The US-Mexico Border: Is It Really Collapsing?

FPI held a lecture on April 30 with Senior Fellow Ambassador Juan Jose Gomez-Camacho, who discussed key issues around the US-Mexico border.

A surge in irregular migrants, asylum seekers, and fentanyl has put the US-Mexico border in the center of political debate and presidential campaigns in the United States, feeding a narrative that the border is somehow collapsing and that US national security is threatened. While those challenges are unquestionably real, there is a simultaneous reality that is completely absent from the current political and economic discussion: $1.5 million in goods produced in both countries cross the border every single minute—$2.2 billion every single day—supplying consumers and creating millions of jobs in the US and Mexico. Likewise, over a million legal border crossings, both south-to-north and north-to-south, also take place every day, contributing to the economy in the border region. The US-Mexico border is the busiest border on the planet.

This lecture put in perspective the political, economic, and social reality of the border; to discuss the challenges—and opportunities—both countries face; to consider what they are doing and have to do; and reflected on the risks of misrepresenting the border for political gain.