Trump’s border wall will be pointless and ineffective

Perhaps nothing candidate Donald Trump said had more resonance than his pledge to build a wall along the entire U.S.Mexico border. He promised such a wall — paid for by Mexico — in his announcement speech in 2015. President Trump returned to the topic Monday, demanding that Democrats fund the wall in return for legislation that would save from deportation roughly 800,000 immigrants brought here as children.

But a recent investigative report by the USA TODAY Network shows how difficult — and potentially pointless — it would be to fulfill that promise. The report underscores the fact that the cost of building the wall would be high while its effects on illegal immigration would be minimal.

At present, virtually all of the border between Mexico and California, Arizona and New Mexico has some kind of barrier, though some will only stop vehicles.

In contrast, little of the Texas border has fencing. Apart from a few metropolitan areas such as El Paso, Del Rio, Laredo and the lower Rio Grande Valley, the Texas-Mexico border is a remote and hostile place. Its rugged terrain, punishing heat and absence of roads are a more effective barrier than anything man-made.

What’s more, the Texas border presents numerous technical issues. The border is formed by the Rio Grande River, which snakes its way through rocky and sometimes mountainous terrain. At the very least, the wall would have to be placed at some distance from the actual border, meaning that significant chunks of Texas would be in a kind of noman’s land between the United States and Mexico.

Virtually all of the land needed for a wall in Texas is in private hands, meaning it would have to be purchased at significant cost and face legal challenges from land owners. In 2006, when nearly 700 miles of border was earmarked for barriers as part of the Secure Fence Act, portions on public land moved forward while the private sections quickly bogged down in legal challenges.

In Texas, public lands along the border present their own challenges. The 118 miles of borderlands in Big Bend National Park, not including the adjacent Big Bend Ranch State Park, are known for their stunning desert vistas and vertiginous canyons — hardly the types of landscapes where a wall would make sense.

Though there might be places near towns and cities where existing fencing could be enhanced, a more effective route would be tougher enforcement in the workplace. Another approach might be to revisit a 2008 antitrafficking law that led to an increase in unaccompanied minors arriving from three Central American nations. For direct border security, increased personnel and the greater use of surveillance drones would be more effective than fixed barriers.

The simple reality is that illegal immigration is becoming less and less of a problem. In the past decade, the population of undocumented immigrants has fallen from 12 million to 11 million.

And with the economy in its eighth year of recovery and showing some signs of picking up strength, actual labor shortages are beginning to appear.

Given that economic reality, the case for building Trump’s wall gets weaker by the day.

GREGORY BULL, AP Border Patrol vehicle at a mural near Tecate, Calif.