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A standoff over funding for President Donald Trump's long-promised border wall has resulted in the longest-ever shutdown of the US government.
Mr Trump argues $5.7bn (£4.5bn) is needed to address a "humanitarian and security crisis" at the southern border and has warned the shutdown will continue until he gets the cash.

Democrats say the wall is a waste of taxpayers' money and accuse the Trump administration of a "manufactured crisis".

Here are seven charts and maps that try to explain where we are with the wall and what the situation is like at the US-Mexico border.

1. Trump hasn't built very much of his wall

Before Mr Trump took office, there were 654 miles (just over 1,000km) of barrier along the southern border - made up of 354 miles of barriers to stop pedestrians and 300 miles of anti-vehicle fencing.

In the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, Mr Trump promised to build a wall along the border's entire 2,000-mile length.

He later clarified that it would only cover half of that - with nature, such as mountains and rivers, helping to take care of the rest.

But, since Mr Trump entered the White House, although some of the already existing barriers have been replaced, no construction on any extension to the wall has yet been started.

Sixteen ways the US shutdown is hurting

Is there a crisis on the US-Mexico border?

Six charts on the immigrants who call the US home

Six things that could topple the border wall

Overall, Congress has so far approved $1.7bn in funding for 124 miles of new and replacement barrier since Mr Trump entered the White House.

Just over 40 miles of replacement barriers have been built or begun. Construction is expected to start on 61 more miles of replacement barrier in 2019. This equates to new sections of about 15% of existing structures.

The first construction on any extension to the existing structures - what could be termed new barrier - will start in February in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas.

The twin projects will cover a total of 14 miles - one barrier stretching six miles and the other eight miles.

Despite Mr Trump's continued determination to see a wall along the border, a survey this month by the Pew Research Center suggests the majority of Americans - 58% - oppose substantially expanding it, while 40% support it.

2. No-one really knows how much it would cost

A number of widely different estimates for a concrete wall have been put forward by official and unofficial bodies - ranging from $12bn to $70bn.

Mr Trump's initial price tag of between $8bn and $12bn (£6.4bn and £9.7bn) for a wall covering half the length of the border was widely disputed.

The 650 miles of fencing built under President George W Bush cost an estimated $7bn, and it could not be described as fulfilling Mr Trump's promises of a "tall, powerful, beautiful" barrier.

However, Mr Trump is now asking for $5.7bn in addition to the $1.7bn already allocated for new and replacement barriers.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) previously estimated a wall spanning half the border would cost up to $25bn, but it has now said it is still looking at options to determine the price tag.

US Customs and Border Protection (CPB) says that, on average, it costs approximately $6.5m per mile to construct a new border wall or replace existing legacy fence.

3. Trump wanted concrete, but is now talking about steel

Mr Trump has changed his view of what constitutes a wall.

His promise to build a "big, beautiful wall" between the US and Mexico was a rallying cry throughout his election campaign. And early on, when he described it, he talked about concrete.

But once elected, he began talking about a barrier made of steel, so that border agents could see through it.

And in October 2017, when the Trump administration revealed eight 30ft-tall wall prototypes - they were a combination of concrete and metal.

Since December, Mr Trump has said he does not want to build a concrete wall at all, but instead wants "artistically-designed steel slats".

And just before the government shutdown, he tweeted an image of the design of his "steel slat barrier", which he said was "totally effective while at the same time beautiful".

Officials at the US Customs and Border Protection agency have said none of the Trump administration prototypes tested in 2017 met its operational requirements.

However, they did provide "valuable data" to help select design elements in the future, they added.

4. The number of apprehensions at the southern border has declined over time

Mr Trump said in a national address in early January that a wall was needed to stem a "growing humanitarian and security crisis at our southern border", involving "thousands of illegal immigrants".

In exchanges with House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, Mr Trump also said that people were "pouring into our country".

However, figures show that illegal border crossings have seen an overall decline since 2000.

In 2000, 1.6 million people were arrested trying to cross the border illegally, while last year that number was just under 400,000.

In 2017, Mr Trump's first year in office, they were the lowest they had been since 1971.

Every congressperson along the southern border opposes the border wall, arguing it would not improve security.

"I think building a concrete structure sea to shining sea is the most expensive and least effective way to do border security," said Republican Will Hurd, who represents more of the southern border than any other member of Congress.

5. But arrests and asylum claims did rise again between 2017 and 2018

Between 2017 and 2018, arrests - the number of people apprehended by authorities - on the Mexico-US border rose by about 100,000 and asylum claims rose by about 16,000 - up 43%.

Among these groups were a rising number of families fleeing violence in Central America and surrendering themselves to US authorities at the border. Many have told officials that they fear returning to their home countries.

Some have blamed the decision to slash the number of refugees allowed into the US under the Refugee Admissions Program for the rise in such claims for asylum at the border.

To apply for refugee status in the US, foreign nationals must obtain permission to enter the country before travelling, but those arriving at the US border are able to claim asylum "defensively" to prevent them from being deported back to a situation of "credible fear".

Such claims are then referred to the Asylum Officers of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services.

And despite Mr Trump's claims, any new border barrier is unlikely to stop these migrants legally claiming asylum at a port of entry.

6. Most illegal immigration is from visa 'overstayers', not people crossing the border

Although Mr Trump has blamed the southern border for illegal immigration, most actually arises because people overstay their visas.

While almost 400,000 people were apprehended trying to cross the southern border illegally last year, more than 700,000 people who entered the US legally overstayed their expected departure date in 2018, according to the DHS.

Canadians were the highest group of overstayers, according to DHS figures, followed by Mexicans and Brazilians (it should be noted that the majority of Canadians and Mexicans enter the US by land, and the DHS Overstay Report only provides air and sea overstay rates).

Although the number of overstayers overall dropped to around 420,000 in May 2018 - it was still more than the number of people arrested trying to enter illegally via the Mexico-US border.

7. The wall is unlikely to stop drugs coming into the US

Mr Trump has claimed 90% of heroin comes across the southern border and that a wall would help the fight against drugs.

Nationwide heroin seizures reached 7,979kg in 2017, with 39% seized at the US-Mexico border, according to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

Most of the border seizures were in the San Diego corridor - approximately 1,073kg in 2017, a 59% increase on the previous year.

While most of the heroin in the US does come from Mexico, the DEA says the majority of it is smuggled in through legal ports of entry, hidden in privately-owned vehicles or transporter lorries, mixed with other goods.

Only a small percentage of the heroin seizures were between entry points - where barriers exist or are proposed.

In fact, there are already barriers in border patrol sectors with the highest volumes of heroin seizures.

Design by Sandra Rodriguez Chillida.

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A standoff over funding for President Donald Trump's long-promised border wall has resulted in the longest-ever shutdown of the US government. Mr Trump argues $5.7bn (£4.5bn) is needed to address a "humanitarian and security crisis" at the southern border and has warned the shutdown will continue until he gets the cash.

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Democratic and Republican politicians have sharply criticised President Trump's plan to use emergency powers to pay for a border wall with Mexico.

Mr Trump is due to declare the emergency shortly in an attempt to bypass Congress, which has refused to approve $5.7bn (£4.4bn) for the wall.

Senior Democrats accused the president of a "gross abuse of power". Several Republicans also voiced concern.

Building a border wall was a key pledge in Mr Trump's election campaign.

Declaring a national emergency would give Mr Trump access to billions of dollars for his project.

All you need to know about the US border in seven charts

Reaction to Trump's decision to declare national emergency

Can Trump use emergency powers to build wall?

Is there a crisis on the US-Mexico border?

The president agreed on Thursday to sign a spending bill that does not include finance for the wall. Disagreement over the issue led to a 35-day government shutdown early this year - the longest in US history.

The spending bill is due to be signed shortly to avert another shutdown. Citing unnamed White House officials, US media outlets reported that the president would sign the emergencies act at the same time.

Can Congress stop Trump's emergency move?

The National Emergencies Act contains a clause that allows Congress to terminate the emergency status if both houses vote for it - and the president does not veto.

With a comfortable majority in the House, Democrats could pass such a resolution to the Senate. The Republicans control the Senate, but a number of Republican senators have been vocal in their unease about the president invoking a national emergency.

The dissenting Republicans include 2012 presidential contender and new senator for Utah Mitt Romney, Florida senator Marco Rubio, and the senator from Maine Susan Collins, who said the move was of "dubious constitutionality".

The resolution would however still require Mr Trump's signature to pass, allowing him to veto it. A supermajority in both houses of Congress is needed to overturn a presidential veto.

What did the White House say?

"The president is once again delivering on his promise to build the wall, protect the border, and secure our great country," White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement on Thursday.

She said Mr Trump would "take other executive action - including a national emergency - to ensure we stop the national security and humanitarian crisis at the border".

The compromise legislation was approved in an 83-16 vote in the Senate on Thursday. The House of Representatives later also backed the measure, by 300 to 128.

The package includes $1.3bn in funding for border security, including physical barriers, but it does not allot money towards Mr Trump's wall.

Trump's border wall in seven charts

How much of the wall is built already?

Speaking on the Senate floor on Thursday, Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell indicated his support for the president's national emergency move, saying the president was taking action with "whatever tools he can legally use to enhance his efforts to secure the border". Trump faces anger over wall emergency plan

Image Copyright @PressSec @PressSec Report

Image Copyright @PressSec @PressSecReport

How have Democrats responded?

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer issued a strongly worded joint statement condemning the move.

"Declaring a national emergency would be a lawless act, a gross abuse of the power of the presidency and a desperate attempt to distract from the fact that President Trump broke his core promise to have Mexico pay for his wall," read the statement.

"He couldn't convince Mexico, the American people or their elected representatives to pay for his ineffective and expensive wall, so now he's trying an end-run around Congress in a desperate attempt to put taxpayers on the hook for it."

Ms Pelosi had already suggested that Democrats would mount a legal challenge.

Getting around Congress, not through it

A month ago, in the midst of the federal government shutdown crisis, a consensus had emerged that the easiest way out for the president was to back down from his demands for congressional border wall appropriations while declaring a "national emergency" to commandeer funds from other sources.

It took a while, but the path of least resistance is the one Donald Trump is following.

He has extricated himself from a predicament of his own making, while taking action that he can cite to supporters as evidence that he's fulfilling his "build the wall" campaign promise.

Of course, the drawbacks to this course that were apparent in January are still there.

Republicans fear this will set a precedent for presidential power that Democrats can someday use to circumvent the will of Congress.

The emergency declaration is sure to get bogged down in court challenges, which means it may not have much tangible benefit anytime soon.

And, as much as the president may like to spin this as a victory by other means, he still backed down in the face of Democratic resistance in Congress.

The shutdown fight was always about more than just the wall - it was a battle over who would set the political agenda for the next two years of the Trump presidency.

And if this resolution is any indication, if the president wants to get his way he's largely going to have to find ways around Congress, not through it.

What is a national emergency?

The National Emergencies Act is intended for times of national crisis. Mr Trump has claimed that there is a migration crisis at the nation's southern border - a claim strongly refuted by migration experts.

The largest number of illegal migrants settling in the US each year is those who stay in the country after their visas expire.

Declaring a national emergency would give the president access to special powers that effectively allow him to bypass the usual political process, and he would be able to divert money from existing military or disaster relief budgets to pay for the wall.

Emergency declarations by previous presidents have been overwhelmingly used for addressing foreign policy crises - including blocking terrorism-linked entities from accessing funds or prohibiting investment in nations associated with human rights abuses.

"It's extremely rare for a president to declare a national emergency in a bid to fund domestic construction projects, particularly one that Congress has explicitly refused to fund," Andrew Boyle, an attorney in the national security program at the Brennan Center for Justice, told the Associated Press news agency.

The National Emergencies Act explained

Mr Trump's decision to apply the powers to overcome a partisan impasse over border security has struck politicians on both sides of the aisle as a deviation from the intended use of the act.

"It would be a pretty dramatic expansion of how this was used in the past," said the Republican senator Ron Johnson.

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Trump faces anger over wall emergency plan

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Democratic and Republican politicians have sharply criticised President Trump's plan to use emergency powers to pay for a border wall with Mexico. Mr Trump is due to declare the emergency shortly in an attempt to bypass Congress, which has refused to approve $5.7bn (£4.4bn) for the wall.

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The border between the U.S. and Mexico, the issue at the center of a partial federal government shutdown, includes significant portions of fencing. Here's where things stand.

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President Trump has been eager to show progress on construction of his long-promised wall on the border with Mexico. So eager that on Wednesday he sent a tweet showing the building of steel fencing in southern New Mexico with the video sped up to add a sense of both efficiency and urgency.

He retweeted himself on Thursday with the all-caps proclamation "THE WALL IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION RIGHT NOW!"
This is misleading.
The government has built about 700 miles of wall and fencing along the border since 2006. The barriers, damaged by migrants trying to get through them or by the elements, need periodic repairs.

The section of the barrier that Mr. Trump showcased this week was not new construction, but rather replacement for existing fencing. The money for the steel-slatted barrier came from a congressional appropriation in 2017, not from newly authorized spending in the recent deal that averted a government shutdown, or from money the president is seeking to take from other federal projects under his national emergency declaration from last week.

A construction contract for the replacement bollard fencing was awarded on Jan. 22, 2018, to a company in Montana, according to a news release from United States Customs and Border Protection.

"The area of the border wall replacement will be a 20-mile section of existing vehicle barrier located just west of the Santa Teresa Port of Entry and extending westward" in New Mexico, the release said. "The existing barrier will be replaced with an 18- to 30-foot-high bollard-style wall."

The contract called for the project to be completed in about 390 days. The agency also highlighted the benefits of the see-through characteristics of the bollard wall.

Mr. Trump noted that the project finished ahead of schedule.

Whether there will be new wall or fence construction in that area is an open question. New Mexico is among the states suing the Trump administration to challenge his emergency declaration.
Curious about the accuracy of a claim? Email factcheck@nytimes.com.

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Trump Claims His Wall Is Being Built. It's Just a Replacement of Old Barriers.

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President Trump has been eager to show progress on construction of his long-promised wall on the border with Mexico. So eager that on Wednesday he sent a tweet showing the building of steel fencing in southern New Mexico with the video sped up to add a sense of both efficiency and urgency.

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Latest news, headlines, analysis, photos and videos on Border Wall

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by Alisa Cromer

Douglas Massey explained the U.S. fascination with its border wall this way: "In the American imagination the border between Mexico and the United States is a symbolic boundary between the United States and a threatening world. It is not just a border but the border."

To connect the dots in the history of the border wall, real and imagined, here is a historical timeline:

1845 to 1900 - Texas is annexed. Mexicans begin migrating south into what suddenly became "Mexico."

1917 - U.S. farmers and manufacturers need labor immigration of Mexicans into the U.S. is encouraged. A cotton company executive writes President Woodrow Wilson, "Personally, I believe that the Mexican laborers are the solution to our common labor problem in this country. Many of their people are here, this was once part of their country, and they can and they will do the work."

1924 - Mexico is exempted from the Immigration Act that restricts newcomers from other countries.

1929 - After the Great Depression, thousands of Mexicans are unofficially "repatriated" by city, state and federal governments of the U.S. and sent back to Mexico.

1965 - In a major civil rights reform, U.S. President Johnson changes the preference of immigration law from country of origin - therefore European ethnicity - to family ties inside the United States, acknowledging and aiding large numbers of Mexicans with family members who are already residents and acknowledging the close relationship of the two countries.

1969 - President Nixon launches Operation Intercept and mandates surprise individual inspections of any and all border crossings, plane, car, or foot. Thousands of agents are dispatched to the Mexican border, virtually shutting down illegal immigration by car for the first time. Antonio Carillo Flores, the Foreign Affairs secretary of the Mexican government, complains bitterly.

1980′ s - A brief lull in enforcement. Pedestrians and cars are stopped intermittently. Worldstir editor smuggles a puppy across the border under a blanket in her car. Millions of Americans head south to vacation at Mexican beaches with only a driver's licence.

1993 - President Bill Clinton mandates construction on a 13-mile "Border Wall" along a line in the sand between San Diego and Tijuana. It is projected to cost $39 million and reduce border apprehensions from 100,000 per day to 5,000 per day for those 13 miles. Emigrants find other paths.

1994 - The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) passes. Large agricultural areas are devastated by low-cost competition with U.S. industrial agriculture. A new surge of immigration heads northward into the United States, swamping the border patrols.

1996 - President Clinton signs the Illegal Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act, increasing fines for illegal entry and approving funding for more patrols and fence construction. Emigrants shift away from the traditional crossings into privately held land, causing landowners to fence their property.

2000 - Tohono O'odham, which means "desert people," Indians whose lands are split in half between the United States and Mexico, are baffled by theidea that they now need documents to move about their traditional lands. A 34-year old Tohono, Faustino Romero Zepeda, born in Mexico, is arrested and "deported" for doing business on tribal land in the U.S. He is barred from entering the country for five years.

