Trump's wall: a symbol of American stupidity

One of Trump's key election pledges was to build a wall between the US and Mexico and now that he has been elected, he has officially ordered the building of it. However, I am skeptical as to how it would stem the flow of illegal migrants - let's look at the logic behind the wall in the first place. The US-Mexico border is very long, stretching from the Pacific Ocean in the west to the Gulf of Mexico in the east - a total of 3201 km in length. There are already barriers (such as in the form of walls and fences, also the Rio Grande river marks part of the border) in some parts of this border, but in most areas there is nothing marking where Mexico ends and where the US begins. These are usually in the desert, far away from any towns and that's where a lot of illegal immigrants literally walk from Mexico into the US, it is actually a lot harder and more dangerous than it sounds, because it involves walking many miles in the desert, exposed to the elements and wild animals. Many migrants die in the process of attempting this crossing every year.

How to waste billions of dollars, by President Trump

Let's say for the purpose of the argument, that Trump does get his long border wall built (eventually). The US government somehow finds the money to build it and it is there for the full length of the Mexican-American border: whilst some Trump supporters may see that as a great symbol of American pride, would this wall actually stop illegal migrants from Mexico and other countries crossing over that border? The answer is no, here are some reasons why.

1. Wall or no wall, you can't shut the border: ever heard of forged documents?

Currently, there are approximately 350 million people crossing that border annually - this is the world's busiest border. We're talking about those with passports and the right visas crossing that border. Plenty of trade flows between the two countries, loads of tourists from both countries cross that border and the prosperity of many American border towns like El Paso and San Diego do rely on their strategic position being right on the border with Mexico. With a wall in place, what that means is that instead of trying to walk across the desert into the US, illegal migrants will simply resort to purchasing fake documents on the black market to turn up at the border crossing and get themselves into the US. Any document can be forged these days and the fact is, many Mexicans do possess the right to live, study and work in the US legally. Are the US border guards going to be able to tell a real student visa from a high quality forgery? No, especially if the wall fuels an explosion in black market forgers who will be able to forge any visa or travel document you need to get you across that border (at the right price). Having traveled from Tijuana in Mexico to San Diego in California before, I can tell you that the queues to get into America is notoriously long (you can queue for hours) and border guards are under huge pressure to try to get people through as quickly as possible whilst still checking passports and documents. Sounds like a perfect opportunity for someone to slip in with a forged document.

The US border control authorities do not have an axe to grind with Mexicans who do have a valid visa to enter the US - trying to sort out the genuine visas from the fake ones is going to be more and more difficult. Furthermore, there is a black market out there for stolen passports: I was warned when traveling in north Africa to be extra careful as people would want to steal my passport. I look Chinese and hold a British passport, if say I was robbed of my passport, I would simply go to the British embassy to obtain emergency documents to travel home, whereupon I would apply for a new one. The one stolen from me would then be used over and over again by people smugglers trying to sneak illegal Chinese immigrants into Europe - the passport is genuine, it just wouldn't belong to the person traveling on it. How many of you don't quite look like your passport photo? Likewise, many tourists have their passports stolen from them whilst in Mexico - the thieves know a good passport can be used for several years to get many migrants into America.

There are plenty of forged and stolen passports out there.

2. They will just fly into America instead. 

There are plenty of airlines operating routes between the two countries, including an increasing number of budget airlines. With a wall in place, illegal migrants will simply board a plane with fake documents that they can obtain on the black market and easily fly into the US. Now the reason why this route hasn't been exploited as much is because the airlines can turn people away at the airport and not allow them to board the plane. If an illegal immigrant is refused entry into the US, then it is the responsibility of the airline to remove the person from US soil and return that person back to the point of origin (according to the Warsaw Covnention). Thus many people have the impression that most illegal migrants are deterred from this route because of the fear of eagle-eyed check in staff at airports who will scrutinize every details. Let me share with you what I did last year which made me realize this was not really the case.

