June 13, 2019
Making the Case to the President
In 2019, Victor Kiani wrote to the White House on immigration, supporting the administration's goal while challenging its method.
The goal is sound. Border security and a working rule of law are legitimate priorities, and the executive has a responsibility to pursue them. The method is where the case breaks down.
A border wall is among the most expensive ways to buy security and among the least effective. Cartels route around fixed barriers about as fast as they rise, through tunnels, drones, boats, and the ports of entry themselves; and the larger share of unlawful presence begins not at the border but with visa overstays, which a wall does nothing to address. On cost-effectiveness, the case for it collapses.
The same money, aimed at the actual points of failure, buys far more: inspection and surveillance technology at the ports of entry, enough immigration judges to clear a multi-year asylum backlog, financial pressure on the cartels rather than their footpaths, and legal pathways that reduce the incentive to cross unlawfully in the first place.