2001 - Planes crash into the Twin Towers on 9/11. Border security becomes a national security issue. President George W. Bush approves increasing border patrols from 10,000 to 20,000 in 2008. Everyone now shows international travel documents when crossing by car or plane.

announces that 325 people died crossing the border from Mexicio in one year. No More Deaths is founded by 2004 - The U.S. Border Patrol religious leaders, including Catholic bishop Gerald Kicanas, Presbyterian minister John Fife, and leaders of the local Jewish community in Arizona, to aid migrants.

2005 - More than one million people are arrested crossing into the United States from Mexico. More than than 500 die crossing.

2006 - President Bush signs the Secure Fences act, promising 700 miles of fencing on the border, plus a virtual wall across the entire 2,000-mile border.

2007 - The Department of Homeland Security argues that it is impossible to construct the same type of fencing - i.e. a wall - across the border's diverse terrain, and asks for and gets an amendment allowing a variety of barriers including "fencing, physical barriers, roads, lighting, cameras," with another $12 billion in funding.

2008 - The U. S. announces that a section of the barrier had been mistakenly built from 1 to 6 feet (2 meters) inside Mexican territory and must be moved. Congress approves the Department of Homeland Security's right to circumvent more than 30 environmental laws in a push to get fencing constructed by year's end.

2009 - The Great Recession kicks off the first outflow of Mexicans from the United States since the annexation of Texas, creating a net loss of illegals living in the U.S. The U.S. peak of 12 million illegal residents begins to decline at the rate of about 300,000 per year.

2010 - The New York Times writes that over the previous four years, 51 unauthorized tunnels running under the border walls had been found in Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora. They are mainly for drug trafficking, not emigration.

2011 - The Department of Homeland Security completes 649 miles of barriers, including 350 miles of pedestrian fencing, at an estimated $6.5 million per mile, and 299 miles of vehicle barriers that cost approximately $1.7 million per mile. But $1 billion spent on a pilot program for "virtual surveillance" in Arizona yields only 53 miles of coverage. With the backing of the DHS, the Obama administration cuts funding for the rest of the hyper-expensive "virtual wall."

organization, warns that the number of border crossing fatalities have doubled since the year before. The 2012 - The Washington Office on Latin America , a human rights United States Border Patrol finds the remains of 463 people.

2013 - U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) tells that there are plenty of ways to enter the U.S. illegally that don't involve walking across the border, says "a fence is a 14th-century solution to a 21st-century problem."

2014 - Central and South America send massive numbers of refugees into Mexico heading north for the U.S. The number of non-Mexicans crossing the border illegally exceeds the number of Mexicans for the first time. A surge of unaccompanied children cross the U.S. border.

2015 - Patrols report that 3,000 human remains have been found on the Arizona border since the wall's construction began. Human rights groups double that number, including the unfound and those on the Mexican side. "No More Deaths" leaves thousands of jugs of water in the desert for potential emigrants. Mexicans nail coffins with the Spanish word for "death" painted on them along the border wall.

2016 - Pew Research reports that more people from the U.S. are going to Mexico than the other way around. Scott Walker, Wisconsin Governor, says that there are "legitimate concerns" about security along the country's 5,525-mile northern border, and that he would support building a wall between the U.S. and Canada.

- President Donald Trump renews his vow to build "a great, 2017 great wall" across the rest of the 2,000-mile border. Executive orders call for an increase of 5,000 border patrol agents and 10,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, officers above the 21,000 already employed. In the United States, mothers and father are separated from children and deported.

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Brief History: A Timeline of the U.S. Border Wall - Worldstir

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by Alisa Cromer Douglas Massey explained the U.S. fascination with its border wall this way: "In the American imagination the border between Mexico and the United States is a symbolic boundary between the United States and a threatening world. It is not just a border but the border."

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"They voted for (a border wall) in 2006. Then-Senator Obama voted for it. Sen. Schumer voted for it. Sen. Clinton voted for it."

By Allison Graves on Sunday, April 23rd, 2017 at 3:06 p.m.

White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said he doesn't understand Democratic opposition to funding the border wall because top Democrats voted for it just over 10 years ago.

During an April 23 segment on Fox News Sunday, Mulvaney talked down concerns about a government shutdown, but scolded Democrats for obstructing action on Trump's border wall. Mulvaney pointed to the voting record of top Democrats in 2006 to explain his confusion.

"We want our priorities funded and one of the biggest priorities during the campaign was border security, keeping Americans safe, and part of that was a border wall," he said.

"We still don't understand why the Democrats are so wholeheartedly against it. They voted for it in 2006. Then-Sen. Obama voted for it. Sen. Schumer voted for it. Sen. Clinton voted for it. So we don't understand why Democrats are now playing politics just because Donald Trump is in office."
The Secure Fence Act of 2006
Mulvaney is referencing their votes on an act that authorized a fence, but as we've noted several times in the past, the 2006 fence was less ambitious than the wall Trump is proposing.

The Secure Fence Act of 2006, which was passed by a Republican Congress and signed by President George W. Bush, authorized about 700 miles of fencing along certain stretches of land between the border of the United States and Mexico.

The act also authorized the use of more vehicle barriers, checkpoints and lighting to curb illegal immigration, and the use of advanced technology such as satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles.

At the time the act was being considered, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer were all members of the Senate. (Schumer of New York is now the Senate minority leader.)

Obama, Clinton, Schumer and 23 other Democratic senators voted in favor of the act when it passed in the Senate by a vote of 80 to 19.

Originally, the act called on the Department of Homeland Security to install at least two layers of reinforced fencing along some stretches of the border. That was amended later, however, through the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2008, which got rid of the double-layer requirement.

Currently, 702 miles of fencing separates the United States from Mexico, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

So how does that compare to Trump's wall?

Trump plans for the wall are vague, but here's what we know.

He said the wall doesn't need to run the nearly 2,000 miles of the border, but about 1,000 miles because of natural barriers. He said it could cost between $8 billion and $12 billion, be made of precast concrete, and rise 35 to 40 feet, or 50 feet, or higher.

Experts have repeatedly told PolitiFact that the differences in semantics between a wall and a fence are not too significant because both block people.

Still, there are obvious differences between the fence and Trump's wall proposal.

A 2016 Associated Press report from the border described "rust-colored thick bars" that form "teeth-like slats" 18 feet high. "There are miles of gaps between segments and openings in the fence itself," the report said.

Trump criticized the 2006 fence as too modest during the 2016 campaign.

"Now we got lucky because it was such a little wall, it was such a nothing wall, no, they couldn't get their environmental -- probably a snake was in the way or a toad," Trump said. (Actually, the project didn't face environmental hurdles; we rated that part of the claim Mostly False.)

It's also worth noting that the political context surrounding the 2006 vote was different, too.

Democrats normally in favor of looser immigration laws saw the Secure Fence Act of 2006 as the lesser of two evils, according to a Boston Globe report that detailed the legislative process. Around that same time, the House passed legislation that would make any undocumented immigrant a felon.

"It didn't have anywhere near the gravity of harm," Angela Kelley, who in 2006 was the legislative director for the National Immigration Forum, told the Boston Globe. "It was hard to vote against it because who is going to vote against a secure fence? And it was benign compared with what was out there."
Our ruling
Democrats have described Trump's wall proposal as overkill and too expensive. Recently, Democrats penned a letter to Senate GOP saying border funding should not be included in the latest budget agreement to keep the government open.

Mulvaney said that Obama, Schumer and Clinton voted for a border wall in 2006.

They did vote for the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which authorized building a fence along about 700 miles of the border between the United States and Mexico.

Still, the fence they voted for is not as substantial as the wall Trump is proposing. Trump himself called the 2006 fence a "nothing wall."

Mulvaney's statement is partially accurate, but ignores important context. We rate it Half True.

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Fact-check: Did top Democrats vote for a border wall in 2006

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White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said he doesn't understand Democratic opposition to funding the border wall because top Democrats voted for it just over 10 years ago. During an April 23 segment on Fox News Sunday, Mulvaney talked down concerns about a government shutdown, but scolded Democrats for obstructing action on Trump's border wall.

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Sen. Thom Tillis on Monday said he would vote to block President Donald Trump's national emergency declaration. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo

President Donald Trump is on the verge of a bipartisan rejection of his emergency declaration at the border, in what would be an embarrassing rebuke by a Congress opposed to his immigration agenda.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) on Monday night said he would join Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) along with 47 Senate Democrats to block Trump's attempts to secure billions for his border wall after lawmakers effectively stiffed him. Now just one more GOP senator's support for a resolution to block Trump's bid would send the measure to Trump's desk and force a veto.

Story Continued Below

"Conservatives rightfully cried foul when President Barack Obama used executive action to completely bypass Congress," Tillis said in a Washington Post op-ed on Monday night. "There is no intellectual honesty in now turning around and arguing that there's an imaginary asterisk attached to executive overreach - that it's acceptable for my party but not thy party."

Still, there is clear reluctance in the GOP to bucking Trump.

Numerous Senate Republicans say that, like Tillis, they despise Trump's decision to declare a national emergency to get additional funding to build his wall. But most aren't ready to say they will vote to block him from doing so.

Interviews on Monday with more than a dozen GOP senators who have been publicly critical of Trump's unilateral maneuver or warned him not to deploy it were cagey about their intentions for what would be a crucial vote on the Senate floor in coming weeks.

Many said they were undecided and still studying Trump's move to circumvent Congress and score billions more for the border barrier.

"It's unnecessary unwise and inconsistent with the Constitution," said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), one of the most vocal critics of Trump's emergency declaration. As to how he will vote, he answered: "I'm going to wait to see what the resolution says."

"I haven't even read it but I've said: I don't like what's happened and I certainly don't like using military money for it," said Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah said he is "getting closer" to making a decision but said he could not divulge which way he is leaning. Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado, a vulnerable incumbent in 2020 who issued a statement saying he is "reviewing" the declaration, said on Monday: "I've said all that I'm going to say on that."

Some Republicans still privately expect the resolution to pass, but there was little enthusiasm to get out in front of a conflict with the president.

Though wavering senators reported no direct lobbying from the president, Trump made clear on Twitter that he expects them to back him up and not fall for the Democrats' "trap." He also has vowed to veto any legislation from Congress halting his efforts.

Still, in an interview Collins said she expects more Republicans to join her.

"There will be others. I think if you look at the comments made by several of my colleagues, I really don't think I'm the only one," Collins said. "I intend to vote yes as long as we're sent a clean resolution."

Murkowski said in Alaska last week she would also vote for the resolution if it is not amended with extraneous items when it is passed by the House on Tuesday.

But what's perhaps more remarkable is that several strong critics of Trump's unilateral plans said they anticipate backing the president.

Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa said last month that an emergency declaration would set a "bad precedent." Sen. John Cornyn of Texas called it a "dangerous step." Yet both said on Monday they were leaning to support the president and vote against blocking him.

"I didn't want it to come to this, because I think it's probably going to get tied up in court. And I said it wasn't a practical solution," Cornyn said. "I'm probably going to come down on the side of voting against the resolution of disapproval."

Still, Cornyn seemed resigned to it passing the Senate: "All it takes is four right? You can do the math as well as I can." From there it would go to the president's desk, where Trump would likely veto it and prompt a veto override battle. Right now, no one expects enough GOP defections in either the House or Senate to provide the two-thirds voted needed to override the president's veto.

But the fight is roiling the GOP nonetheless as Republicans weigh whether to be consistent on the executive overreach they decried during Obama's presidency or to pick a fight with a president who views party loyalty as a must. For some like Tillis, Collins and Gardner, showing independence from Trump could be useful to their reelection campaigns in blue states. And Alexander is retiring, giving him more room to vote without regard for political consequences.

But for so many other Republicans, any vote will be fraught with political peril.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said it shouldn't be hard for the Senate to muster a big bipartisan rejection of Trump's actions.

"We've come together before in bipartisan ways, if there was ever one that cries out for bipartisan rejection of an overreach of power, this is it," he said on Monday.

Republicans will have fewer than three weeks to make up their minds. After the House passes the resolution, it will be referred to the Senate Armed Services Committee, though it can be brought to the Senate floor without passing the committee. The resolution can also be amended, Republicans believe, though there are parliamentary restrictions on that.

"We're checking right now with the parliamentarian whether it's amendable," said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). "There's all kinds of gray area."

There's lots of uncertainty in the GOP whip count as well.

Johnson, Romney, Gardner, Rubio and GOP Sens. Roy Blunt of Missouri, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Pat Roberts of Kansas, Jerry Moran of Kansas and Mike Lee of Utah were among those who still haven't said how they will vote. And there are signs that the administration's whipping operation is ramping up.

On Tuesday Vice President Mike Pence will attend the Senate GOP weekly lunch, and the president's emergency declaration will be top of mind among the Republicans in the room.

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Trump on brink of defeat on border emergency

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President Donald Trump is on the verge of a bipartisan rejection of his emergency declaration at the border, in what would be an embarrassing rebuke by a Congress opposed to his immigration agenda. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) on Monday night said he would join Sens.

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President Donald Trump holds up a picture of a wall during a meeting on border security in the Cabinet Room on Jan. 11. Immigration hard-liners have been disappointed that the president is pursuing his wall at the cost of stricter immigration policies elsewhere. | Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

Democrats aren't the only ones who wish President Donald Trump weren't obsessed with building a border wall.

Even hard-line conservative immigration activists are frustrated with Trump's relentless focus on a border wall - and are pushing him to embrace what they call more effective enforcement policies as part of any deal with Congress.

Story Continued Below

They are working with a half-dozen Republican members of Congress to write additional proposals they hope the White House will support. The suggestions include reducing the number of people sponsored for residency by family members, eliminating the visa lottery system and mandating nationwide E-Verify, an online system that allows businesses to cross-check work authorizations.

"We're obviously a little frustrated because so much focus has been on barriers, walls and fences," said Chris Chmielenski, director of content and activism at NumbersUSA, which supports curbing legal and illegal immigration.

When NumbersUSA outlined 10 steps to bolster immigration enforcement on its website, a border wall didn't even make the list. The group, which has participated in discussions at the White House this week, sent an email blast to supporters urging them to contact the White House to include other measures.

Democrats who are dug in against funding a wall have said they might agree to some toughened enforcement measures that don't involve concrete or steel structures, although they generally oppose E-Verify and reducing legal immigration.

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Trump has offered the Democrat-controlled House a deal to temporarily protect hundreds of thousands of immigrants who entered the country as children in exchange for $5.7 billion for a border wall as a way to break an impasse with lawmakers that has kept the federal government shuttered for 33 days. But immigration groups that have stood with him in the past complain that he is giving too much for too little - a sign that his determination to fulfill an oft-repeated campaign pledge risks costing him even some hard-core supporters.

RJ Hauman, government relations director at Federation for American Immigration Reform, which also wants more enforcement, called Trump's "build the wall" approach simplistic.

"President Trump was elected to put forth a multi-pronged approach to immigration, not just build a couple hundred miles of border barriers," he said. "It's disappointing to see what he's doing now."

On Wednesday, Trump hosted a call with 500 state, local and community leaders and later met at the White House with conservative leaders, including those from The Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity and Tea Party Patriots, to sell his proposal.

"The president really has no intention of caving on this. That wasn't spin, that was after the reporters and everything left," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies and an attendee at the White House meeting. He added that Trump offered no hint of how he might proceed if, as expected, scheduled votes in Congress on Thursday aiming to reopen the government should fail.

But there are few signs that his latest overture to immigration hard-liners could quell their anger about his Saturday proposal to grant protections from deportation to immigrants who came to the country illegally, according to people familiar with the meetings.

Hauman, for one, said he is frustrated that Trump's immigration proposals have gotten "increasingly weak" and that he didn't rescind an Obama-era program that protected so-called Dreamers immediately, as he promised on the campaign trail.

At the same time, Trump continues to fixate on his vision of a barrier along the southern U.S. border.

"We have to have a wall," Trump said at the meeting Wednesday. "We have to have a barricade of some kind, a steel barricade, it's already designed. We're building a lot of wall as we speak, a tremendous amount, and we're renovating a lot of the other wall."

Trump is holding a series of meetings with immigration hard-liners, including one on Tuesday that was not listed on his public schedule, and another one Thursday, according to people familiar with the meetings.

"Ultimately a border wall is less important than interior enforcement, including E-Verify," said Reihan Salam, executive editor of National Review and author of "Melting Pot or Civil War? A Son of Immigrants Makes the Case Against Open Borders." "Clandestine border-crossers are certainly a part of the unauthorized immigration problem, but they're a small and shrinking part."

