spot where illegal entries happen faster and make arrests or force the illegal immigrants to retreat back to Mexico.
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Some critics question the effectiveness of the wall, which border officials have frequently had to dismiss as inaccurate.
“It’s not that it’s impenetrable. But it does deny and impede long enough for Border Patrol agents to actually get there to do the apprehension and interdiction. And it works,” Morgan said.
The Trump administration is requesting $2 billion for additional wall funding for the 2021 fiscal year. Trump has also allocated $10 billion from the Pentagon into building the wall for the past two years.
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