Here’s why Trump’s border wall won’t work

By Dudley L. Poston. He is a sociology and demography professor at Texas A&M University. Excerpts:

"more than two-fifths of these undocumented immigrants, or almost 4.5 million, are visa overstayers. They entered the U.S. with legal passports and legal visas but either stayed past their visa expiration dates or otherwise violated the terms of their admission into the U.S., perhaps by accepting employment.

Most flew in legally from Asia, Europe and other continents"

"There is no plan to address the issue of visa overstayers. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security does not match entry and exit records of people coming into and leaving the U.S."

"A biometric entry-exit system would keep tabs on most of the people entering and exiting the U.S. and would reduce the number of visa overstayers. But the implementation of such a system is not in Trump’s plans."

"EWIs, persons who “entered without inspection.”"

"Demographers have conducted extensive research about EWIs. They are not criminals, and they don’t take jobs from U.S.-born Americans. Almost all EWIs end up doing work Americans don’t want to do. Demographers have found little, if any, evidence that EWIs harm or suppress the employment or wages of local people."

"About half of EWIs pay taxes. Millions of them file tax returns every year, paying for benefits they’re not permitted to use. In 2015, the IRS received more than 4 million tax returns from workers who don’t have Social Security numbers, and many of them are EWIs. They paid almost $24 billion in income taxes. And they won’t get any of it back in Social Security and Medicare payments."

"foreign-born people have considerably lower crime rates than do the U.S.-born."

"most drugs smuggled into the U.S. do not arrive on the backs of those who cross illegally. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration reported in a 2015 assessment that Mexican drug cartels bring the bulk of their drugs over the southern border through ports of entry via trucks, passenger vehicles and tractor-trailers."

"China’s wall — actually a series of walls — took almost 2,000 years to build at a cost of hundreds of thousands of lives. But China’s walls did not keep out foreigners. The Mongols entered China despite the walls and ruled China in the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368), and the Manchu entered China around the walls and ruled China in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911)."