The activists want the White House to add other policies to the offer that Trump made on Saturday. Sens. Tom Cotton and John Boozman, both Republicans from Arkansas, have introduced legislation to mandate an E-Verify system. Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.) drafted a bill that would end the visa lottery. And Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.) wrote a proposal to end extended-family preference category for legal immigration.

Other lawmakers are expected to introduce legislation to end the visa lottery system, enact a biometric exit and entry system, and make changes that some say will make it easier to end the catch-and-release system, according to several people knowledgeable of the proposals.

A wall on the Mexican border was a centerpiece of Trump's 2016 campaign, in which he promised to crack down on illegal Mexican immigration. He also pledged to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allows temporary, renewable work permits for so-called Dreamers who were brought into the U.S. illegally as children. Trump backed away from that pledge last year when his administration announced that it would instead wind down the program over six months and allow certain recipients to apply for a two-year renewal. A court challenge has since kept the program alive.

Steve Cortes, a Trump ally who served on his Hispanic Advisory Council during the 2016 campaign and is serving on his 2020 reelection committee, said he understands the substantive complaints over Trump's wall obsession, but called it vital to his reelection campaign.

"The wall is so important, both in reality and symbolically, that a streamlined compromise makes sense for now," he said. "There's plenty of time to address the larger issues that need reform, such as our often-abused asylum allowances and chain migration.

"I believe the wall all but assures reelection in 2020, and we can't lose sight of that political necessity," he added.

The same groups have opposed Trump's immigration plans before: Last year, they launched TV ads and blasted him on social media for his proposal to offer 1.8 million immigrants a chance at citizenship and allow millions of immigrants to legally reside in the country through family reunification programs.

Trump's latest offer would provide a three-year extension of protections for DACA recipients and those from El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras and Nicaragua who fled their countries and have Temporary Protected Status. It would also limit the number of minors who could be granted asylum and pay for 2,750 border agents and law enforcement officials and 75 new immigration judges.

Democrats, too, criticized Trump's offer and insisted he sign a funding bill to reopen the federal government before they negotiate. The longest shutdown in U.S. government history has left 800,000 federal workers furloughed or forced to work without pay.

"We've got to keep this narrow," said Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, an immigrant advocacy group. Noorani called for "smart border security that includes a combination of technology, infrastructure and human resources, and then pair that with permanent protections for DACA recipients and TPS recipients."

Conservatives insist they aren't looking for a comprehensive immigration plan - which Congress has failed to pass multiple times, including last year - but rather a deal that provides more enforcement to combat illegal immigration and reduces the number of legal immigrants allowed into the U.S.

Vice President Mike Pence and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner said repeatedly over the weekend that the president's proposal was intended not only to end the shutdown, but also to be a jumping-off point for immigration overhaul.

"In this speech, there were a lot of overtures toward broader immigration reform," Kushner told reporters on Saturday. "The president's shown on a wide ranges of issues that he's been able to bring people together and find solutions. I think he would like to see immigration fixed."

The White House has already started holding working meetings with various groups in the hopes it can strike a larger deal. But Congress failed to pass a rewrite of the nation's immigration laws last year when both chambers were controlled by Republicans making it extremely unlikely a divided Congress would grant Trump a victory as he launches his reelection campaign.

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Trump's border wall obsession frustrates conservative activists

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Democrats aren't the only ones who wish President Donald Trump weren't obsessed with building a border wall. Even hard-line conservative immigration activists are frustrated with Trump's relentless focus on a border wall - and are pushing him to embrace what they call more effective enforcement policies as part of any deal with Congress.

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The federal government shutdown dominating the headlines as 2019 begins is entirely connected to one specific, controversial issue: America's southern border with Mexico. Although the question of funding for President Trump's proposed wall has been the overt focus of the debate, Trump's Tweeted threat to "close the Southern border entirely" if a deal is not negotiated makes clear just how fully the border itself has become a pawn in this contentious moment.

There are various complex legal and social issues associated with the border, including whether and how arrivals should be able to apply for asylum, what to do with asylum seekers while they are awaiting those decisions, and what role various federal agencies should play in these processes. But as with so many contemporary debates, unless we can better understand the historical realities that underlie our mythic understanding of the Mexican-American border, those current conversations will necessarily be incomplete.

The most foundational such myth is that the border between the two nations has been a consistent, stable entity. It's an understandable belief, given that Mexico and the United States have established political and geographic boundaries, and the diplomatic relationships that stem from them, in the 21st century. But the earliest histories of the Mexican-American border reveal not only that it was entirely constructed and malleable, but that the contest over where and how it would be defined shaped both national identities and their relationship to one another.

The 1846-48 Mexican-American War centered directly on that border dispute. The Texas Republic had been independent since its 1836 war with Mexico, and in December 1845 the United States annexed Texas and made it the nation's 28th state. At the same time, newly elected President James Polk was seeking to purchase land from Mexico and to set the border between the two nations significantly farther south, at the Rio Grande river. When Mexico refused these offers, Polk disregarded Mexican sovereignty and borders, moving U.S. troops into the Mexican region known as the Nueces Strip. Farther west, Polk sent explorer John Frémont and a group of armed men into the Mexican province of Alta California, where Frémont raised an American flag over his fort on Gavilan Peak. Mexico responded predictably to these overt intrusions into its territories, moving its own forces into the disputed regions and skirmishing there with U.S. troops, and the war between the two nations began.

The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that cemented the U.S. victory in that war-a treaty negotiated quite literally at gunpoint and without Polk's knowledge, while U.S. troops were occupying Mexico City-thus did more than cede vast swaths of Southwestern and Western territory to the U.S. It created an entirely new border between the two nations, one in which not only the Nueces Strip and Alta California but much of the rest of the Southwest were suddenly located on the American side. Those areas were still populated by millions of Mexican citizens, however, inhabitants and communities whose ambiguous and fraught new status as Mexican American citizens (a status promised by the treaty, yet highly contested by Anglo settlers) reflected one more layer to the new border's artificial nature.

So the Mexican-American border came into existence in a contested, controversial, constructed way that produced communal uncertainty for many decades to follow. Ironically, that border also remained entirely open and unpatrolled. Indeed, for half a century after the treaty, the U.S. maintained no presence of any kind on the border, and residents of both nations (and anyone else who found themselves there) could move freely back and forth across it.

The first federal officials to patrol the Mexican-American border did so in the first decade of the 20th century, and in a very targeted and telling way. Numbering around 50-75 at a time, these "mounted guards" (employees of the Department of Commerce and Labor) operated out of El Paso and were tasked solely with watching for Chinese immigrants, the only arrivals defined as illegal in the era. When Congress formalized the guards in the aftermath of the discriminatory Immigration Act of 1917, they likewise emphasized their role in watching for the Asian arrivals (now including many nations within an " Asiatic Barred Zone "). From the outset, these guards existed not to enforce the border and its rules for all arrivals, but to target particular communities defined as undesirable under a bigoted legal system.

It is thus no coincidence that the U.S. Border Patrol was created as an agency within the Department of Labor in 1924, the same year of the Immigration Act of 1924 (also known as the Johnson-Reed Act), which established discriminatory national quotas that affected most arrivals to the United States. These border guards continued to serve in a targeted role, looking for arrivals within those affected national categories (and, at the Canadian border in particular, for illegal alcohol smuggling under Prohibition). Moreover, since nations in the Western Hemisphere were originally exempt from the 1924 law's quota system, Mexicans (for example) could continue to move freely across the border and into the United States, reflecting just how arbitrary the power of both the border patrol and the border itself were.

Immigration laws and realities have evolved greatly in the century since those 1924 laws; now it is Western Hemisphere arrivals who are most consistently restricted by our immigration categories and preferences, and thus most often targeted by the border patrol. These contemporary laws represent an unfolding legacy of the contested history of the Mexican-American border, a history that belies many of our myths and likewise demands deeper understanding and engagement.

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Considering History: Myths and Realities of the Mexican-American Border

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The federal government shutdown dominating the headlines as 2019 begins is entirely connected to one specific, controversial issue: America's southern border with Mexico. Although the question of funding for President Trump's proposed wall has been the overt focus of the debate, Trump's Tweeted threat to "close the Southern border entirely" if a deal is not negotiated makes clear just how fully the border itself has become a pawn in this contentious moment.

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The border wall was one of President Trump's favorite topics on the campaign trail. Published On Credit Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times

WASHINGTON - In an early-morning Twitter post, President Trump insisted on Thursday that he has been unwavering in his stance for building a border wall between Mexico and the United States to thwart illegal immigration.

He was responding to - and directly contradicting - private statements by John F. Kelly, his chief of staff, who told the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Wednesday that Mr. Trump had not been "fully informed" when he first promised the wall, and that the president's position on building it had "evolved" over time.

"The Wall is the Wall, it has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it," Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter at 6:15 a.m. Thursday.

But a review of Mr. Trump's public statements on Twitter, in campaign speeches and during interviews shows that the president's views on the border wall have shifted repeatedly since he raised the idea nearly four years ago, on Aug. 5, 2014.

Mr. Trump's early statements about the length of the wall were ambiguous. More recent descriptions about the distance it would cover, however, have been fairly consistent.

"You don't need a wall for the entire piece because we have wonderful people, Border Patrol people, that can do the job. But you do need walls in certain sections, without question." - Interview with CNN

Reporter: How are you going to builda 1,900-mile wall?

Trump:Very easy. I'm a builder. That's easy. I build buildings that are - can I tell you what's more complicated? What's more complicated is building a building that's 95 stories tall. O.K.?

- News conference in Dubuque, Iowa

"As far as the wall is concerned, we're going to build a wall. We're going to create a border. We're going to let people in, but they're going to come in legally. They're going to come in legally. And it's something that can be done, and I get questioned about that. They built the Great Wall of China. That's 13,000 miles. Here, we actually need 1,000 because we have natural barriers. So we need 1,000." - Republican presidential debate

"In our case, we need really 1,000 miles. It's 2,000 miles, but some is natural borders, natural barriers which are pretty good, not as good as the wall but pretty good; you know what, let's use it." - Campaign rally in Manassas, Va.

"It's 2,000 miles, but we need 1,000; you have natural barriers. We need 1,000 miles." - Campaign rally in Ashburn, Va.

"You have 2,000 miles. You have mountains, you have rivers, you have things that you don't put the wall in, you don't need them." - Interview with Fox News

Mr. Trump: So the wall. The wall's never meant to be 2,100 miles long. We have mountains that are far better than a wall. We have violent rivers that nobody goes near. ...

You don't need a wall where you have a natural barrier that's far greater than any wall you could build, O.K.?

- Interview with The Wall Street Journal

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Prototypes of the border wall displayed in California in October. Credit Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York Times

The president's estimates for the cost of the wall have varied widely.

"So, let's say it costs $4 or $5 billion. Our trade deficit with Mexico is $53 billion. So $4 or $5 billion is peanuts." - Speech in Dallas

"You mean to tell me I can't take $7 billion and build a wall?" - Speech in Waterloo, Iowa

"If the wall costs $6 billion to build, and you know we're talking about 1,000 miles, it's 2,000, but you need it on 1,000. The Great Wall of China, think of it, is 13,000 miles." - Speech in Richmond, Va.

"The wall is probably$8 billion." - Interview on MSNBC

President Trump talks about the cost of a border wall during a town hall in Charleston, S.C. Published On

"First of all, they say the wall is going to cost $40 billion - the Democrats are saying. We're talking less than half." - Interview on Fox News

"China built a wall that's 13,000 miles long 2,000 years ago. My ambition is for ours to be much higher." - Speech in Myrtle Beach, S.C. The height of the Great Wall of China averages 20 to 23 feet. Its tallest point is 46 feet.

"I'm talking about precasts going up probably 35 to 40 feet up in the air. That's high. That's a real wall." - Interview on MSNBC

"The wall just got 10 feet higher." - Speech in Tampa, Fla., after the former Mexican president said Mexico would not pay for it.

"But - and I used an example. And this isn't necessarily what was said, but whatever was said, the wall's 50 feet high. Is it going to be 45 feet or 40 feet? That could very well be. That could very well - he wants it to be higher." - Republican presidential debate

President Trump delivers a speech in Abingdon, Va. Published On Credit Credit Eric Thayer/Reuters..

Reporter: How high is this wall going to be lately? How high is it -

Mr. Trump: I think a good 35 feet. It's getting higher all the time.

- Town hall on MSNBC

"If you have a wall this thick and it's solid concrete from ground to 32 feet high, which is a high wall, much higher than people planned. You go 32 feet up and you don't know who's over here. You're here, you've got the wall and there's some other people here." - Interview with The Wall Street Journal

Mr. Trump has been consistent in insisting that Mexico would pay to build the wall. But his position on how he would compel the country to fund it has varied.

"Mexico must pay for the wall and, until they do, the United States will, among other things: impound all remittance payments derived from illegal wages; increase fees on all temporary visas issued to Mexican C.E.O.s and diplomats (and if necessary cancel them); increase fees on all border crossing cards - of which we issue about one million to Mexican nationals each year (a major source of visa overstays); increase fees on all Nafta worker visas from Mexico (another major source of overstays); and increase fees at ports of entry to the United States from Mexico (tariffs and foreign aid cuts are also options)." - Campaign statement on immigration

"They will pay in one form or another." - Town hall on MSNBC

President Trump addresses a crowd in Portland, Me. Published On Credit Credit Factbase Videos

"We're working on a tax reform bill that will reduce our trade deficits, increase American exports and will generate revenue from Mexico that will pay for the wall if we decide to go that route." - Speech in Philadelphia

"It may be through reimbursement, but one way or the other, Mexico will pay for the wall. ... So we need the wall. It's imperative." - White House news conference

"They can pay for it through, as an example, they can pay for it indirectly through Nafta. O.K.?" - Interview with The Wall Street Journal

President Trump met with Border Patrol Agents in Yuma, Ariz., in August. Credit Tom Brenner/The New York Times

The area where Mr. Trump's thoughts on the border wall have evolved the most has been in his description of what it will look like. His suggestions have ranged from a barrier with a "big, very beautiful door" to a solar wall that would pay for itself.

"And, you know, we're building a wall. And it's going to be a great wall. O.K.? And, by the way, Mexico will pay for it. It's going to be a great wall, because I do - I know how to build. And it's not going to cost nearly as much as what they are saying for a crummy wall, but this will be awall with a very big, very beautiful door, because we want the legals to come back into the country." - Interview with CBS News

"We're going to build a wall, and it's going to be impenetrable, it will be a real wall." - Campaign rally in Franklin, Tenn.

"We're going to have a big, fat beautiful door right in the middle of the wall. We're going to have people come in, but they're coming in legally." - Republican presidential debate

"People will come through the openings in that wall - we'll have a few of them - and they'll come in and they're going to come in legally." - Rally in Beaumont, Tex.

President Trump delivers a speech in Phoenix. Published On

"We're going to build a wall. It's going to be a great wall. And it's going to have big beautiful doors in it because we're going to have people coming into our country, but they're going to come into our country legally." - Campaign rally in Orlando, Fla.

"And we're thinking of something that's unique. We're talking about the southern border, lots of sun, lots of heat. We're thinking about building the wall as a solar wall so it creates energy and pays for itself." - Campaign rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Border Patrol units positioned along the fence between El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Credit Ivan Pierre Aguirre for The New York Times

Mr. Trump has repeatedly shot down suggestions that the border wall would actually be a fence. But he has repeatedly in used the term "fence" in interviews and public statements.

"I am a builder. I build great buildings. Building a border - you know they talk about, 'Oh, I don't know, how can we possibly build a fence that nobody can climb over?' I would build a border like you've never seen before. Nobody's climbing over." - Speech during the Freedom Summit

"Nobody can build a fence like me, David. You know that. I build great buildings all over the world. There's nobody can build a fence - and I would have Mexico pay for it. Believe me."- Interview with the Christian Broadcast Network

Mikayla Bouchard, Barbara Marcolini, Tanner Curtis and Sameen Amin produced this article. Jeremy Bowers contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed research.

Correction:

An earlier version of this article misquoted part of a Fox News interview with Donald J. Trump that was broadcast on Sept. 6, 2016. Mr. Trump said, "I'm about defense," not "I'm about the fence."

Ron Nixon is the homeland security correspondent. He joined The Times on the Business desk in 2005. He is a Marine Corps infantry veteran and the author of "Selling Apartheid: Apartheid South Africa's Global Propaganda War." @nixonron

Linda Qiu is a fact-check reporter, based in Washington. She came to The Times in 2017 from the fact-checking service PolitiFact. @ylindaqiu

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WASHINGTON - In an early-morning Twitter post, President Trump insisted on Thursday that he has been unwavering in his stance for building a border wall between Mexico and the United States to thwart illegal immigration. He was responding to - and directly contradicting - private statements by John F.

