{"id":13170,"date":"2024-03-17T13:30:32","date_gmt":"2024-03-17T13:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=13170"},"modified":"2024-03-17T13:30:34","modified_gmt":"2024-03-17T13:30:34","slug":"zero-illegal-crossings-is-an-unattainable-goal-for-the-border","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=13170","title":{"rendered":"‘Zero Illegal Crossings’ Is an Unattainable Goal for the Border"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“The U.S. government, for all the money and agents it’s thrown at the border over the past several decades, has never been able to practically “shut down the border” or achieve zero illegal crossings (all the legal<\/a>issues<\/a> with those proposals aside).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2003 and January 2021, the U.S. has spent $333 billion to fund the agencies tasked with immigration enforcement, according<\/a> to the American Immigration Council, a pro-immigration nonprofit. The budgets for those agencies have been rising<\/a> for years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But more enforcement money hasn’t necessarily led to lower illegal crossings. As budgets have gone up, apprehensions of people who crossed the border between authorized ports of entry have gone up, down, and remained static. In other words, they don’t cleanly align: Though Customs and Border Protection reported<\/a> 2.05 million apprehensions in FY 2023, it reported somewhat close to that number\u2014over 1.5 million\u2014in FY 2000. Annual apprehensions hovered below 500,000 from FY 2010 through FY 2018.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The U.S.-Mexico border stretches nearly 2,000 miles, much of it treacherous. No matter the funding and no matter the enforcement mandate, there’s no way that agents could stop every illegal crosser traversing the deserts, mountains, and waters that make up the border region. That’s proven impossible along much smaller and more surveilled borders, such as the boundaries of East Germany<\/a> and North Korea<\/a>.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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‘Zero Illegal Crossings’ Is an Unattainable Goal for the Border<\/a><\/blockquote>