ABSTRACT
Ironically, the many billions of dollars spent annually on stepped-up border law enforcement, migrant deportations and efforts to prohibit drug trafficking and seal the border to illicit migration have created a more lucrative environment for gangs and transnational criminal organizations. Fencing and human systems are augmented by manned and drone aircraft and 38 mobile radar and camera surveillance stations. The most stringent fencing and barriers are placed in urban areas where it would only take a few seconds for a crosser to become immersed in the urban population. The poorest migrants, many who come from rural Mexico or Central America, lack sufficient resources to buy off American authorities. Even areas with high fences are penetrable by desperate journeyers and well-connected smugglers and human traffickers who capitalize on their desperation. Rather than attempting to seal off the entire southern boundary of the United States, the Border Patrol relies on a strategy that conserves its personnel and infrastructure resources.