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It is a fairly well-known fact that the Republican party is in favor of protection, and therefore a Mexican border wall. In fact, 74 percent of Republicans support building a wall on the Mexican border. Promises to build this wall were a large part of President Donald Trump's campaign, and his supporters were front and center hoping that he stuck to this plan. More than just an immigration issue, the wall became Trump's signature promise and rallying cry during his campaign. The wall goes hand in hand with Republican views that border security should be heightened and that anyone crossing the border should be given a thorough background check. Republicans favor a far stricter immigration policy than Democrats, and want to take much stricter preventative measures against illegal immigration than have been taken in the past. Of course, this isn't to say that there aren't differences within the party on this issue.

Geographic Differences

One of the largest contributing factors to differences in Republican views on a Mexican border wall is location. Studies have found that Republicans who live closer to the border are less likely to support the building of a wall than their counterparts who live further away. An in-depth analysis of the data revealed that 35 percent of Republicans that lived within 350 miles of the 63 percent of Republicans in this area supported in. This contrasts starkly with the statistics of those who live over 350 miles away from the border; of this group, 76 percent are in favor of the wall and 21 percent oppose it. This difference seems to become even more pronounced when you look at those who live 200 miles or less from the border. However, the sample sizes within this range are not large enough to be included in the study.

The Cost

During his campaign, President Donald Trump asserted that the wall would come at no cost to American taxpayers. He insisted that Mexico would need to pay for the wall. After skepticism was raised at getting Mexico to pay for the wall upfront, Trump insisted that, at the very least, America would be reimbursed for the wall after the fact. During his campaign, when the media highlighted the controversy surrounding the wall and its cost, he tweeted, " "The dishonest media does not report that any money spent on building the Great Wall (for sake of speed), will be paid back by Mexico later!"

However, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto stated after his meeting with Trump during his campaign that " At the start of the conversation with Donald Trump I made it clear that Mexico will not pay for the wall." However, this seems to have done little to deter those Republicans that do support the wall. The mindset of this was voiced by Luke Messer, chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, when he stated, "It would be a proposal that would cost billions of dollars to get done, but if it's an appropriate priority for our country, it's worth spending that kind of money." This viewpoint seems to be common. Steven King of Iowa stated, "If we build that wall, and Donald Trump hasn't figured out how to get Mexico to pay, I'm not going to be the guy who says, 'Let's wait until we get this in pesos.'" Others feel that current infrastructure budgets should be allocated to cover this cost. Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa stated, "We've already appropriated money for walls. We've got walls right now."

The actual cost seems to be a matter of contention. While Trump initially estimated the number at $8 billion, r ecent congressional legislation estimated the number at closer to $10 billion, and construction experts have stated that it could cost twice that much. Many Republican leaders have stated that they would spend as much as $15 billion to build the wall, but it appears it could cost more than that depending on who you ask. Some Republicans are hesitant about where the country will come up with the money, even if they do support the wall. Senator Steve Daines, an Appropriations Committee member, stated, "I think realistically we're going to have to find a way to fund this." He then continued to state that the Trump administration had not yet reached out to his committee to discuss the issue.

One proposal that's been made to cover the cost of the wall is to make Mexico pay for it in a more inadvertent way - through taxes. Sean Spicer told reporters in January that taxing imports from Mexico at 20 percent could raise $10 billion a year, which would "easily pay for the wall."

The Secure Fence Act

A 2006 law required 700 miles of "physical barrier" be built along the border. However, this was never completed. The law, known as the Secure Fence Act, is now being examined as a way to implement the border wall that today's Republicans want to build. House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell headed the discussion, which proposed financing the Secure Fence Act to complete their goal. Under this act, Congress is ready to dedicate between $12 billion and $15 billion to the wall and let Trump deal with Mexico afterwards. McConnell stated "We intend to address the wall issue ourselves and the president can deal with his relations with other countries on that issue and other issues."

Border Walls in the Middle East

One major proof of concept that Republicans supporting a Mexican border wall cite is the success of similar walls in the Middle East. For example, walls along the Israeli-Palestinian border reportedly cut down illegal immigration between the countries. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who is also the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, stated that he was impressed with a system of fences he had inspected along the Israeli border with Palestinian territories. Johnson stated "I'm always looking for best practices. It's been incredibly effective. They had thousands of illegal immigrants; it's down to the teens."

Republicans Opposing the Wall

Many Republicans that oppose the wall don't necessarily oppose stronger border control, they just disagree with using the wall as the means to that end. For example, Republican Representative Will Hurd stated, "Building a wall is the most expensive and least effective way to secure the border . Each section of the border faces unique geographical, cultural and technological challenges that would be best addressed with a flexible, sector-by-sector approach that empowers agents on the ground with the resources they need."

Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson favors a slightly different approach, suggesting a steel fence barrier, similar to the fencing that separates Israel from the Sinai.

Sources:

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It is a fairly well-known fact that the Republican party is in favor of protection, and therefore a Mexican border wall. In fact, 74 percent of Republicans support building a wall on the Mexican border. Promises to build this wall were a large part of President Donald Trump's campaign, and his supporters were front and center hoping that he stuck to this plan.

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Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi before delivering a response to President Donald Trump's address to the nation on Tuesday. Credit Credit Erin Schaff for The New York Times

WASHINGTON - When Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California stepped to a microphone last week and pronounced President Trump's border wall "an immorality," most Democrats cheered and nodded their heads.

But a few privately grimaced, worried that such stark terminology could make it more difficult for Democrats and Republicans to find their way out of an impasse over border security that has partially shuttered the government for three weeks, deprived about 800,000 federal workers of their pay and increasingly threatens beneficiaries of federal programs.

Democrats, said one Democratic lawmaker from a Republican-leaning district who insisted on anonymity to offer a candid assessment, cannot be seen by the public as calling border security immoral.

The divide illustrates why Democrats are working to focus public attention on the painful costs of the partial government shutdown - vulnerable families going without food assistance, farmers forgoing crop payments, national parks trashed - and Mr. Trump's recklessness in courting it, rather than delving into the specific details of erecting a barrier on the southwestern border.

While Mr. Trump has launched an elaborate public-relations effort to draw Democrats into a debate over the wall itself - even the material to be used to construct it - Democrats are just as determined to talk instead about a more universally resonant theme: the need to get the government open and functioning while negotiations continue.

It is at the heart of Ms. Pelosi's plan this week to push through the House a series of bills to reopen shuttered federal agencies, including one that passed Wednesday for the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service, among others. Like the others poised to be approved this week in the Democrat-controlled chamber, it is expected to die in the Republican-controlled Senate.

The goal: to win over more Republicans in the House and raise pressure in the Senate, where on Tuesday, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska became the latest Republican to call for a vote to reopen the government as talks on border security continue.

For Democrats, newly in control of the House, the shutdown fight has proved unifying, crystallizing a near-universal belief in their ranks that Congress should act as a check on the power of a president who has shown little regard for the law and has used his office to sow fear and misinformation on issues like immigration.

But while they are almost all opposed to the idea of a wall between the United States and Mexico - which is unpopular among a majority of Americans and strongly opposed by Democratic voters, and which has been dismissed as ineffective by border security experts - Democrats are less united about what form of border security they do support.

Some of them, including Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, voted in 2006 for 700 miles of fencing along the border, a position the White House has repeatedly sought to spotlight.

On Tuesday, on the morning of Mr. Trump's address to the nation on the topic, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, did not mention the word "wall" once in 11 minutes of opening remarks with reporters. He then sidestepped a question about the difference between fencing and other border security measures that Democrats have backed in the past and the wall that the president is demanding.

"I didn't answer it, maybe because I don't have an answer that I think is a really good answer," he finally conceded. "Fencing and walls have the same effect. One is supported by a large number of experts, but a large number of experts think neither are that effective."

The reality is that making a nuanced argument about border security - a highly technical and politically charged issue - is difficult and divisive. Some Democrats have learned that the hard way in recent days.

Representative Adam Smith of Washington, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, seemed to break from Ms. Pelosi's "immorality" remark during an interview Sunday on ABC's "This Week" when he tried to explain his past votes for border barriers.

"The wall is not in itself a bad idea, it's just - it's been done," Mr. Smith said. "And what the president has not done is, he has not made the case that on the portions of the border where a wall has not been built, how is a wall going to actually enhance border security?"

Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, jumped on Mr. Smith's remarks, saying, "That's a very different point than the one that Speaker Pelosi continues to make, which is that a wall is immoral."

When Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, said this week that Mr. Trump's recent talk of a wall made of steel slats rather than concrete was "progress," he quickly clarified that he was not, in fact, buying into the president's idea.

The current government shutdown is now the second-longest in U.S. history. So how does this happen and who is affected? Credit Credit Tom Brenner for The New York Times

"I said that it was a minor step," he told CNN on Tuesday. "I was accepting that steel slats are preferred by the Department of Homeland Security over a concrete wall; I was not saying that I think that we should be pouring billions of dollars into a border barrier."

And Ms. Pelosi has also sought to press the more practical argument. On a card of talking points distributed Wednesday by her office, Democrats were instructed to emphasize that they favor "smart, effective" border security solutions, and to focus on Mr. Trump's tactics. "There is no reason for President Trump to keep government shut down over his demands for an ineffective, wasteful wall," the card said.

Democratic strategists argue that Mr. Trump's failure to build broad public support for a wall that he has been demanding since the early days of his presidential candidacy has made it easier for Democrats to stake out a unified message.

"Obviously, there are some Democrats who talk about the wall being immoral or inconsistent with American values, but across the spectrum of Democrats, there is an emphasis on the degree to which the wall is waste of taxpayers' money and irrelevant to addressing the most important challenges we face with regard to immigration in the country," said Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster. "Democrats are being helped a little bit by Trump's specificity in what he's looking for. He keeps talking about something that is very specific, and is something that more than half of all Americans oppose."

Nick Gourevitch, a pollster and communications strategist who advised Democrats during the midterm campaign on Mr. Trump's fear-soaked immigration message, said Democrats are sticking to the simplest and freshest argument they have to appeal to a public that does not focus on the finer points of border security policy.

"The wall is unpopular, and the wall combined with the shutdown is even more unpopular," Mr. Gourevitch said.

"Most presidents don't lose in a wave election and then double down on the strategy that got them there," he added, "but that's what this president seems to be doing."

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A15 of the New York edition with the headline: Steering Clear of Wall, Democrats Put Focus On Costs of Impasse. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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Democrats Focus on Shutdown's Cost and Steer Away From Trump's Wall

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WASHINGTON - When Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California stepped to a microphone last week and pronounced President Trump's border wall "an immorality," most Democrats cheered and nodded their heads.

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Most Americans - 59 percent - oppose the building of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. However, 8 in 10 Republicans favor a wall. Two-thirds of independents and 84 percent of Democrats oppose a wall.

Democrats and Republicans also have different priorities when considering immigration policy.

Most Democrats (67 percent) say it's more important to focus on dealing with illegal immigrants already in the U.S. For Republicans, securing the border is the top immigration priority (75 percent).

When Americans are asked which issue is most important for the president and Congress to address, health care outranks immigration. Republicans, however, see immigration as the higher priority.

First published on January 8, 2019 / 3:38 PM

© 2019 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Views on southern border wall have been consistent since Trump became president

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Most Americans - 59 percent - oppose the building of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. However, 8 in 10 Republicans favor a wall. Two-thirds of independents and 84 percent of Democrats oppose a wall. Democrats and Republicans also have different priorities when considering immigration policy.

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It's a classic standoff: President Donald Trump wants $5 billion for a border wall, the centerpiece of his campaign. Democrats in Congress refuse to authorize money for a barrier they view as unnecessary.

So most of the U.S. government has shut down for two weeks.

The best hope for a breakthrough appears to be a compromise in which Congress allocates a bundle for border security, but with restrictions blocking the erection of a solid, 30-foot-high barrier coveted by the president.

With that in mind, the USA TODAY Network asked homeland-security experts a simple question: What would you do with $5 billion if Congress handed it to you and said, "Put this money to the best possible use for border security."

Should it be barriers? More border agents? Surveillance technology? Something else?

These are answers from a cross-section of authorities.

Andrew Selee, president, Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research center in Washington, D.C.

"This will be fun," Selee begins. "Nobody's ever asked me to spend $5 billion before."

His No. 1 priority would be pouring money into U.S. Immigration Courts and asylum officers, a refrain echoed by many of the experts.

About 92,000 migrants sought asylum along the Southwest border in 2018, creating a backlog that is unfair to those with legitimate claims.

Selee also would add inspectors and surveillance equipment at Southwest ports of entry "because that's where most of the hard drugs are coming through, and it is where the greatest threat of terrorist infiltration exists."

Finally, Selee says, he'd use additional money for fencing - maybe even a wall in strategic locations.

"I'm not allergic to the notion of a wall," he says. "I just don't think it's needed in most places."

CLOSE

James R. Phelps, co-author "Border Security," a 2014 book on the U.S.-Mexico line.

"There's a lot you could do with $5 billion," Phelps says.

He would pour all of the money into fencing. Not necessarily a wall, he adds, but barriers that are difficult to scale and laid out in rows so trespassers would have to climb several.

There also needs to be surveillance cameras, motion sensors and Border Patrol agents backing up the fences.

Although some areas - Big Bend National Park and the deserts of southwest Arizona - don't need barriers, Phelps says fencing should be extended around San Diego and border towns in Texas and Arizona.

"Nothing will ever be 100 percent effective," he says. "But if you want to stop drugs and people, you've got to build a fence ... You need to spend a billion dollars on fences in high-traffic areas."

Tony Payan, director of Mexican Center at Baker Institute, a Rice University think tank.

Payan describes Trump's wall as "an almost absurd proposition" that would create a schism between neighbor nations.

He says Border Patrol staffing needs to grow, and money should be spent on equipment and surveillance technology. But, for the most part, the $5 billion would be "best used on immigration courts that are now overwhelmed with asylum seekers."

Payan says any crisis or emergency on the border was spurred by a broken system for processing Central Americans who have surged to the United States as refugees.

A Government Accountability Office report in 2017 found U.S. Immigration Courts were clogged with more than 400,000 cases, and hearing delays of more than a year.

Payan says refugees, jammed in shelters on the Mexican side, grow so frustrated some decide to "make a run" at the border, either making it through illegally or getting arrested by agents so they can start the asylum process quicker.

Fixing that system "is a way of depressing their frustration...so they won't breach the border," he says.

Gil Kerlikowske, former U.S. Customs and Border Protection commissioner, now a professor at Northeastern University.

Kerlikowske says he'd spend about half the money on enhanced and updated technology - the so-called virtual fence that includes cameras, sensors, satellite and other surveillance.

The remaining $2.5 billion would go toward barriers in high-traffic zones. That would include replacement fencing where old structures are failing or inadequate, plus some new barriers.

Kerlikowske says the Rio Grande River Valley presents a huge complication because barriers may have to be erected up to a mile from the border/river, and because it would require condemnation of private property. Previous efforts have been costly and stirred a political backlash.

At the same time, he says, barriers create major environmental problems and a humanitarian concern that fences force migrants to cross through remote deserts, where some die.

"We want a clean, quick and simple answer," Kerlikowske notes. "But, as (essayist) H.L. Mencken said, 'That's probably a wrong answer.'"

David J. Danelo, author of "The Border: Exploring the U.S.-Mexico Divide," and a senior fellow at Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

"Since the President claims the increase in asylum seekers represents the security threat," Danelo says via email, "$5 billion would be more than enough to provide for immigration staffers to process and screen asylum claims and secure any facilities necessary to assist."

Danelo's second priority would be to increase the number of inspectors at land, air and sea ports. Additional Border Patrol agents and infrastructure would be last on his list.

Alex Nowrasteh, immigration analyst at CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank.

Nowrasteh says much of the $5 billion should go to hiring more agents and building facilities for asylum seekers. Like Payan, he says that would eliminate chaos and free border agents to provide security.

"They could line up outside ports of entry and come through orderly," he says. "That makes it a lot easier, a lot cheaper and it removes the criminal threat."

(Note: Customs and Border Protection is struggling to hire an additional 7,500 agents over the next five years, despite funding that already has been authorized by Congress.)

Nowrasteh concedes that expediting the asylum system might encourage even more migration. However, he adds, "These people are already asking. They're breaking in. It's much better for it to happen through the front door."

Read or Share this story: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/2019/01/08/wall-experts-give-best-ideas-5-billion-border-spending/2515167002/

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$5 billion question: How border-security experts would spend money Trump wants for a wall

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It's a classic standoff: President Donald Trump wants $5 billion for a border wall, the centerpiece of his campaign. Democrats in Congress refuse to authorize money for a barrier they view as unnecessary. So most of the U.S. government has shut down for two weeks.

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There are a number of independent court systems in the United States. The federal government and every state operate their own courts. However, many people are unaware that there are also courts dedicated to specialized topics. For example, the Immigration Court specializes in only handling immigration cases.