Last year, I flew from Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic to Fort Lauderdale in Florida with Spirit Airlines - one of the many budget airlines popular in the US today. Not only did I check in online, I printed my own boarding pass and since I was only traveling with hand luggage, I didn't need to speak to anyone at the airport. It was only just as I was about to board the plane at the gate when a member of staff asked me, "sir, do you have your ESTA?" I didn't think they were going to check it till I got to America, so I rummaged through my hand luggage in a hurry and whipped out a piece of paper which I thought was my ESTA. Without so much as reading it, the bored airport employee seemed to have taken a cursory glance at it and waved me onto the plane. It was only when I got to my seat and was putting my things away that I realized that I had just shown her my AirBNB booking for Miami, Florida instead of my ESTA form.

It is remarkably easy to get an ESTA - you just go to the website, fill up a form and pay for it. And when I got to Fort Lauderdale, there was such a long queue that the tired looking customs officer didn't even say a word to me - he took a cursory look at my ESTA and stamped my passport without asking me any questions. Okay, I suppose because I am an Asian-looking tourist traveling on a British passport, maybe people like me don't arouse that much suspicion at airports, but I was amazed at how straight forward the process is and it wouldn't be that hard for illegal immigrants to simply fly into the US this way. All you do is pay for a fake (or stolen) passport and obtain forged travel documents, the worst case scenario is that you get turned away at an airport somewhere in central America - now that's a lot better and safer than getting lost in the Sonora desert and dying of thirst whilst trying to walk into the US from Mexico.

3. There is a long border with Canada as well.

The Canadian-US border is 8,891 km long, that makes it 2.77 times longer than the Mexican-US border. There are hardly any fences, never mind walls to mark where the border is and often, this border is in heavily forested regions, far away from the nearest town. An illegal immigrant could fly into a Canadian border town as a tourist, then literally walk over from Canada into the US in one of the more remote parts of the border because this border is so long and is hardly patrolled apart from at major crossing points. Americans simply don't worry about Canadians 'sneaking' into the US as Canada is by far a better country (let's face it: Trudeau vs Trump - I can indeed make a statement like that). And besides, relatively few illegal migrants actually try to use this route because of Canada's isolation, with only land borders with the US and Greenland some distance across the icy Baffin bay. And most that border is barely patrolled.

You can just stroll from Canada into the US in most places.

Another reason why this is not done often is the cost - it goes way beyond the cost of a one way flight from say Mexico City to Toronto. In order to procure a tourist visa to Canada, the Mexican will have to book a return ticket, have a hotel reservation, maybe some tours booked whilst in Canada and on top of that, they often have to show bank statements, pay slips from an employer etc to demonstrate that they have a life in Mexico that they wish to return to. The latter (bank statements, pay slips etc) can easily be forged (but you've gotta pay those forgers a lot of money) and the full price of a Canadian holiday is something really only middle and upper class Mexicans can afford - those who want to enter the US as illegal migrants simply cannot find that kind of money and that's why the resort to trying to cross the land border with Mexico. This is a much safer but far more expensive route. Those who are desperate however, will beg, borrow and steal the money to use this route if the wall means there isn't a cheaper alternative anymore.

4. Tunnels already exist under the current border

Did you know that currently, there are tunnels used by smugglers under the current border? Have a read of this Wikipedia page on smugglers' tunnels: they have existed all over the world and some of them are pretty outrageous, like the one between Ukraine and Slovakia. This 700 meter tunnel came complete with a narrow gauge railway and was used to smuggle cigarettes into the European Union. Since 1990, over 200 tunnels between the US and Mexico have been found by the authorities - but how many actually exist? No one knows. So far, these tunnels are mostly used to smuggle drugs into the US because these tunnels are expensive to dig and so are reserved for discretely smuggling drugs: the emergence of a group of illegal migrants from the other end of the tunnel in America usually gives away the location of the tunnel. Some of these tunnels are very low-tech whilst others are stunningly well built. But imagine if a wall is built, there will then be a demand for a deeper, safer tunnel designed for smuggling illegal immigrants and with far fewer ways to cross the border you can be sure many more people will build these tunnels.

You can then say, okay, just make sure the wall goes deep underground, put in deep concrete foundations that go down many meters to ensure that the wall is impenetrable both over and under. May I remind you that the Mexico-US border is 3201 km long. So not only do you want the longest wall in the world, you want it to go how deep underground for the full stretch of it? It does get to a point where the sheer logistics of the perfect, impenetrable wall becomes totally impossible to achieve. When tunnels are discovered by the authorities, the smugglers simply build another one. The border is so incredibly long, it is a game of cat and mouse you're unlikely to ever win and given the way Trump has been pissing off the Mexicans, he's unlikely to expect much cooperation from them at a time when he needs it most.

