President Donald Trump is obsessed with illegal immigrants who, in his opinion, are threats to the United States and wants to control their entry. Many of these unwanted elements include drug smugglers who enter via Mexico and he wants to plug those routes. Therefore he feels there is a need for a permanent US-Mexico Border Wall even though such walls and fencing are existing in certain places. It was a promise he had made during his presidential campaign, and he is pursuing it.
Daily Mail UK reports that an initial funding of $3 billion would go towards making portions of the existing walls stronger.
They could be modeled based on the prototypes that are 30-foot-tall and will add to the safety of America.
The tentative plan
During his campaign, Donald Trump had expected Mexico would fund the project but, according to indications, that is not likely to happen and taxpayers will have to bear the burden of funding the US-Mexico border wall. The initial funds would be used to acquire private land in the Rio Grande Valley in south Texas and acquire materials like steel.
The tentative plan is to construct 60 miles of new steel bollard fencing along the border with 2018 funding and another 64 miles with 2019 funding. The objective is to control the entry of illegal immigrants into the United States because they include drug smugglers.
There are gaps created by natural barriers and unauthorized persons use these apart from gaps in the walls and fencings and Trump wants to end that.
History of the border wall
Donald Trump is not the first President who is keen to tighten border security. Mexico became independent in 1824 and it was only a century later that the US Border Patrol was born.
One of its tasks was to check the entry of illegal immigrants from Mexico to the United States. The usual practice used to be simple pat-downs because most of them were poor and were in search of a livelihood. They would enter through wire fences. However, over a period of time, the security measures were tightened to check the entry of drug smugglers.
If one goes by a story in the Texas Tribune, there was an initial drop in the arrest of illegal people after Trump took over, but it is again increasing. The Rio Grande Valley is now the busiest sector for such illegal entry, and the Trump administration has rightly planned to plug that area.
An agent involved in human trafficking has revealed that there are Border Patrol agents or customs official who will look the other way in exchange of some consideration. The proposed US-Mexico border wall may not be of much help to stop drug smuggling either because those who smuggle drugs use drones or catapults or cannons or even the mail to send the contraband across the border.