The Immigration Court is an administrative court run by the U.S. Department of Justice. There are more than 200 Immigration Judges in 50 Immigration Courts nationwide.

What Does the Immigration Court Do?

The immigration court is responsible for judging immigration cases. Their duties include being able to grant foreign nationals legal status in the United States, having foreign nationals who have committed an immigration crime in the U.S. deported or removed, and hearing appeals from foreign nationals seeking asylum.

Do I Need a Lawyer for Immigration Court?

If you had to be in court on a criminal or civil matter, you would of course hire a lawyer to represent you. Similarly, it is just as important to hire an attorney to represent you if you have to go to a hearing in Immigration Court. The U.S. government will be represented by a lawyer during your hearing and it is essential that you have a qualified immigration attorney next you representing your own interests.

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There are a number of independent court systems in the United States. The federal government and every state operate their own courts. However, many people are unaware that there are also courts dedicated to specialized topics. For example, the Immigration Court specializes in only handling immigration cases.

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The U.S.-Mexico border stretches 1,954 miles. About 700 of those miles have some sort of barricade or fence. The rest of the border is rugged landscapes and natural barriers like the Rio Grande River.

While the debate over Donald Trump's proposed wall continues, government money is flowing, and tech companies are looking to cash in. Companies like Quanergy and Anduril are working on electronic border solutions that would be more effective and cheaper for taxpayers than building a physical wall.

CNBC traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border town of Del Rio, Texas to see a prototype of a virtual wall, and also found out why locals in the area would rather electronic surveillance over a physical barrier.

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Tech from self-driving cars could solve border security without Trump's $5 billion wall

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The U.S.-Mexico border stretches 1,954 miles. About 700 of those miles have some sort of barricade or fence. The rest of the border is rugged landscapes and natural barriers like the Rio Grande River. While the debate over Donald Trump's proposed wall continues, government money is flowing, and tech companies are looking to cash in.

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Migrants, Mexico, and Medicare. In an interview with Jake Sherman, President Donald Trump insisted that nothing less than a $5 billion budget for his border wall will do. "Politically speaking," the wall "is a total winner," said Trump. "The $5 billion is a MINIMUM - he wants more for security," Sherman tweeted Wednesday morning. "5b is just for the wall."

Instead of spending billions on a wall or summoning more troops to the border, Reihan Salam offers "an unexpected solution to the migrant crisis" in his latest at The Atlantic, which ends with a proposal to let U.S. retirees use their Medicare benefits for health care in Mexico. It starts with Salam offering one theory as to why Central American migration has picked up in recent years, in addition to increasing levels of violence in certain counties: "the surge in asylum claims has led to a severe backlog," which has in turn led to even more asylum claims.

Actually getting asylum status in the U.S. is hard, but getting an application accepted is (once you get to a U.S. border and are actually granted a chance to apply) pretty easy. And because it takes so long for our government to process asylum claims, many who apply are released on bond and granted the ability to live and work in the United States for months or years before their asylum claim is accepted or rejected.

"Though it is undoubtedly true that high levels of violent crime have been pushing people out of the Northern Triangle, even as homicide rates have declined in recent years, the pull of family ties and economic opportunity is at least as powerful a force," suggests Salam.

Drawing on World Bank data, the Pew Research Center found that remittances from migrant workers represented 17 percent of GDP in El Salvador, 11 percent in Guatemala, and 18 percent in Honduras as of 2016, numbers that have likely increased in the intervening years. Yet as the anthropologist David Stoll has observed, it is important to emphasize that remittances do not flow evenly. Some households in the Northern Triangle have loved ones living and working in the U.S., while others do not, and the gulf between them stimulates further migration as have-not families seek to join the ranks of the haves by sending one of their own abroad. ... Over the course of several years, entire social networks can uproot themselves, and those seeking a decent life at home find themselves at a distinct disadvantage.

One way to mitigate the probem would be for asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while they wait out claim processing, a proposal that Mexican's government seems amenable to. From Salam:

The Remain in Mexico plan would change this dynamic. Those asylum seekers who pass the credible-fear test would be expected to remain in Mexico while their cases are adjudicated. Exceptions would be made for those who can establish that they have a reasonable fear of temporarily residing in Mexico, but that would be a higher bar to clear. In practice, one of the main reasons Central American migrants prefer to live in the U.S. over Mexico is that, simply put, wages are higher north of the border, which is not in itself grounds for asylum. López Obrador has often expressed a desire to aid Central American migrants, and that has been echoed by Mexican officials who've pointed to job openings in the maquiladoras of Tijuana and other growing cities that could be filled by asylum seekers.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Sánchez Cordero underscored that "we want [Central American migrants] to be included in society, that they integrate into society, that they accept the offer of employment that we are giving them." Elsewhere, she has discussed granting 1 million work visas to Central American migrants, in keeping with López Obrador's concept of employing said newcomers in his efforts to revitalize southern Mexico. Though Remain in Mexico would not be a "safe third-country agreement," which would essentially bar migrants passing through Mexico from applying for asylum in the U.S., it has the potential to bring an end to the periodic border crises that have roiled the country since the summer of 2014.

But Trump would need to give Mexico something in return, writes Salam. One thing that would benefit both countries would be if U.S. retirees could use their Medicare benefits in Mexico:

Needless to say, such a proposal would surely be met with ferocious resistance from U.S. medical providers who fear the prospect of foreign competition, and their political allies would surely denounce it as part of a larger plot to export aging Americans en masse. But U.S. retirees are growing more diverse, and a large and growing number of them have origins in Mexico. Many of them would welcome the opportunity to reconnect with their ancestral homeland, provided that they wouldn't have to surrender the promise of high-quality medical care in their twilight years in the process.

Salam adds that "the benefits for Mexico would be immeasurable." Plus:

.. taken together, Remain in Mexico and Medicare-in-Mexico would bind the U.S. and Mexico in a mutually beneficial relationship around immigration. Mexico would help the U.S. exert greater control over migration flows, and in exchange, the U.S. would make a serious commitment to fostering economic opportunity for Mexicans and Central Americans closer to home, thereby helping to keep families and communities intact. The presence of large numbers of older Americans in the region, meanwhile, will give the U.S. an even greater stake in helping maintain its security and prosperity, which would be all to the good.

But Reason's Shikha Dalmia is skeptical. She tells me this morning that while Salam's Medicare proposal is interesting, "it can only play a very marginal role in propping up Mexico's economy."

Meanwhile, Salam "is seriously downplaying the role that social breakdown and escalating violence in the Northern Triangle has played in creating the migrant crisis," as well as the way "that America has played a major role in destablizing the region," she says, pointing to her recent article on the subject in The Week.

Dalmia also worries that the Trump administration would spend "gobs of taxpayer money" getting Mexico to go along with asylum seekers remaining there. Trump and his ilk worry about "welfare moochers," but this would be worse, creating "a net loss to America, whereas if [asylum seekers] were allowed to come and work here, they'd grow the economy and pay taxes."

However, she notes that Salam's "Medicare idea and admitting these migrants [are not] either/or. Both help the US and Mexico and migrants. Both should be pursued!"

FREE MARKETS

Postmodern marketplaces or fraud? Read this New York Times tale of an online retail rabbit hole that leads to Newsweek scandal and a Bible college under investigation for fraud. Among many other interesting bits, it explains what's going on with weirdly expensive yet mundane Amazon products:

There was little pattern or theme to what these Amazon shops sold. They had everything from hemorrhoid cream to desk lamps, and there were varying levels of inventory....They were also strangely expensive. You might be hard pressed to imagine someone paying $42.66 for 6 ounces of Ulcer Ease Anesthetic Mouth Rinse, $52.00 for three boxes of Queasy Pops, or $127.09 for beige compression stockings in medium.1 But perhaps not having done their research, some people do."

Known as "dropshippers," they "are online sellers who don't keep any products in stock. Instead, they advertise a product and, if it is purchased, they buy the item from overseas and ship it directly to the customer." And there are layers and layers of them, "a kind of product version of clickbait." But is it all to a deeper end?

Trying to map the connections between all these entities opens a gaping wormhole. I couldn't get over the idea that a church might be behind a network of used business books, hair straighteners, and suspiciously priced compression stockings-sold on Amazon storefronts with names like GiGling EyE, ShopperDooperEU and DAMP store-all while running a once-venerable American news publication into the ground.

* Reason's webathon continues all week!

Donate here.

Reminders why Reason is great here, from current editor-in-chief Katherine Mangu-Ward, and here, from her predecessor and current editor at large Nick Gillespie.

Watch Reason's special live podcast on Facebook, YouTube, and Reason.com today at 1 p.m. Mangu-Ward, Gillespie, Matt Welch, and Peter Suderman will answer your questions about sex, drugs, robots, politics, and more.

Have a question for the podcasters already? Send it to podcasts@reason.com

* Yikes. From the Yale School of Management: "A new study suggests that white Americans who hold liberal socio-political views use language that makes them appear less competent in an effort to get along with racial minorities."

* Fox's new streaming station seems off to a good start:

The new Fox Nation shows are amazing. pic.twitter.com/53B2UUCYLp

- Will Sommer (@willsommer) November 27, 2018

* More on the #ThotAudit:

BREAKING NEWS
JUST FOUND THIS IRS CALL. ON A SEX WORKER
RT TO LET OUR BABES KNOW!!! pic.twitter.com/F2hCD59wzo

- Kimmie Gibbler (@NerdGibbler) November 26, 2018

* Experiments in content and influence monetization.

* "By rejecting the new rules for Title IX investigations, the ACLU has come out as an opponent of due process rights on college campuses," writes (former Reason intern) Lindsay Marchello at The Federalist. "This position is blatantly contradictory to their core mission of protecting civil liberties."

* The president talks climate change:

My goodness, here is what Trump said about climate change to the Washington Post. I recommend reading it in Tommy Wiseau's voice. https://t.co/jRkPjwxmdn pic.twitter.com/2WNRIuWFCs

- Daniel Dale (@ddale8) November 27, 2018

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Trump Wants $5 Billion for a Border Wall. Here Are Some Better Alternatives: Reason Roundup

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Migrants, Mexico, and Medicare. In an interview with Jake Sherman, President Donald Trump insisted that nothing less than a $5 billion budget for his border wall will do. "Politically speaking," the wall "is a total winner," said Trump. "The $5 billion is a MINIMUM - he wants more for security," Sherman tweeted Wednesday morning.

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The impasse over President Trump Donald John Trump Conservatives seize on Alabama state Dem's abortion comments NYT disciplines editor after publishing cartoon depicting anti-Semitic tropes Wall Street Journal editorial board: Dems vilifying Barr for 'acting like a real Attorney General' MORE 's demand for the $5.7 billion wall funding has resulted in one of the longest government shutdowns in U.S. history, threats to declare a national emergency and over 800,000 federal workers living without pay.

While border security is vital to keep the United States safe, it is debatable whether investment in the wall is the most cost-effective, modern, environmentally-friendly strategy the United States government can employ to keep out criminals, drugs and other threats to America's safety.

The wall debate makes it clear that we need to rethink how we approach border security to meet today's challenges.

Here are three alternatives to a wall that uphold the importance of keeping the United States safe and secure but could effectively devote resources to the areas where there is the most need.
1. Addressing asylum applications
The border wall would work to keep out migrants who attempt to cross the border illegally between ports of entry. However, the current problem at the southern border is the increase in Central American migrants who are seeking asylum at ports of entry but must wait for extended periods to enter into the U.S. to make their claim.

While there is not a border security crisis, there is an urgent need to address the mounting number of asylum applications.

As the backlog of asylum claims grows, more and more migrants are waiting extended periods in dreadful conditions, unable to enter the United States due to the practice of metering, which limits the number of asylum seekers allowed into the U.S. per day.

Migrant desperation is growing, resulting in violent confrontations. Reports of migrants paying smugglers to enter the United States due to inabilities to enter legally are also increasingly prevalent.

The longer we fail to address this growing problem, the greater the risk of creating perverse incentives for asylum seekers to cross illegally as the legal process to enter becomes more challenging.

By updating the asylum system to process claims quickly and efficiently, it gives the power back to the U.S. government to determine who enters into the country and who does not. It also disincentivizes those who do not have a legitimate claim from applying but allows those who do to enter in a timely manner.

Administrative measures to streamline the asylum process makes America safer while being safer and more humane for migrants, too.
2. More secure ports of entry
The wall would stretch across a vast expanse of desert between ports of entry. Yet, most security threats are at ports of entry rather than between. About one-fifth of the number of gang members apprehended were at ports of entry (a significantly larger number than the six members who were apprehended between).

The same goes for suspected terrorists. The State Department estimated that exactly zero terrorists entered the United States from the U.S.-Mexico border. In fact, counties along the southern border are among the safest in the United States.

The Department of Homeland security stated, "Most of these individuals are trying to enter the U.S. by air," meaning the wall would be largely ineffective in preventing a terrorist threat.

In order to apprehend those who pose the greatest threat to our nation's safety, it is important to focus our resources, technology and attention in the areas where dangerous people attempt to enter the United States.

Furthermore, there has been a sizable increase in cross-border trafficking of drugs such as heroin, fentanyl, methamphetamine and cocaine in recent years. According to Customs and Border Protection data, these drugs are almost entirely trafficked at the land ports of entry and at the 47 official border crossings.

Despite the increase in drug trafficking, reports have shown that shifting the priority to zero-tolerance immigration enforcement diverted resources from pursuing more serious crimes like drug and human trafficking.

Focusing attention on drug trafficking at ports of entry would likely result in an increase in drug seizures, which would make America safer by keeping out some of the most dangerous substances affecting our population today.
3. Investing in technology and personnel
A wall's function is to create a physical barrier to prevent people from crossing. However, a wall cannot perform the myriad functions necessary to apprehend crossers, screen migrants, detect illicit behavior, etc. Department of Homeland Security staffers, border patrol agents and increased technology however, can.

Technology, including cameras, fixed towers and aerial and underground sensors, can help combat cartels that are using highly sophisticated technology to cross the border.

Expanding agencies like the Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Counterterrorism and Criminal Exploitation Unit prevents terrorists and other criminals from exploiting the nation's immigration system through fraud.

Investing in the Biometric Entry-Exit System at all ports of entry helps screen those who enter into the United States efficiently and effectively. The need for a 21st-century approach to border security is something both Republicans and Democrats have called for, aiming to find new solutions to emerging problems.

Placing the appropriate technology in the right places and training and building the skill set of personnel in key agencies makes America safer.

The shutdown over the border wall needs to end. Many people in charge of keeping America safe are currently working without pay.

Transportation Security Administration agents are calling in sick, and the growing strain on those who work for the Border Patrol, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Secret Service could negatively impact the morale and quality of work of these vital agencies.

Agreeing on a bipartisan deal to end the shutdown and paying the people who are in charge of our nation's security makes America safer. Let us have a discussion in Congress about the border, with people who work and live at the border, to come up with bipartisan, contemporary, cost-effective solutions to improve our border security.
Rachel Schmidtke is the program associate at the Wilson Center's Mexico Institute, where she conducts research on the policies and trends of migration and U.S.-Mexico relations.

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3 alternatives to a wall that will strengthen the southern border

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The impasse over President Trump Donald John Trump Conservatives seize on Alabama state Dem's abortion comments NYT disciplines editor after publishing cartoon depicting anti-Semitic tropes Wall Street Journal editorial board: Dems vilifying Barr for 'acting like a real Attorney General' MORE 's demand for the $5.7 billion wall funding has resulted in one of the longest government shutdowns in U.S.

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"We're going to build a wall" - it's something we have heard US President Donald Trump say many times since he launched his presidential campaign.

The president wants a physical barrier along the border between Mexico and the US to prevent people from crossing over it illegally.

The border wall has proved to be a controversial topic, with many people disagreeing about whether or not it's a good idea.

Some of the existing border barriers have been replaced since Mr Trump entered the White House, but by March 2019, work to extend what is there had only just begun.

Newsround has been to the US-Mexico border to find out more about Mr Trump's proposed wall and how it affects people's lives.

You can watch full-length versions of the videos on this page in a special feature on CBBC iPlayer.

Read on to find out more about US-Mexico border wall.

Why is a wall at the border so important to Donald Trump?

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Building a wall was one of Donald Trump's key promises when he was campaigning to become US president.

It was an idea that divided the country, but it won Donald Trump many supporters.

It is over two years into his presidency, but he still wants to deliver on that promise.

A wall at the border between the US and Mexico would be designed to prevent people from entering the US illegally.

Currently, there is a total of 650 miles of barrier along the border, which is 1,900 miles long.

The US Customs and Border Protection agency has said that, so far, it has replaced about 14 miles of scrap metal barrier with a bollard-style wall in San Diego, built two miles of wall in California, and 20 miles of new wall in Santa Teresa in New Mexico.

