Leaving aside the semantic difference between a wall and a fence, Trump is correct that fencing in San Diego, for example, significantly reduced "illegal traffic" when originally built decades ago. It also pushed border-crossers east, away from coastal San Diego, to areas where the fencing is less robust. Partly as a result, thousands have perished trying to trek through deserts and mountains.
The other locales Trump mentioned do have many miles of existing fencing that is being replaced or strengthened. To date, the fencing is a hodge-podge of projects covering about 650 miles.
In November, the government announced a $324 million contract for 32 miles of "primary pedestrian replacement wall" in Arizona.
A 20-mile border wall replacement project in Santa Teresa, N.M., was announced in April 2018. The cost is reported to be $73.3 million.
A 6-mile "levee wall system" is set for construction in Texas's Rio Grande Valley beginning in February 2019. It will cost $145 million.
A 14-mile "border wall construction project" along the border in San Diego was announced in June 2018. The project actually will replace an "eight-to-10 foot high scrap metal wall with an 18-to-30 foot bollard-style wall topped off with an anti-climbing plate." The cost will be $147 million.
The dramatic declines in "illegal traffic," as the president put it, appear to reflect the long term impact of fencing and other factors that go back to the 1990s.
The larger picture is more complicated. Border apprehensions — an indicator of overall unauthorized border crossings — have declined since 2000 when monthly totals were as high as 220,000. That same year 1.6 million unauthorized border-crossers were detained.
U.S. Seeing Lowest Level Of Unauthorized Immigrants In A Decade, Pew Study Says
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U.S. Seeing Lowest Level Of Unauthorized Immigrants In A Decade, Pew Study Says
Spending on border protection, on technology as well as on personnel, climbed under both presidents Bush and Obama.
In FY 18, which ended in September, 521,090 people were apprehended at southwest border.
At the same time, monthly apprehensions are climbing. More than 51,000 people were captured at the southwest border in November, 2018. That's a 78 percent increase over the same period last year. Yet it still far lower than the monthly totals in 2000.
