The Mexico-U.S. Border Wall

Annie

Reading — Advanced Level
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Activity

Read the text and answer the questions

The Mexico–United States barrier, also known as the Border Wall, is a series of vertical barriers along the Mexico–United States border. They were built in 1994 in an effort to prevent illegal immigration crossings from Mexico into the United States and the illegal trafficking of drugs. Between the physical barriers, security is provided by a "virtual fence" of sensors, cameras, and other surveillance equipment used to dispatch United States Border Patrol agents to suspected migrant crossings.

As of January 2009, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported that it had more than 930 km of barriers in place. The total length of the continental border is 3,145 km and traverses a variety of terrains, including urban areas and deserts. The barrier is located on both urban and uninhabited sections of the border, areas where the most concentrated numbers of illegal crossings and drug trafficking have been observed in the past. These urban areas include San Diego, California and El Paso, Texas.

Throughout his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump called for the construction of a much larger and fortified border wall, claiming that if elected, he would "build the wall and make Mexico pay for it." Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has said his country would not pay for the wall. On January 25, 2017, the Trump administration signed Executive Order 13767, which formally directed the US government to begin attempting to construct a border wall using existing federal funding, although actual construction of a wall did not begin at this time due to the large expense and lack of clarity on how it would be paid for. From December 22, 2018 to January 25, 2019, the federal government was partially shut down due to Trump's declared intention to veto any spending bill that did not include $5 billion in funding for a border wall.
Source: Wikipedia
  1. Does a physical barrier exist along the entirety of the US-Mexico border?
  2. According to the article, where is drug trafficking from Mexico to the United States the most common?
  3. Who built the Border Wall?
  4. Why was the Border Wall built?
  5. Why was Trump unable to begin the wall he wanted to start constructing in January, 2017?
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Discussion

Practice your writing skills by discussing the questions below

  1. Do you think the Border Wall will ever stop illegal immigration to the United States? Explain.
  2. Do you think a border wall will ever be built to stretch the length of the US-Mexico border?
  3. What is the most effective method to preventing illegal immigration (in your opinion)?
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    Vocabulary

      • a fence or other obstacle that prevents movement or access
      • wholly directed to one thing; intense
      • a device which detects or measures a physical property and records, indicates, or otherwise responds to it
      • a constitutional right to reject a decision or proposal made by a lawmaking body
      • not physically existing as such but made by software to appear to do so

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