Immigration is a heavy and controversial topic. However, when I got the chance to travel to Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico, I got the chance to fully understand some of the policies. 

By learning about these policies, I learned how it affected the people in the town of Agua Prieta and many other border towns. Here is what I learned.

The most important thing to remember throughout this article is that the building of the wall was a bipartisan operation. No blame on either party will take place in this article nor will there be any bias. I will just be explaining the facts of what the presidents at the time have done. 

That being said, I will be first discussing the policies put in place by each of the presidents that helped with the wall. Then, I will explain how this affects the people who are trying to immigrate into the country and the immigrants that are already in the country.

First, let’s talk about the policies that were in place under George W. Bush. In 2005, Congress passed the Real ID Act. This meant that the Government set standards for the issuance of sources of identification, such as driver’s licenses and identification cards. 

According to the Department of Homeland Security, the purposes that were covered by the Act were accessing federal facilities, boarding federally regulated aircraft, and entering nuclear power plants. In 2006, Congress passed the Secure Fence Act which required the Department of Homeland Security to construct hundreds of miles of additional fencing along our southern border. 

The National Archives and Records Administration says that it also authorized more vehicle barriers, checkpoints and lighting to help prevent people from entering illegally as well as the use of satellites and drones to reinforce our infrastructure at the border. 

America’s Wall says that with these two acts put into place, the construction of the wall began to accelerate and 175.6 miles of the wall was built in the span of 2 years. By the end of Bush’s term, 459.6 miles of the wall had been built with 19.84 miles of secondary and tertiary fencing along the main wall.

Now, I will talk about Barack Obama’s terms as president. During his first term as president,  131.1 miles of the fence were built and 2.9 miles of additional fencing were built. He was also nicknamed the “deporter-in-chief” as the number of undocumented immigrants peaked at 409,849 in 2012. 

During his second term, Obama signed an executive order creating DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). According to Boundless, this policy allowed undocumented immigrants who had been brought to the US as children to apply for renewable two-year periods of deferred action from deportation, allowing them to remain in the country and be eligible for work permits. 

Which poses the question of how these DACA recipients can obtain citizenship. Under DACA, all that happens is that the process of citizenship gets pushed back every two years. This becomes very important in the next presidential term of Donald Trump.

With Trump’s presidency, the wall was completed and stretches all the way from California through Texas. His administration completed over 452 miles of the border wall since his presidency in 2016. 

The BBC states that the majority of the wall was replacing existing structures at the border built by previous administrations and only 80 miles of new barriers have been built where there were none before. He began by removing and replacing 14 miles of fencing in San Diego starting at the coast. 

In 2017, the Trump Administration announced that they were removing DACA. This eliminated the protections on the undocumented immigrants that came to America as children and would no longer accept new DACA applicants. 

According to the NewsRoom, The Department of Homeland Security announced that those whose permits expire by March 5, 2018 will be permitted to apply for two-year renewals as long as they did so by October 5th.

Now let’s discuss Biden’s policies. According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, Biden paused the funding and the construction of the wall, arguing that it is “not a serious policy solution” and a misuse of the U.S. taxpayer dollars. Although there was some controversy on whether or not Biden violated congressional budget rules, there was no formal investigation against him, rather it was just a reflection on his administration’s policy. 

The Biden administration also suspended new enrollments into the MPP program. The Migrant Protections Protocols requires asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while they are waiting for their claims to be processed. Biden also kept Title 42 in place, which allows authorities to deport migrants encountered at the border, except children that are alone. 

Some of the policies that he implemented were to help the immigrants who have already crossed the border. Like I discussed earlier in the article, there was no way for Dreamer, children under DACA, to obtain citizenship. As stated in WhiteHouse.gov, he announced that DACA recipients and other Dreamers who have earned a degree at an accredited U.S. institution of higher education to receive their work visas faster.

So, we can see that immigration and the wall has been the topic of discussion over both parties for many years. Although all these policies have flaws as there is no perfect solution, it affects people on both sides of the issue and the wall.