5. Anyone can be bribed. People are corrupt. 

I refer you back to the incident at Santo Domingo airport where I showed the airport employee the wrong piece of paper and was still waved onto the plane. In my opinion, that was just a case of shocking incompetence. She looked incredibly bored and half asleep and okay, let's be honest: haven't we all made mistakes at work when we're bored and sleepy? But it does illustrate an important point: you can design the most elaborate and complicated visa system to verify the authenticity of travelers (such as the US ESTA system) but it is still down to individuals on the ground, working in places like airports and border crossings to enforce them. By that token, it is possible to bribe people within the system to look the other way when an individual (or a group of migrants) attempt to make a crossing with forged documents - after all, even if the mistake is realized later, the bribed officer and simply say, "I made an honest mistake, I'm at the end of a long shift and I'm not feeling well, that's why I didn't notice the details." Humans are greedy and people who work in airports and border crossings are not paid a lot - put the two together and corruption will flourish.

Can you bribe someone to make a mistake when checking documents?

5. Political rhetoric and symbolism vs plausible solutions. 

The beauty of a wall is that it will appeal to very dumb Americans who are racist and xenophobic, it will however, not appeal to those who realize that illegal immigration is a problem that has to be dealt with in a more practical way. People will find their ways around the wall one way or another. A far more sensible solution would be for the US to improve ties with Mexico - rather than building a wall to stop the immigration, the US should pour far more investments into Mexico and improve conditions there, create more jobs there so Mexicans will no longer be compelled to move to the US as illegal immigrants to escape poverty. Currently, the US gives a relatively modest amount of aid to Mexico and that is mostly earmarked for the environment, human rights or democracy - if the US can work with Mexico and transform Mexico into a much more prosperous country for the next 20 - 30 years, then that would create a long term solution to the problem. Think of how much development you can do in Mexico if you invested US$8 billion directly into Mexico - educating the youths, creating jobs and opportunities, making sure the next generation of Mexicans want to build their futures in Mexico instead of believing that their own route to a bright future lies north of the border.

But no Trump's rhetoric has been one of isolation: make America great again, put America first. If you're not American, you're the enemy, you're the outsider, you're not one of us. So with that kind of government in place, Trump isn't interested in helping Mexico or building relationships with his neighbour, he's far more interested in appealing to a section of his supporters who are far more keen to see a wall built rather than find any long term solution to the problem.However, if Trump were to break this promise on building a wall, well that would be seen as a sign of weakness or he would have to admit that he was wrong about the wall in the first place. Many have thought that it was one of those crazy things he's promised because he didn't actually think he'd get into the White House and would then have to deliver on those outrageous promises. And sady, no one in his inner circle has the guts to tell him he's wrong. 

Do you wanna work with Mexico or just piss them off?

But wait, uno momento por favor: no hay el dinero para el muro!

This wall is highly unlikely to be built in the near future without secure funding for it. Yes there have been crazy dictators commission some pretty outrageous monuments and vanity projects in the past, such as the incomplete 105-storey high Ryugyong hotel in Pyongyang, North Korea or the massive Casa Poporului built by Ceausecu in Bucharest, Romania and the giant, rotating, gold statue of Supramurat Niyazov, former ruler of Turkmenistan in the capital Ashgabat. If only Trump would have been satisfied with building a gold statue of himself in Manhattan, anything would be cheaper than trying to build this fucking wall. Now Trump has announced that he was going to use an import tax on Mexican goods to pay for this wall - but then again, that's not the same as making Mexico pay for the wall. Instead, he's punishing Americans who are choosing to buy Mexican imports and they are the ones who are paying for the wall.

This is just so wrong on so many levels: firstly, Trump claimed that Mexico was going to pay for the wall. Well, they have said no, so now instead he's going to make Americans who are buying Mexican imports to pay for the wall. A flat 20% tax may raise a lot of money very quickly, but that is still money coming from consumers in America rather than Mexico. The fact is, short of threatening to invade Mexico or send a nuclear missile south of the border and blow up one of Mexico's bigger cities, America really has very limited options when it comes to holding Mexico to ransom when it comes to procuring any money out of them for this wall. It has been pointed out that 81% of Mexico's exports goes to the US, so it could be Trump trying to flex his muscles and telling Mexico, "I could bring you to your knees, you need us, now play ball bitch!" However, the trade relationship between the US and Mexico is far more complex than that.