However, Donald Trump believes the existing barriers are not enough to stop people attempting to cross and he wants to build more.

In a televised speech, he stated: "All Americans are hurt by uncontrolled, illegal migration.

"We are out of space to hold them and we have no way to promptly return them back home to their country," he continued.

President Trump wants to build a 1,000-mile wall made out of steel to prevent people from crossing the US-Mexico border.

He believes the rest of the terrain along the border - including mountains and forests - should be enough to prevent people from attempting to cross.

But building a wall of this size is going to cost a lot of money.

How is he hoping to build the wall?

Originally he suggested that Mexico should pay for the wall, but it became clear early on that the Mexican government would not pay.

Now, President Trump is appealing to his own government - and therefore, to US taxpayers - to pay for the wall.

He estimates that he would need $5.6 billion (the equivalent to £4.4 million) to build a steel barrier across the border.

This has not been well received by his opposing party - the Democrats.

The issue of how to pay for the wall caused a stand-off within Congress - the body which creates, debates and makes laws in the US.

The Democrats were very successful in the US mid-term elections, which gave them more power to be able to refuse money for the project.

With no decision being made earlier this year, Congress was unable to pass a spending bill - and the government was forced to partially close.

In March 2019, the first funds for the wall were given the go-ahead. A total of $1 billion (about £758 million) was authorised to be sent to army engineers.

Who agrees with building the wall?

Polling has showed that most US citizens don't agree with building the wall.

A mid-November CBS poll found that 59% disagreed with it.

However, those that agree with the wall being built are working hard to make their opinions heard.

Immigration - particularly illegal immigration - is a very important issue to many Americans.

Those who agree with the wall being built believe that the US is overwhelmed by illegal immigration.

Their opinion is that people who come to live and work in the country, without official permission from the government, are taking advantage of the country's privileges and freedoms.

Many feel the wall will prevent illegal immigrants from coming into the country as easily.

A GoFundMe page was set up by US Army veteran Brian Kolfage. He believes that in the event that Congress refuses to pay for the wall, Donald Trump's supporters could pay for it instead.

"If the 63 million people who voted for Trump each pledge $80, we can build the wall," he stated on his fundraising page.

He has already raised $22.2 million. It's a long way off the $5.6 billion needed, but it is still a very large amount to raise.

But what about the majority of citizens who do not believe the wall is a good idea?

Who disagrees with building the wall?

The majority of US citizens believe that the wall is a bad idea or that it shouldn't be a priority for the president.

The Democratic Party, who are in opposition to President Trump's Republican Party, believe that building the wall is wrong.

"President Trump has appealed to fear, not facts. Division, not unity," stated Democrat Senator, Chuck Schumer, in reaction to Trump's televised address.

There is some evidence that the statements Trump made during his address were not factually correct.

For example, President Trump claimed that there is a crisis in the number of people attempting crossing the border illegally in the past few years.

But statistics have showed that the number of arrests at the US-Mexico border have decreased a lot since the early 2000s.

Currently, there is an average of 400,000 arrests at the border each year, compared to more than a million arrests in the early 2000s.

Aside from the questioning of the facts, many Democrats feel that building a wall would send the wrong message about US immigration.

Senator Schumer referenced the Statue of Liberty as a better symbol for the country.

The Statue of Liberty is also known as the Immigrant's Statue, as it was seen as a representation of hope and welcome to the millions of people who immigrated to the US through New York more than a century ago.

But this does not mean that the Democrats are completely against more security at the border between the US and Mexico.

They have stated they would support increased security, but not in the form of a wall and not in the form of a budget of $5.6 billion.

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Why does Donald Trump want to build a wall? - CBBC Newsround

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"We're going to build a wall" - it's something we have heard US President Donald Trump say many times since he launched his presidential campaign. The president wants a physical barrier along the border between Mexico and the US to prevent people from crossing over it illegally.

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Parts of a 'Virtual' Border Wall, Built With the Tech Behind Driverless Cars (Published 2018)

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In a rural Texas county, lidar sensor technology is being tested as a way to spot illegal intruders from Mexico. That use could divide workers in Silicon Valley.

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With construction costs that could reach $21 billion, President Donald Trump's " big beautiful wall " along the U.S.-Mexico border has enticed scores of construction firms and contractors to file proposals to get a piece of that business. Quanergy, a Silicon Valley startup that makes laser LiDAR sensors and a rising star in the world of automated car technology is one of the more curious applicants.

Its interest in the Customs and Border Protection project was reported first by Axios. The Sunnyvale, California-based company registered an "other border wall" proposal, but the long vendors list doesn't detail Quanergy's idea. That "other" category is for any wall proposal that doesn't use concrete and that can be shown to be an effective option, a CBP spokesman explained to Forbes.

Why is a young tech company that raised $90 million last year to mass-produce low-cost, solid-state laser vision devices for 3-D imaging around cars - and which counts Hyundai, Daimler, Renault-Nissan and parts maker Delphi as investors and partners - wading into border security?

A Quanergy spokeswoman didn't immediately provide a comment on the matter, but a Forbes interview with CEO and founder Louay Eldada in August 2016 provides an answer. He wants the company's future revenue base to rely as much on security applications as those for the car industry.

"That's just as big as automotive," Eldada said. "We expect 40 percent of our revenue to be from automotive; 40 percent from security; and 20 percent from everything else."

LiDAR's appeal for security systems is simple. Unlike radar, which reflects mainly off metal and very dense objects, lasers reflect off any object, including human bodies. And unlike camera-based security systems that rely on ambient light, Quanergy's LiDAR sensors work equally well in bright or dark conditions.

Forbes spoke with Eldada while the 2016 presidential campaign was in full swing and Trump was hyping his controversial wall plan. When asked whether Quanergy had discussed its technology with then-candidate Trump, Eldada said: "We'd like to convince him not to pour concrete yet."

The company's website points out that its vision tech is ideal for perimeter security and can "classify and track a human body, based on its unique surface profile curvature, to monitor a person's movement near a virtual fence."

Along with industrial sites and military bases, "we can do a virtual fence between countries," Eldada told Forbes.

A Quanergy LiDAR virtual fence along the U.S. border would be "a lot cheaper" than hundreds of miles of concrete and steel and provide imaging that's vastly superior to video surveillance, he said.

"At 100 meters a human body might fill two image pixels, so very little detail. With LiDAR I can see what you're doing with your fingers at 100 meters."

Production of automotive LiDAR units starts this year, and Eldada has said his sensors will eventually cost as little as $100 per unit.

Border wall proposals are due March 29. So far, none of Quanergy's LiDAR rivals, including Velodyne, Ibeo, Continental and Bosch, have joined it in vying for a Trump contract.

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Silicon Valley LiDAR Maker Quanergy Angles For A Trump Border Wall Contract

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With construction costs that could reach $21 billion, President Donald Trump's " big beautiful wall " along the U.S.-Mexico border has enticed scores of construction firms and contractors to file proposals to get a piece of that business.

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The Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS)

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Trump administration has made the construction of an "impregnable" 2,000-mile wall across the length of the US-Mexico border a centerpiece of its executive orders on immigration and its broader immigration enforcement strategy. This initiative has been broadly criticized based on:

Escalating cost projections: an internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) study recently set the cost at $21.6 billion over three and a half years;

Its necessity given the many other enforcement tools - video surveillance, drones, ground sensors, and radar technologies - and Border Patrol personnel, that cover the US-Mexico border: former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff and other experts have argued that a wall does not add enforcement value except in heavy crossing areas near towns, highways, or other "vanishing points" (Kerwin 2016);

Its cost-effectiveness given diminished Border Patrol apprehensions (to roughly one-fourth the level of historic highs) and reduced illegal entries (to roughly one-tenth the 2005 level according to an internal DHS study) (Martinez 2016);

Its efficacy as an enforcement tool: between FY 2010 and FY 2015, the current 654-mile pedestrian wall was breached 9,287 times (GAO 2017, 22);

Its inability to meet the administration's goal of securing "operational control" of the border, defined as "the prevention of all unlawful entries to the United States" (White House 2017);

Its deleterious impact on bi-national border communities, the environment, and property rights (Heyman 2013); and

Opportunity costs in the form of foregone investments in addressing the conditions that drive large-scale migration, as well as in more effective national security and immigration enforcement strategies.

The Center for Migration Studies (CMS) has reported on the dramatic decline in the US undocumented population between 2008 and 2014 (Warren 2016). In addition, a growing percentage of border crossers in recent years have originated in the Northern Triangle states of Central America (CBP 2016). These migrants are fleeing pervasive violence, persecution, and poverty, and a large number do not seek to evade arrest, but present themselves to border officials and request political asylum. Many are de facto refugees, not illegal border crossers.

This report speaks to another reason to question the necessity and value of a 2,000-mile wall: It does not reflect the reality of how the large majority of persons now become undocumented. It finds that two-thirds of those who arrived in 2014 did not illegally cross a border, but were admitted (after screening) on non-immigrant (temporary) visas, and then overstayed their period of admission or otherwise violated the terms of their visas. Moreover, this trend in increasing percentages of visa overstays will likely continue into the foreseeable future.

The report presents information about the mode of arrival of the undocumented population that resided in the United States in 2014. To simplify the presentation, it divides the 2014 population into two groups: overstays and entries without inspection (EWIs). The term overstay, as used in this paper, refers to undocumented residents who entered the United States with valid temporary visas and subsequently established residence without authorization. The term EWI refers to undocumented residents who entered without proper immigration documents across the southern border.

The estimates are based primarily on detailed estimates of the undocumented population in 2014 compiled by CMS and estimates of overstays for 2015 derived by DHS. Major findings include the following:

In 2014, about 4.5 million US residents, or 42 percent of the total undocumented population, were overstays.

Overstays accounted for about two-thirds (66 percent) of those who arrived (i.e., joined the undocumented population) in 2014.

Overstays have exceeded EWIs every year since 2007, and 600,000 more overstays than EWIs have arrived since 2007.

Mexico is the leading country for both overstays and EWIs; about one-third of undocumented arrivals from Mexico in 2014 were overstays.

California has the largest number of overstays (890,000), followed by New York (520,000), Texas (475,000), and Florida (435,000).

Two states had 47 percent of the 6.4 million EWIs in 2014: California (1.7 million) and Texas (1.3 million).

The percentage of overstays varies widely by state: more than two-thirds of the undocumented who live in Hawaii, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania are overstays. By contrast, the undocumented population in Kansas, Arkansas, and New Mexico consists of fewer than 25 percent overstays.

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The 2,000 Mile Wall in Search of a Purpose: Since 2007 Visa Overstays have Outnumbered Undocumented Border Crossers by a Half Million - The Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS)

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This paper speaks to another reason to question the necessity and value of a 2,000-mile wall along the US-Mexico border: It does not reflect the reality of how the large majority of persons now become undocumented. The paper presents information about the mode of arrival of the undocumented population that resided in the United States in 2014.

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Immigration seems to be ever present in current political and public debate in the United States, with the topic central in the 2016 presidential campaign and since then, amid ongoing policy conversations about border wall construction, refugee resettlement cuts, family separation, and much more. Yet even as positions taken by political parties and individuals seem hardened, immigration flows and the makeup of the U.S. immigrant population have been changing in significant, though not always fully appreciated, ways.

Among the changes: The overall immigrant population continues to grow, but at a slower rate than before the 2007-09 recession. Recent immigrants are more likely to be from Asia than from Mexico, and are also more likely to have a college degree. The size of the unauthorized population appears to be on the decline. Deportations from within the United States are rising. And the United States in 2018 resettled the smallest number of refugees since formal creation of the refugee resettlement program in 1980.

To help inform discussions around immigration, this Spotlight offers in one accessible resource the most authoritative, unbiased, and current data available about the 44.5 million immigrants resident in the United States as of 2017. By compiling some of the most frequently requested facts and figures, this article provides answers to questions such as: What are the trends shaping immigration to our country? How many people have immigrated to the United States, and via what channels? How many arrived as refugees, and from which countries? Has the number of unauthorized immigrants changed in recent years? What jobs do immigrants fill? And how many U.S. residents are either immigrants or the children of immigrants?

The article draws on the most recent resources and data from the Migration Policy Institute (MPI); the U.S. Census Bureau (using its 2017 American Community Survey [ACS], 2018 Current Population Survey [CPS], and 2000 decennial census); and the U.S. Departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and State. (Note: DHS and State Department data refer to fiscal years that begin on October 1 and end on September 30; ACS and CPS data refer to calendar years). For more detailed information on U.S. and global immigration data sources and one-click access to these datasets, see the MPI report Immigration Data Matters.

Click on the bullet points for more information on each topic:

Immigrants Now and Historically
How many immigrants reside in the United States?
More than 44.5 million immigrants resided in the United States in 2017, the historical high since census records have been kept. One in seven U.S. residents is foreign born, according to 2017 American Community Survey (ACS) data. While immigrants' current share-13.7 percent-of the overall U.S. population (325.7 million people) has been increasing since the record low marked in 1970, it remains below the historical record of 14.8 percent hit in 1890.

Between 2016 and 2017, the foreign-born population increased by about 787,000, or almost 2 percent-a rate higher than the 1 percent growth experienced between 2015 and 2016, but lower than the 3 percent increase between 2013 and 2014.
How have the number and share of immigrants changed over time?
Data on the nativity of the U.S. population was first collected in the 1850 census. That year, there were 2.2 million immigrants, representing nearly 10 percent of the overall population.

Between 1860 and 1920, the immigrant share fluctuated between 13 percent and almost 15 percent of the overall population, peaking at 14.8 percent in 1890, largely due to high levels of immigration from Europe.

Restrictive immigration laws in 1921 and 1924-which kept the channels to permanent immigration open almost exclusively to northern and western European immigrants-coupled with the Great Depression and World War II, led to a sharp drop in new arrivals from the Eastern Hemisphere. The foreign-born share steadily declined, hitting a record low of 4.7 percent in 1970 (9.6 million; see Figure 1).

Since then, the share and number of immigrants have increased rapidly, mainly because of large-scale immigration from Latin America and Asia, with the foreign-born population standing at 44.5 million as of 2017. Important shifts in U.S. immigration law (including the Immigration Act of 1965 that abolished national-origin admission quotas, the Refugee Act of 1980, and preferential treatment of Cuban immigrants); the United States' growing economic and military presence in Asia and Latin America; economic ties, powerful immigrant networks, and deep migration history between the United States and its southern neighbors; and major economic transformations and political instability in countries around the world all have helped usher in the vast diversification of immigration flows.
How do today's top countries of origin compare to those 50 years ago?
In 2017, Mexicans accounted for approximately 25 percent of immigrants in the United States, making them by far the largest foreign-born group. Indians and Chinese (including immigrants from Hong Kong but not Taiwan) were the next two largest groups, each comprising close to 6 percent, followed by Filipinos at 5 percent. Rounding out the top ten were El Salvador, Vietnam, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic (about 3 percent each); and South Korea and Guatemala (approximately 2 percent). Together, these countries were the origin for 57 percent of the U.S. immigrant population in 2017.

The predominance of Latin American and Asian immigration in the late 20th and early 21st centuries starkly contrasts with the trend in the mid-1900s, when immigrants were largely European. In the 1960s no single country accounted for more than 15 percent of the total immigrant population. Italians were the top origin group, making up 13 percent of the foreign born in 1960, followed by Germans and Canadians (about 10 percent each).
How many immigrants have entered the United States since 2010, and what are the leading sending countries?
Twenty-one percent of the 44.5 million immigrants in the United States in 2017 entered in 2010 or later, 26 percent arrived between 2000 and 2009, 22 percent between 1990 and 1999, and 31 percent before 1990.

While immigrants from Mexico dominated the flows post-1970, the makeup of newcomers has changed since the 2007-09 recession. Recently arrived immigrants are more likely to come from Asia, with India and China leading the way. Countries such as the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, Cuba, El Salvador, and Venezuela have also seen sizeable emigration to the United States. By contrast, there were fewer Mexican immigrants in the United States in 2017 than in 2010, representing the biggest decline of all immigrant groups.

Read more on immigrants from New Origin Countries in the United States.

Check out Largest U.S. Immigrant Groups over Time, 1960-Present, an interactive tool showing the top ten source countries by decade.

To learn more about key immigrant populations, check out the Migration Information Source's Spotlights archive, which includes data-rich articles on individual immigrant groups in the United States, including Mexicans, Indians, Chinese, Vietnamese, Koreans, South Americans, Europeans, sub-Saharan Africans, and those from the Middle East-North Africa region.

How many U.S. residents are of recent immigrant origin?
Immigrants and their U.S.-born children now number approximately 89.4 million people, or 28 percent of the overall U.S. population, according to the 2018 Current Population Survey (CPS). Pew Research Center projects that the immigrant-origin share will rise to about 36 percent by 2065.

