IMMIGRANT APPREHENSIONS BY YEAR AND STATE

The illegal immigrant issue still rages large.  You could get the idea that nothing is being done from all that is said.  But by 2012, there were 651 mi. of vehicle fencing (at a cost of $2.3 billion) including 352 mi. of pedestrian fencing and 299 vehicle barriers plus 300 towers and 9 drones, along the nearly 2,000 mi. of the border (with 35 mi. double tiered fence).*  The cost so far on immigrant apprehension is estimated to be $9 billion in the first 10 years.  One proposal is that nothing be done until 90% of the illegal immigrants are caught at the border of Mexico and the U.S.  How you know the total number of immigrant attempts to determine what 90% would be is beyond me.

The border wall is having considerable effect on the environment, but the wall trumps various Federal acts like the Wilderness Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act.  Also violated are the Farmland Protection Policy Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the Native American Graves and  Repatriation Act.*   For more acts violated by the fence and an expanded discussion, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico–United_States_barrier.

Because of the combined effects of all the barriers currently installed plus state laws and a poor economy, illegal immigrations has been falling off sharply from 1.64 million apprehensions in fiscal year 2000 to 325,577 in 2011.**   Apprehensions have been divided into sectors that don't quite follow state lines, but the number of apprehensions in the Tucson (nearly all of the Arizona border) and Yuma (include a tiny bit of the California border) total more than New Mexico (includes the El Paso, TX area) and all the Texas Sectors combined, as seen in the bigger part of the figure.

                                   (To enlarge the figure, click on it)

* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2013/01/mexican-border-security-how-much.html: http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2011/0227/Costly-fence-on-US-Mexico-border-is-effective-only-in-hurting-nature
** http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/world/patrolling-the-us-mexico-border/?wpisrc=nl_wonk_b