"Mexico will not pay for that fucking wall"

The American car industry relies on the cheaper labour costs in Mexico to assemble their cars but the complex components are manufactured in the US. So some parts of the car are made in America, transported to Mexico and assembled there before being imported back into the US for American consumers. That works well for the car industry and keeps prices low for American consumers who love their cars. However, in trying to disrupt this process. Donald Trump is going to slap a 20% import tax on goods that flow north from Mexico. That would make many American cars 20% more expensive because they were assembled in Mexico. Trump's long term plans would be to try to get these car-assembly line jobs back to the US, but would workers in Chicago or Detroit be willing to work for as little as those in a Mexican factory? Of course not. American cars made in America are going to cost a lot more than those actually made south of the border - either way, the American consumer loses out when the price of their next car rises by at least 20%. If you're one of those lower-income Americans struggling to make ends meet, well, a price hike of  >20% is going to hurt pretty bad. Talk is cheap, are you willing to pay +20% more for your goods in the name of patriotism? 

The irony is that Trump is going to go after the very people who are not responsible for the problem of illegal immigration from Mexico: he will go after Mexicans who are studying, working and living in the US legally (as well as Mexican tourists who visit the US legally) and impose all kinds of taxes on them to try to regain the cost of the wall. Whilst those who are in the US illegally will be able to dodge such taxes. Go figure. It doesn't make sense, it is counterproductive - a sensible American president would say to Mexicans: we welcome you if you come to our country legally, please follow the rules and obey the laws, let's respect each other. But what will happen, is that those who follow the rules are punished and he is indirectly encouraging them to break the rules and find other ways to come to the US. Trump is merely going after the lowest hanging-fruit rather than addressing the root of the problem - it shows that he has no idea what he is doing as this is merely going to breed a lot more resentment, making things a lot worse.

Trump is heading down the wrong way on this issue.

Likewise, so much trade flows between the two countries: this is all completely legal of course and people on both sides of the border benefit from this trade. But because this is legal, Trump goes after it and slaps a huge tax on it to raise money for his wall because it is a low-hanging fruit, an easy target for him. He is punishing the wrong people: those who are making goods legally in Mexico and creating jobs in Mexico. By disrupting their livelihood, he will drive those obeying the law out of business whilst encouraging others to break the law by smuggling their goods into the US to dodge these taxes. There is a sinister twist of course to it: if you're going to smuggle something across the border, you won't bother smuggling low value items like fruits and vegetables, no you'll be smuggling mostly drugs. Trump's wall could lead to a lot more Mexican drugs flowing into America. The wall will do little to stop the smuggling.

Finally, yes I recognized that undocumented illegals are a major problem in America, as it is in so many other rich countries around the world as well. However, the solution is not to build the most expensive wall in the world that will not solve the problem: no the problem is punishing those who are using illegal migrants as workers. There needs to be extremely stiff penalties, even jail time, for those caught knowingly employing illegal migrant workers. Once you make it very hard for illegal immigrants to obtain any kind of paid employment, they will no longer feel that America is the land of opportunity for them if they have simply no means of making ends meet in America. It may sound cruel but what alternative is there? But by the same token, you do need to keep the door open for skilled migrants to come to America so you encourage people to follow the rules because the whole situation will be far easier to manage if more people simply obeyed the law, knowing the outcome will be much better for them that way. Is there a better alternative?

Migrants make America stronger, not weaker.

This is such a complicated issue - I could go on, but there is a series of articles on the BBC about this which are very well written and if you still can't get enough of this fucking wall shambles, then I suggest you have a read there. Oh and it's a hashtag now, #fuckingwall as first coined by former Mexican president Vicente Fox. "Mexico is not going to pay for that fucking wall. #Fuckingwall" So you get the idea, Trump's going to tax the American public to fund the building of the wall whilst not really having a game plan to make Mexico pay for it, whilst not realizing that most of the illegal immigrants from Mexico entered the US through completely legal means and then simply overstayed their visas, not by illicit border-crossing that Trump's wall could stop. I'd stop here. Many thanks for reading. Muchas gracias.