Demographic, Educational, and Linguistic Characteristics
What is the median age for immigrants?
Overall, the immigrant population in 2017 was older than the U.S.-born population, with a median age of 44.8 years as compared to 36.2 years for the native born. The latter are younger largely because most children of immigrants are born in the United States and a significant share are under age 18.

In 2017, fewer than 1 percent of immigrants were under age 5 (compared to 7 percent for the native born), approximately 5 percent were ages 5 to 17 (versus 18 percent), 79 percent were ages 18 to 64 (compared to 59 percent), and 16 percent were ages 65 and older (the same as the U.S. born).

What is the female share of the immigrant population?
In 2017, approximately 52 percent of immigrants were female. The share has fluctuated slightly over the past four decades; women accounted for 53 percent of immigrants in 1980, 51 percent in 1990, 50 percent in 2000, and 51 percent in 2010.
What is the racial makeup of immigrants?
Forty-six percent of immigrants in 2017 reported their race as single-race White, 27 percent as Asian, 9 percent as Black, and 16 percent as some other race. About 2 percent reported having two or more races.
How many immigrants are Hispanic or Latino?
In 2017, 44 percent of U.S. immigrants (19.7 million people) reported having Hispanic or Latino origins.

Note: The Census Bureau classifies Hispanic and Latino as ethnic categories, separate from the racial categories listed above (see Definitions box for more information).
How many Hispanics in the United States are immigrants?
The majority of U.S. Hispanics are native born. Of the 58.8 million people in 2017 who self-identified as Hispanic or Latino, 34 percent (19.7 million) were immigrants and 66 percent (39.1 million) were native-born.
Which languages are most frequently spoken at home?
In 2017, approximately 78 percent (239.3 million) of the 306 million people ages 5 and older in the United States reported speaking only English at home.

The remaining 22 percent (66.5 million) reported speaking a language other than English at home. Of the top languages, Spanish was by far the most common (62 percent), followed by Chinese (5 percent, including Mandarin and Cantonese), Tagalog (almost 3 percent), and Vietnamese, Arabic, French (including Cajun), and Korean (about 2 percent each). The remaining languages in the top 15 each accounted for approximately 1 percent: Russian, German, Haitian Creole, Hindi, Portuguese, Italian, Polish, and Urdu.
What percentage of immigrants are Limited English Proficient?
In 2017, approximately 48 percent (21.2 million) of 44.2 million immigrants ages 5 and older were Limited English Proficient (LEP).

Immigrants account for 82 percent of all LEP individuals over age 5, while native-born individuals account for 18 percent.

Note: The term "Limited English Proficient" refers to persons ages 5 and older who reported speaking English "not at all," "not well," or "well" on their survey questionnaire. Individuals who reported speaking "only English" or speaking English "very well" are considered proficient in English.
What share of the immigrant population has a college education?
In 2017, 31 percent (12 million) of the 39 million immigrants ages 25 and older had a bachelor's degree or higher, compared to 32 percent of U.S.-born adults (see Figure 2). Notably, the share of college-educated immigrants was much higher-47 percent-among those who entered the country in the previous five years (between 2012 and 2017).

Educational attainment varies by country of origin. In 2017, the top five countries of origin for immigrants with a bachelor's degree or more were India (79 percent), Taiwan (72 percent), Egypt (68 percent), Latvia (67 percent), and Kuwait (65 percent).

Immigrant Destinations
Which states have the largest number of immigrants and which ones have experienced the fastest growth of their immigrant populations?
In 2017, the top five U.S. states by number of immigrants were California (10.7 million), Texas (4.9 million), New York (4.5 million), Florida (4.4 million), and New Jersey (2.1 million).

When classified by the share of immigrants out of the total state population, the top five states in 2017 were California (27 percent), New York (23 percent), New Jersey (23 percent), Florida (21 percent), and Nevada (20 percent).

Interested in the top U.S. destinations for immigrants by country or region of origin? Use our interactive maps to see top immigrant concentrations at state and county or metropolitan-area levels.

While traditional immigrant destinations lead in terms of absolute number of new immigrants, other states have seen much larger relative growth in their immigrant populations (see Table 1).
Table 1. Top Five States by Absolute and Percent Growth in Immigrant Population, 1990-2000 and 2000-17
Note: In some states, the initial foreign-born population was quite small. Thus, relatively small absolute increases in the immigrant population in these states have translated into high percent growth
Source: MPI tabulation of data from the U.S. Census Bureau 2017 ACS and 1990 and 2000 Decennial Census.

Immigrants in the Labor Force
How many immigrants are in the U.S. civilian labor force?
Immigrants accounted for 17 percent (28 million) of the 163.7 million persons in the civilian labor force in 2017. Between 1970 and 2017, the percentage of the foreign born in the labor force more than tripled, from 5 percent to 17 percent. Over the same period, the foreign-born share of the total population grew more slowly: from less than 5 percent to just under 14 percent.
What types of jobs do immigrants hold?
Of the 26.8 million employed foreign-born workers ages 16 and older in 2017, the largest share, more than 32 percent, worked in management, professional, and related occupations. See Figure 3 for other occupations.
Figure 3. Employed Workers in the Civilian Labor Force (ages 16 and older), by Nativity and Occupation, 2017
Note: Numbers may not add up to 100 as they are rounded to the nearest whole number.
Source: MPI tabulation of data from the U.S. Census Bureau 2017 ACS.

Health Insurance Coverage
What share of immigrants have health insurance?
In 2017, approximately 57 percent of U.S. immigrants had private health insurance (compared to 69 percent of the U.S. born), and 30 percent had public health insurance coverage (compared to 36 percent of the native born).

Since implementation of the Affordable Care Act in 2014, health insurance coverage has improved for both the U.S. born and immigrants. From 2013 to 2017, the immigrant uninsured rate fell from 32 percent to 20 percent, and the rate for the native born fell from 12 percent to 7 percent.

Note: Health insurance coverage is calculated only for the civilian, noninstitutionalized population. Since some people may simultaneously hold both private and public health insurance coverage, estimates of those with public health insurance and those with public coverage may overlap. Their sum therefore may be greater than the total number of people with health insurance.

Children of Immigrants
How many U.S. children live with immigrant parents?
In 2017, approximately 18.2 million children under age 18 lived with at least one immigrant parent. They accounted for 26 percent of the 70 million children under age 18 in the United States, up from 13 percent in 1990 and 19 percent in 2000.

Second-generation children-born in the United States to at least one foreign-born parent-accounted for 88 percent (16 million) of all children under age 18 with immigrant parents. The remaining 12 percent (2.2 million) were born outside the United States.
How has the number of children in immigrant families changed over time?
Between 1990 and 2000, the number of children ages 17 and under with immigrant parents grew 60 percent, from 8.2 million to 13.1 million. Between 2000 and 2017, the number grew by another 39 percent, from 13.1 million to 18.2 million.

The population of first-generation immigrant children grew by 43 percent between 1990 and 2000 (from 1.9 million to 2.7 million), but then declined 19 percent between 2000 and 2017 (from 2.7 million to 2.2 million).

In contrast, the number of second-generation immigrant children has grown steadily since 1990. Between 1990 and 2000, the number increased by 65 percent (from 6.3 million to 10.4 million). Between 2000 and 2017, this population grew 54 percent (from 10.4 million to almost 16 million).
How many children living with immigrant parents are in low-income families?
In 2017, there were 27.4 million children under age 18 living in low-income families (i.e., with family incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty threshold). Of them, 8.8 million (or 32 percent) were children of immigrants.
Which states have the largest number of children in immigrant families and which ones have experienced the fastest growth of this population?
In 2017, the top five states by the total number of children under age 18 living with immigrant parents were California (4.1 million), Texas (2.5 million), New York (1.5 million), Florida (1.4 million), and New Jersey (767,000). These states accounted for 56 percent of the 18.2 million children with immigrant parents residing in the United States.

In terms of the share of children with immigrant parents, the top five states in 2017 were California (48 percent of all children in the state), New Jersey (40 percent), Nevada (38 percent), New York (37 percent), and Texas (35 percent).

While traditional immigrant destinations experience the largest absolute growth in children with immigrant parents, other states have seen much larger relative growth (see Table 2).
Table 2. Top Five States by Absolute and Percent Growth in Children with Immigrant Parents, 1990-2000 and 2000-17
Note: In some states, the initial number of children with immigrant parents was quite small. Thus, relatively small absolute increases in the immigrant population in these states have translated into high percent growth.
Source: MPI tabulation of data from the U.S. Census Bureau 2017 ACS and 1990 and 2000 Decennial Census.

Permanent Immigration
How many immigrants obtained lawful permanent residence (aka getting a green card) in 2017?
In fiscal year (FY) 2017, 1.1 million immigrants became lawful permanent residents (LPRs), also known as green-card holders. The number of new LPRs in 2017 decreased by 5 percent from 2016 (1.2 million). In the past decade, the number of new LPRs annually has ranged from 991,000 (2013) to 1.2 million (2016).

In recent years, green-card holders have been roughly evenly divided between those already living in the United States who are adjusting their status and those applying from outside the country. Almost half (49 percent, or 549,000) of the 1.1 million new LPRs in 2017 received green cards from within the United States. Many of these new permanent residents are spouses, minor children, and parents of U.S. citizens; or persons who arrived as refugees or as temporary workers.

A slightly higher number of new LPRs (578,000, or 51 percent) were persons granted this status from abroad. The share of new arrivals rose steadily in the past decade from 41-42 percent in 2008-09, to 46-47 percent in 2013-14, and surpassing 50 percent in 2016. The majority of new arrivals are immediate family members of U.S. citizens and LPRs.
Under which categories are permanent immigrants admitted?
There are four main pathways to obtain a green card: through a family relationship, employment sponsorship, humanitarian protection (refugees and asylees), and the Diversity Visa (DV) lottery.

Overall, of the 1.1 million immigrants who received green cards in 2017, 46 percent were immediate relatives of U.S. citizens (immediate relatives have unlimited annual visas), followed by another 21 percent of family-related immigrants (whose admission is limited by visa and country caps).

Thirteen percent adjusted from refugee or asylee status. About 12 percent of LPRs were either sponsored by their employers or were able to self-sponsor, including investors. Roughly 5 percent were diversity lottery winners.
What are the top five countries of birth for new permanent immigrants in 2017?
The top five countries of birth were Mexico (15 percent), mainland China and Cuba (6 percent each), and India and the Dominican Republic (5 percent each). These countries represented about 38 percent of all persons who received green cards in 2017.
How many people are selected in the Diversity Visa lottery and where do they come from?
In 2017, 51,600 people received green cards as diversity immigrants (from countries with low rates of immigration), representing approximately 5 percent of the 1.1 million new LPRs.

The leading countries of birth of DV immigrants were Nepal, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Egypt, which each accounted for about 6 percent of DV immigrants; followed by Ethiopia, Iran, Uzbekistan, and Albania, with 5 percent each.

For some countries, the diversity visa lottery represents a major share of all new LPRs. For example, among Algerians who received a green card in 2017, 62 percent did so via the green-card lottery. Shares were also high for Uzbekistan (58 percent) and Tajikistan (56 percent) and represented between 40 and 50 percent of LPRs born in Albania, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Togo, Sudan, Benin, and Moldova.

Created in 1990, the lottery sets aside 55,000 diversity visas annually, of which 5,000 must be used for applicants under the Nicaraguan and Central America Relief Act of 1997. Interest in the lottery is significantly higher than there are available visas: About 14.7 million qualified applications were registered for the DV-2018, in total covering 23.1 million applicants, their spouses, and their minor children. The number registering in the DV-2018 was 61 percent higher than the 9.2 million registered for the DV-2009. (The application number varies each year depending on which countries are eligible.) Before receiving permission to immigrate, lottery winners must provide proof of a high school education or its equivalent or show two years of work experience within the past five years in an occupation that requires at least two years of training or experience. They also must pass a medical exam and a background check.

Temporary Visas
How many people have temporary visas?
According to the most recently available Department of Homeland Security (DHS) estimates at the time of this writing, 2.3 million immigrants on various temporary visas resided in the United States during 2016, up from about 2 million in 2015. Almost half (1,100,000) were temporary workers and their families, followed by 870,000 foreign students and their families (40 percent).

Sixty-one percent were from Asia. Nationals of countries in Europe and North America accounted for 15 percent each. The top five countries of origin-India, China, Mexico, Canada, and South Korea-accounted for 57 percent of all residents on temporary visas.

Note: This estimate of temporary visa holders includes temporary workers, international students, exchange visitors, diplomats, and representatives of foreign governments and international organizations. It excludes tourists and other short-term visitors. North America includes Canada, Bermuda, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean.
How many people entered the United States on nonimmigrant visas?
In 2016, 42.7 million individuals entered the United States as I-94 nonimmigrants on various temporary visas. On average, each I-94 nonimmigrant was admitted 1.8 times. This is the first time the DHS Office of Immigration Statistics (OIS) estimated the number of unique individuals who came temporarily, as opposed to the number of nonimmigrant admissions or entries.

Most of these nonimmigrants, 34.2 million, entered as tourists, followed by 3.7 million business visitors. Of these, 15 million tourists and 1.7 million business travelers were from Visa Waiver countries. Further, 1 million international students entered on F-1 visas. OIS estimated that additionally about 290,300 individuals were admitted on high-skilled worker H-1B visas (mostly from India, China, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Mexico) and 81,600 on nonagricultural temporary or seasonal worker H-2B visas (mostly from Mexico, Jamaica, Guatemala, South Africa, and Canada).
How many nonimmigrant visas does the State Department issue?
In FY 2018, the annual number of nonimmigrant visas issued by the State Department decreased for the third time to 9 million-a 7 percent decline from the 9.7 million issued in FY 2017.

The Trump administration implemented a number of policies in 2017 and 2018 that could lead to a decline in admissions, including the travel ban barring individuals from certain countries from U.S. entry, lengthened visa application processes, and greater discretion for consular officers to deny visas. From FY 2015 to FY 2018, visa refusal rates for tourists and business travelers from travel-ban countries increased significantly: all applications from North Korea were denied, followed by Somalia (90 percent), Iran (88 percent), Yemen (83 percent), Syria (77 percent), and Libya and Venezuela (74 percent each). Furthermore, during the same period, visa refusal rates rose for visitors from some major non-travel ban countries, including Mexico (from 20 percent to 25 percent), mainland China (from 10 percent to 17 percent), and India (from 24 percent to 26 percent).

Three-quarters of the 9 million nonimmigrant visas issued in FY 2018 were temporary business and tourist visas (B and BCC visas).

The next largest visa class was for academic students and exchange visitors and their family members (F and J visa categories), who comprised around 8 percent of all nonimmigrant visas issued in FY 2018. The third largest group of nonimmigrant visas was given to temporary workers and trainees and their family members (H visa categories), who comprised 7 percent of nonimmigrant visas.

Looking at the distribution of temporary visas issued in 2018 by region of origin, the largest shares were issued to nationals from Asia (43 percent), North America (22 percent, including Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean), and South America (18 percent). The remainder: Europe (12 percent), Africa (6 percent), and Oceania (0.7 percent).

Note: The number of visas issued does not necessarily match the number of foreign nationals who entered the United States in the same year because some nonimmigrant visas may not be used.
How many nonimmigrant admissions does DHS grant in a year?
In total, DHS granted 181 million nonimmigrant admissions in 2017, of which 103 million were admissions of Canadians traveling for business or pleasure and Mexicans who possess a nonresident Border Crossing Card (i.e., laser visa). These travelers are exempt from completing the I-94 arrival/departure form at the port of entry, thus DHS does not provide characteristics for this group.

In 2017, there were 77.6 million total temporary admissions of I-94 nonimmigrants, a slight uptick from 77.1 million in 2016. (See Table 3.)

Note: Nonimmigrant admissions represent the number of entries. Individuals may have multiple entries within the year. OIS reports characteristics of nonimmigrants who must complete an I-94 arrival/departure form at entry.

Refugees and Asylum Seekers
How many refugees entered the United States, and where were they from?
Every year, the president in consultation with Congress sets the annual refugee admissions ceiling and allocations by region of origin. For FY 2019, the annual ceiling was set at 30,000, the lowest since the program began in 1980.

In FY 2018, 22,491 refugees were resettled in the United States, amounting to less than half of the admission ceiling of 45,000 allocated for that year-largely due to processing delays and policies put in place to increase vetting of refugees. This represents a 58 percent drop compared to the 53,716 admitted in 2017.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Myanmar (also known as Burma), Ukraine, Bhutan, and Eritrea were the primary countries of nationality, accounting for 78 percent (17,565) of all refugees resettled in 2018. Rounding out the top ten were Afghanistan, El Salvador, Pakistan, Russia, and Ethiopia. Together, nationals of the top ten countries comprised 90 percent (20,349) of all refugee arrivals in 2018.
How many asylum applications were filed and where are asylum seekers from?
In FY 2018, an estimated 106,147 affirmative asylum applications were received by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)-25 percent fewer than the 141,695 in FY 2017. This is the first decline in application volume after eight years of growth. Applicants for affirmative asylum must be present in the United States, and do not include those seeking asylum through the defensive asylum process while in removal proceedings.

