Success at border would reshape Trump’s argument to finish wall at Big Bend, saving taxpayer money

President Donald Trump has all but closed the southwest border, driving illegal crossings to their lowest level in Border Patrol history, and that success is reshaping the case for finishing the wall through Texas’ Big Bend region. The argument is no longer about stopping an invasion but about saving taxpayers’ money for decades, with a permanent barrier that can free up agents, shrinking the costly manpower needed to guard one of the border’s most remote stretches.
This week, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to lift a federal judge’s preliminary injunction that has halted border barrier construction across the roughly 500-mile Big Bend sector in Texas, including areas near Big Bend National Park.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone had blocked the project earlier in the month after environmental groups, a river guide, and local landowners challenged DHS waivers of environmental and other laws, arguing the waivers exceeded the secretary’s authority under the major-questions doctrine because the remote region has relatively low illegal crossings. 
A decade at the border
Trump’s first term opened with a sharp drop in crossings. Border officers apprehended 310,531 people in fiscal 2017, a 25% decrease from the year before, and crossings from Mexico fell to the lowest level since 1971. The lull didn’t last. Apprehensions climbed to 851,508 in fiscal 2019, more than double the prior year, and the administration responded with “Remain in Mexico,” under which many asylum seekers waited in Mexico while their claims were decided.
Under President Biden, the country logged more than 10.8 million encounters nationwide from fiscal 2021 through 2024, and monthly apprehensions peaked at 249,740 in December 2023.
Trump’s second term reversed the trend. Apprehensions fell to 237,565 in fiscal 2025, the fewest since 1970. In fiscal 2026 they dropped to 98,708, the lowest in agency history, and September’s roughly 8,900 were more than 96% below the December 2023 peak. 
CBP has completed 250 miles of new barriers since January 2025. CBP argues that the wall pays for itself in manpower: upgrades in the San Diego sector alone free up more than 150 agents every 24 hours.
The cost of illegal immigration
For wall supporters, the bigger expense has never been steel but illegal immigration itself. The Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors tighter immigration limits, estimated taxpayers paid $150.7 billion in a 2023 survey and report. 
The largest share is K-12 education at $78 billion, mostly borne by states and localities, followed by health care at about $42.7 billion. DHS has cited the group’s estimate that each illegal immigrant costs taxpayers nearly $8,776 a year. 
A House Homeland Security Committee estimate put the cost of caring for those who entered since January 2021 at as much as $451 billion. With crossings now down, some analysts place potential taxpayer savings at roughly $30 billion a year, though that is an estimate rather than an established figure. According to the AP, opponents have argued that other forms of infrastructure such as drones or surveillance towers are just as effective and a lot less expensive than the wall plans.
Other researchers argue the picture is more mixed, finding that newly arrived immigrants tend to cost local governments but contribute positively at the federal level.
The Price of Finishing the Wall
Trump built about 450 miles of barriers during his first term, at an estimated $11 billion to $15 billion, much of it replacing existing barriers. Funding was pieced together from appropriations and roughly $10 billion diverted from the Pentagon and a 2019 standoff with Congress over $18 billion in wall funding led to a government shutdown.
The second-term effort has far deeper pockets. Republicans placed $46.5 billion for the project in the One Big Beautiful Bill. The White House says that money will fund an estimated 700 miles of wall plus 900 miles of river barriers. 
The first contracts under the law averaged about $20 million per mile. CBP has since obligated $34.3 billion toward Smart Wall projects. That makes the remaining work largely paid for.
Amanda Head is White House Correspondent at Just the News. You can follow her here. 

Read Full Article: https://justthenews.com/government/white-house/final-stretch-border-completion-may-be-argument-investment-and-cost-saving?utm_source=justthenews.com&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=external-news-aggregators