Immigration Issues in America by Michelle Denton

Author:Michelle Denton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Greenhaven Publishing LLC

Fences are only a small part of security along America’s southern border. Cameras and motion sensors help Border Patrol officials guard places where effective fences are hard to build.

Because of the length of America’s borders— 5,525 miles (8,892 km) of border with Canada and 1,933 miles (3,111 km) with Mexico—it is impossible to guard the whole thing at one time.

When Donald Trump campaigned for president, he promised to build one long wall across the entire border with Mexico. Some people supported this plan because they believed it would improve border security and stop the flow of illegal drugs and guns as well as unauthorized immigrants. However, others have opposed it, saying that such a wall would be too expensive to build and maintain, would not have any measurable effect on the illegal drug and gun trades, and would not halt most illegal immigration. Additionally, environmental workers have expressed concern about the problems a continuous wall would cause for plants and wildlife in the area.

At over $18 billion per year, the U.S. government’s budget for immigration enforcement totals more than the budgets of most of its other prime law enforcement agencies combined. In 2012, the Border Patrol employed over 21,000 agents. With the lowest starting salary being $38,619 per year, the U.S. government is paying at least $811 million to staff of the Mexican and Canadian borders every year. Some of the rest is spent on the high cost of prosecuting unauthorized immigrants, of which there were 85,458 in 2012.

Operation Streamline is a project started in 2006 to arrest and convict, rather than deport, border crossers. It has swamped courts in the Southwest with immigration-related cases, spending tax dollars to incarcerate people who were once deported. About $1.87 billion was spent in 2014 on the housing of imprisoned unauthorized immigrants, and $1.71 billion of that cost was shouldered by state taxes.

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