Venezuela was the top country of origin for received affirmative asylum applications, with 28,485 in FY 2018; followed by Guatemala (10,177), El Salvador (9,157), China (8,114), and Mexico (6,636).

Meanwhile, 111,887 defensive asylum applications were filed with the Department of Justice's immigration court system, known as the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), in FY 2018-an 8 percent decrease from 121,418 applications filed a year earlier.
What is the asylum approval rate?
According to USCIS, in FY 2018, 30 percent of affirmative asylum adjudicated petitions were approved, a decline from the 43 percent in FY 2016 and 37 percent in FY 2017.

The same downward trend also applies to asylum petitions adjudicated by immigration courts. In FY 2018, 33 percent of such petitions were approved, versus 43 percent in FY 2016 and 37 percent in FY 2017.
How many people receive asylum status?
According to the most recent data at the time of this writing, in FY 2016, 20,455 individuals, including principal applicants and their spouses and/or unmarried children under age 21, were granted asylum after seeking protection upon or after arrival in the United States-a 22 percent drop from 26,124 a year earlier. An additional 5,490 individuals outside the United States were approved for asylum as immediate family members of principal applicants. (Note that this number reflects travel documents issued to these family members, not their arrival in the United States.)

The big drop in asylum grants and the follow-to-join cases are mainly due to the mounting backlog in the USCIS Asylum Division, as a growing number of USCIS asylum officers have been diverted from the affirmative interview process to conduct credible and reasonable fear screening interviews with adults and families apprehended or found inadmissible at the U.S. border who express an intention to seek asylum.

China was the top country of origin for those receiving asylum, with 4,484 persons (or 22 percent of total asylum grants). The next four largest countries of origin were El Salvador (2,157), Guatemala (1,949), Honduras (1,505), and Mexico (919). Together, nationals of these five countries made up 32 percent of those receiving asylum in FY 2016.
What is the current backlog for asylum applicants?
Due to the large application volume and limited resources, both the affirmative and defensive asylum systems have extensive backlogs. At the end of January 2019, according to USCIS, there were 352,277 affirmative cases pending; EOIR reported 821,726 total immigration cases pending, of which MPI estimated roughly 30 percent were defensive asylum ones.

Unauthorized Immigrants
How many unauthorized immigrants are in the United States?
The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) estimated 11.3 million unauthorized immigrants resided in the United States in 2016. About half of all unauthorized immigrants resided in three states: California (27 percent), Texas (14 percent), and New York (8 percent). The vast majority (82 percent) lived in 174 counties with 10,000 or more unauthorized immigrants each, of which the top five-Los Angeles County, CA; Harris County, TX; Cook County, IL; Orange County, CA; and Queens County, NY-accounted for 20 percent of all unauthorized immigrants.

Note: MPI is among a small number of organizations that generate estimates of the unauthorized population because the Census Bureau does not. It is important to acknowledge that the estimates issued by MPI and others (including the DHS Office of Immigration Statistics, Pew Research Center, and Center for Migration Studies of New York) are based on different methodologies and data sources. Hence the estimates are not fully comparable.
Where are unauthorized immigrants from?
Mexicans and Central Americans are estimated to account for roughly two-thirds (67 percent or 7.6 million) of the unauthorized immigrants in the United States as of 2012-16, MPI estimates. About 1.8 million (16 percent) were from Asia; 685,000 (6 percent) from South America; 579,000 (5 percent) from Europe, Canada, or Oceania; 351,000 (3 percent) from the Caribbean; and 318,000 (32 percent) from Africa.

The top five countries of birth for unauthorized immigrants were Mexico (53 percent), El Salvador (6 percent), Guatemala (5 percent), and China and Honduras (3 percent each).
How many unauthorized immigrants live with children under age 18?
As of 2012-16, about 4 million unauthorized immigrants (37 percent of the overall unauthorized population ages 15 and older) lived with one or more children under age 18, MPI estimates. Of this group, about 82 percent (3.3 million) resided with at least one U.S.-citizen child under age 18, and 17 percent (697,000) lived with only non-U.S.-citizen children.
How many children under age 18 live with at least one unauthorized immigrant parent?
Approximately 5.1 million children under age 18 lived with an unauthorized immigrant parent during the 2012-16 period, representing 7 percent of the U.S. child population. About 80 percent (4.1 million) of these children were U.S. citizens, another 16 percent (809,000) were themselves unauthorized, and 3 percent (167,000) were legally present, including LPRs and those with temporary visas.
How many people were eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and how many applications have been received since its launch in 2012?
The DACA program, announced on June 15, 2012, offered a two-year grant of deportation relief and work authorization to eligible young unauthorized immigrants. Requirements for eligibility included:

being at least 15 years old;

having entered the United States before the age of 16;

having continuously resided in the United States since June 15, 2007;

being enrolled in school, having earned a high school diploma or its equivalent, or being an honorably discharged veteran; and

having not been convicted of a felony, significant misdemeanor, or three or more misdemeanors; or otherwise posing a threat to public safety or national security.

MPI estimates that as of 2018 approximately 1.3 million people met all criteria to apply under the original DACA program, 408,000 met all criteria except for education, and 120,000 would be eligible upon turning 15 provided they remain in school.

However, on September 5, 2017, the Trump administration announced the rescission of DACA, with a six-month wind-down. This decision has been challenged in multiple federal courts and a nationwide injunction has kept the DACA program in place, but only for people who currently have or in the past have had DACA benefits.

Between August 15, 2012, when USCIS began accepting applications, and September 30, 2018 (the most recent data available at the time of this writing), 908,755 initial applications were accepted for consideration. Thus, as of September 30, 2018, about 70 percent of the immediately eligible population had applied. USCIS approved 823,283 (or 91 percent) of these initial applications; 79,763 (9 percent) were denied, and the remainder were pending.
How many unauthorized immigrants were active participants of the program?
The top states of residence for accepted initial applications since the program's inception are California (27 percent), Texas (16 percent), New York (6 percent), and Illinois and Florida (5 percent each). The top countries of origin are Mexico (78 percent), El Salvador (4 percent), Guatemala (3 percent), Honduras (2 percent), and Peru and Brazil (1 percent each).

On June 5, 2014, USCIS began accepting DACA renewal applications, and as of September 30, 2018 had accepted 1,352,730 such applications (with some DACA holders renewing for the second or third time). By the end of September 2018, 96 percent (1,297,626) of the renewal applications had been approved, with 3 percent (40,392) pending, and 1 percent (13,717) denied.

As of August 30, 2018, according to most recent data from USCIS, 699,350 individuals were current DACA recipients. MPI estimates that 54 percent of the immediately eligible population as of 2018 were participating the program.

The top states of residence for DACA active participants were California (29 percent), Texas (16 percent), Illinois and New York (about 5 percent each), followed by Florida, Arizona, and North Carolina (about 4 percent each).
How many people are covered by Temporary Protected Status?
The top countries of origin of active DACA program participants were Mexico (80 percent), El Salvador (4 percent), Guatemala (3 percent), Honduras (2 percent), and Peru and South Korea (1 percent each).

For more information on countries of birth, state and metro areas of residence, sex, age, and marital status of DACA recipients as of September 4, 2017, see detailed USCIS data.

Since the enactment of the Immigration Act of 1990, the United States has occasionally granted a form of humanitarian relief called Temporary Protected Status (TPS) when the home countries of foreign nationals in the United States experience natural disasters, armed conflicts, or other circumstances making return unsafe. TPS offers work authorization and protection from deportation for six- to 18-month periods. The first country to be designated for TPS was El Salvador in 1990 to protect Salvadorans who had fled the country's civil war. Since 1990, 22 countries have been designated for TPS. Ten countries currently are designated: El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. TPS protects nearly 318,000 people from ten countries, with the largest groups being Salvadorans (195,000), Hondurans (57,000), and Haitians (46,000).
How many unaccompanied children and families have been apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border?
The Trump administration has announced that it will not extend TPS for immigrants from Sudan, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Haiti, Nepal, and Honduras when those designations expire. As a result, 98 percent of grantees could lose permission to work and protection from deportation-with the Haitian designation originally set to end on July 22, 2019; the Salvadoran one on September 9, 2019; and for Honduras on January 5, 2020.

However, there have been several legal challenges, including one ( Ramos v. Nielsen) that resulted in a preliminary injunction barring termination of the Sudan, Nicaragua, Haiti, and El Salvador designations. The nationals of these four countries will receive automatic extension of TPS and work permits as long as the injunction remains in place.

Apprehensions at the Southwest border grew significantly in the first five months of FY 2019, due to the increase in families seeking asylum. Between October 2018 and February 2019, the most recent period for which data are available, the U.S. Border Patrol apprehended more than 136,000 minor children and adults travelling as family units and about 27,000 unaccompanied children along the Southwest border. This represents a significant uptick over the 107,200 family units and 50,000 unaccompanied children apprehended in all of FY 2018. These children and families are primarily from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.

Note: The term "family unit" refers to individuals-either a child under 18 years old, parent, or legal guardian-apprehended with a family member by the U.S. Border Patrol.
How many apprehensions of unauthorized immigrants occur at the border annually?
Immigration Enforcement

Note: The government fiscal year runs from October 1 to September 30. All figures for immigration control and enforcement given here are for the fiscal year. The data presented here are the most recent offered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
How many people are arrested by ICE within the United States yearly?
CBP reported a total of 404,142 apprehensions at both southern and northern borders in 2018, a significant increase from 310,531 in 2017, and closer to the 415,816 apprehensions in 2016. Ninety-eight percent of Border Patrol apprehensions in 2018 occurred along the Southwest border. While apprehensions were up in 2018, they remained a small share of the 1.6 million that occurred during the peak year of 2000.
How many people are deported per year?
Note: Apprehensions are events, not individuals. In other words, the same individual can be apprehended more than once, with each apprehension counted separately.

ICE made 158,581 administrative arrests in 2018, up 11 percent from a year earlier. An administrative arrest is the arrest of an individual for a civil violation of U.S. immigration law, which is subsequently adjudicated by an immigration judge or through other administrative processes.

Removals and returns result in the confirmed movement of inadmissible or deportable aliens out of the United States. Both ICE and CBP conduct removals and returns. There were 256,085 removals and returns carried out by ICE in 2018, an increase of 13 percent from 2017. Data do not appear to be publicly available on the number of removals and returns conducted by CBP for 2017 or 2018.
How many immigrants are naturalized citizens?
Notes: Removals (deportations) are the compulsory and confirmed movement of an inadmissible or deportable unauthorized immigrant out of the United States based on an order of removal. An unauthorized immigrant who is removed has administrative or criminal consequences placed on subsequent re-entry owing to the fact of the removal. Returns are the confirmed movement of an inadmissible or deportable unauthorized immigrant out of the United States not based on an order of removal. Most voluntary departures (returns) are of Mexican nationals who have been apprehended by the Border Patrol and are returned to Mexico.

Naturalization Trends
How many immigrants become U.S. citizens annually?
In 2017, 22 million immigrants were naturalized U.S. citizens, accounting for 49 percent of the total foreign-born population (44.5 million) and almost 7 percent of the U.S. population (325.7 million), according to ACS estimates.

Of the 22 million naturalized citizens, 27 percent were naturalized between 2010 and 2017, 31 percent between 2000 and 2009, and 42 percent prior to 2000.

USCIS naturalized 707,000 LPRs in 2017. The total number of immigrants receiving U.S. citizenship decreased by 6 percent from 753,000 in 2016, even though the number of petitions filed increased from 972,000 in 2016 to 987,000 in 2017. The decrease in naturalizations granted is a combination of factors including longer processing time due to higher demand (8.1 months in 2017) and applications denials (83,000 in 2017).
How many foreign nationals become U.S. citizens through military naturalization?
From a historical perspective, naturalizations have increased dramatically in recent decades. On average, fewer than 120,000 LPRs became citizens each year between 1950 and 1969, 210,000 in the 1980s, 500,000 in the 1990s, and 680,000 during the 2000s.
Where are newly naturalized citizens from?
Naturalizations reached an all-time high in 2008, increasing 59 percent from 660,000 in 2007 to 1,047,000 in 2008. This came as a result of impending application fee increases and the promotion of U.S. citizenship in advance of the 2008 presidential elections. Between 2010 and 2017, the average annual number of naturalizations was about 712,000.
Where do newly naturalized citizens live in the United States?
In 2017, 6,900 foreign-born military personnel naturalized as U.S. citizens-a 23 percent drop from 2016 when 8,900 military personnel became Americans. Since 2002, 118,100 foreign-born military personnel naturalized on U.S. soil. Another 11,500 became citizens overseas or aboard Navy ships.

Of those who naturalized in 2017, 17 percent were born in Mexico (119,000), roughly 7 percent in India (51,002), and 5 percent each in China (38,000) and the Philippines (37,000). Immigrants from these four countries, together with those from the Dominican Republic (30,000), Cuba (26,000), Vietnam (19,000), El Salvador (17,000), Colombia (16,000), and Jamaica (15,000), comprised the top ten countries of birth for newly naturalized citizens in 2017. These ten countries accounted for 52 percent of the 707,000 new U.S. citizens that fiscal year.
How many green-card holders are eligible to naturalize?
In 2017, 57 percent of the newly naturalized lived in one of five states. California had the largest number of newly naturalized citizens, with 22 percent (157,000), followed by 12 percent in New York (86,000), 10 percent in Florida (70,000), 7 percent in Texas (51,000), and 6 percent in New Jersey (39,000).
How long does it take on average for green-card holders to naturalize?
The top five metropolitan areas with the largest number of naturalizations were New York-Newark-Jersey City (113,000), Los Angeles-Long Beach (59,000), Miami-Ft Lauderdale-West Palm Beach (45,000), Washington-Arlington-Alexandria (30,000), and Chicago-Naperville (23,000). These five metropolitan areas accounted for over a third (38 percent) of all naturalizations in FY 2017.

According to the latest available DHS estimates, about 8.9 million of the 13.2 million green-card holders residing in the United States on January 1, 2014 were eligible to naturalize.

On average, immigrants held green cards for eight years before becoming U.S. citizens in 2017-an average year longer than green-card holders in 2016. The time varied by country of origin: African- and Asian-born immigrants spent an average six years in LPR status before naturalization, followed by those born in South America (eight years), Europe (nine years), Oceania (ten years), and North America (including Central America, eleven years).
How many visa applications for permanent immigration (green cards) are backlogged?
In general, naturalization requires being at least 18 years of age, passing English and civic exams, and for most, residing in the United States with LPR status continuously for at least five years (three years for those married to a U.S. citizen).

Visa Backlogs

In February 2019, the U.S. government was still processing some family-sponsored visa applications dating to August 1995, and employment-related visa applications from August 2007.

According to data on the petitions submitted to the State Department, there were about 3.8 million applicants (including spouses and minor children) who were on the waiting list as of November 1, 2018, the first time the backlog dropped in recent years.

The overwhelming majority of backlogs were family-sponsored applicants (3.7 million, which includes the principal applicant and their immediate family members). About 121,000 were employment-sponsored applicants and their families.

Of the overall 3.8 million applicants, 1.2 million were citizens of Mexico, followed by those from the Philippines (314,000), India (299,000), Vietnam and China (with 232,000 each). Family- and employment-based prospective immigrants who are waiting to adjust their status to lawful permanent resident from within the United States are not included in the State Department estimate.
Additional Data Resources:
USCIS also publishes backlog statistics but only for petitions approved in one of the five employment-based categories. USCIS data show that close to 395,000 approved employment-based immigrant petitions were awaiting a priority date based on the May 2018 Department of State Visa Bulletin. The figure corresponds to the number of primary applicants covered by these petitions but excludes their dependents. To MPI knowledge, USCIS did not publish backlog statistics on other types of green card applications the agency adjudicates.

In other words, the overall number of people waiting for a green card-within and outside of the United States-is likely to be larger than the 3.8 million reported by the State Department (as of November 2018) and 395,000 reported by USCIS (as of May 2018).

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Jie Zong, Jeanne Batalova Jie Zong, Jeanne Batalova, and Micayla Burrows

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Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States

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Immigrant arrivals to the United States and the makeup of the foreign-born population have been changing in significant ways: Recent immigrants are more likely to be from Asia than from Mexico and the overall immigrant population is growing at a slower rate than before the 2008-09 recession.

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The Great Wall worked as a manifestation of power that put fear into the hearts of barbarian riders but it didn't keep any invaders from the north out.