The Patriot Post® · El Paso and Juarez: A Tale of Two Cities and a Border Wall
By Katrina Pierson
If you’re looking for evidence that border walls are effective, just look at the wall separating Juarez, Mexico and El Paso, Texas.
On one side of the barrier is one of Mexico’s deadliest cities, where violence is endemic due to the brutal gangs fighting for control of the city’s massive drug market.
One Mexican woman who lives in Juarez but works in El Paso described to The New York Times the enormous sense of relief she feels when she arrives at work, where she knows she will be safe for the next eight hours.
“One lives with fear over there,” Edith Escobedo explained, referring to her hometown of Juarez. “It is pure fear, pure insecurity. One cannot even go out at night. It’s curious that here it’s so different. It’s another way of life.”
El Paso is indeed idyllic, especially in comparison to Juarez, and there’s a very good reason for it: a border wall that separates the two cities.
Federal data show that since that section of border wall was completed in 2010, it has significantly reduced both illegal immigrant crossings and crime in Texas’ sixth-largest city.
Before construction began in 2006, illegal crossings totaled 122,261 per year. By 2012, two years after the 131-mile wall was completed, illegal immigrant crossings had dropped to below 9,700 per year — a decrease of more than 90 percent.
The dramatic decline in illegal crossings has coincided with a significant drop in crime, as well — property crimes are down 37 percent from their pre-wall peak, while violent crimes have dropped by 6 percent.
Drug smuggling along that border entry point has also fallen dramatically. Since the wall was completed, the volume of marijuana and cocaine coming through El Paso and seized by Border Patrol agents has been cut in half.
Sadly, facts don’t matter much to Democrats, who are using the claim that border walls are “ineffective” to justify their obstruction of President Trump’s request for a little over 200 miles of physical barriers.
As the President has repeatedly stressed, the situation on our southern border is a humanitarian and security crisis. Democrats may scoff at this claim, but the contrast between Juarez and El Paso demonstrates just how serious the problem really is.
Without a border wall, Texans would be directly exposed to crime spilling over from the world’s 37th most dangerous city, and Juarez residents who commute across the border for work would no longer have a safe haven where they can briefly escape the violence that is rampant in their own backyards.
The border wall near El Paso perfectly illustrates just how effective such barriers can be. Sooner or later, Democrats will have to face up to this inconvenient truth.
Katrina Pierson is a senior adviser for Donald J. Trump for President Inc.