Border walls are life-threatening and 'waste of tax dollars', report says

New report finds barriers along US-Mexico border exacerbate flooding, harm ecosystems and contribute to migrant deaths

Greta Moran for Grist
Tue 25 Sep 2018 12.00 BST

A few weeks after US Customs and Border Protection completed a border wall along Arizona’s southern boundary in 2008, a monsoon arrived. Floodwaters rose to 7ft, nearby patrol roads eroded and debris clogged the wall’s mesh fencing and grates, turning it into a temporary dam. The water poured over the wall into the port of entry near the Lukeville, Arizona, border, causing millions of dollars in damage.

The National Park Service had warned that such an event was likely to occur along this section of the wall, which crisscrosses numerous streams and washes. But Customs and Border Protection proceeded with building it anyway.

This incident is outlined in a new 71-page report from the ACLU Border Rights Center, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club. The report documents countless instances that show the grave dangers that border walls pose to human life and the environment.

It finds that the 654 miles of walls along the United States’ southern border do not fulfill their ostensible purpose of “securing the border” – in other words, making the country safer or reducing smuggling. Rather, border walls exacerbate flooding by acting like dams; destroy indigenous cultural sites and sensitive ecosystems; and have contributed to thousands of deaths by pushing migrants into more remote, dangerous areas.

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