Walls are stupid and expensive. They can be defeated and scaled in areas that are not patrolled. It may be a little difficult but it can be done if you have time.
Mine field are 100% effective. They are cheap and easy and very quick to deploy. Put the signs out in multiple languages that say the next 300 meters are a mine field and if you cross it you will die. Problem solved.
This seems insanely cruel. Without doubt some will try to cross and die but it will be very very few particularly after the first few deaths. The word gets around quickly.
Each year many hundreds die in the deserts of California, New Mexico and particularly Arizona when they try to cross the border in isolated places. The desert is a killer in the summer. You need water and it is a lot of water if you are walking for two or three days in the heat. In 2016 the known deaths of illegal border crossing in the desert was 316. I grew up in the desert and know how hot and vast it is. I assure the real number is much higher but I have no idea how much higher. There are many bleached and white bones out in the desert that none know about.
What is more humane I ask? A mine field that kills a few people and after such no one will dare cross, or a barbed wire fence on the Arizona border that anyone can cross and die in the desert. Many cross that barbed wire fence and die in the desert or at the hands of the coyote smugglers.
Both are bad, but which in more humane?
ps
Grew up on the border, speak Spanish, married to a Mexican National now a USA citizen with multiple degrees from Texas Universities and not in the social sciences. I know of which I speak.
Good walls make good neighbors.
When your neighbor can’t seem to help himself from coming onto your property and stealing your stuff.
This will work.
Unattended minefields are easy enough to breach, even with simple equipment if one is a little creative; easier than a tall wall in many respects. All it takes is one person with military combat engineering experience to create breaching lanes across the minefield— they could store the GPS coordinates of the cleared lanes and sell them with border security being none the wiser for a time.
I remember a CEO telling me about entering a CIA facility....and the buried electric along the fencing. Kidding or not, they said they let rabbits loose everyday...
Take you sh!t over to the DU.