U.S. Border Patrol agents ride ATVs alongside an unfinished portion of a border wall between Ciudad Juarez in Mexico and Santa Teresa in the United States on April 17, 2018. Walls and sensors can only do so much to prevent illegal crossings over America's southern border.
As the longest government shutdown in U.S. history drags on, one bone of contention is hogging all of the headlines: The U.S. border with Mexico. Discussions of the threat posed by an unsecured frontier and of the efficacy of border walls and other security measures have sparked fierce debate over how best to secure the boundary. Because the topic has spawned a great deal of interest – and perhaps just as much misinformation – a discussion of these issues is timely. Evaluating the Threat U.S. President Donald Trump's administration created quite a stir when it attempted to frame the border issue as a crisis, citing the apprehension of many "terrorist suspects" at the border. But the numbers, quite simply, do not support the claim; indeed, no one who has illegally crossed the U.S.
