The Border Fence Is Working

Despite cries by critics that a fence along the US-Mexico border would be ineffectual, people who live near both sides of the border proclaim that the fence is working.

PALOMAS, MEXICO — At this fabled border crossing, where the last armed conflict between the United States and Mexico flared, the rancorous debate over the new U.S. anti-immigrant fence has been resolved.

The fence works, residents north and south of it say. At least it works for now on this snippet of the line.

"You hear it all the time: Fences don't work. Fences don't work," said Mark Winder, a transplanted New Englander and part-time deputy sheriff who lives on a small ranch outside Columbus, N.M., where a 3-mile stretch of wall was completed in August. "I live 2½ miles from the border, and the fence is working."

Many merchants agree in Palomas, once a sleepy farm town, now a booming haven for smugglers.

"The fence has destroyed the economy here," said Fabiola Cuellar, a hardware-store clerk on the main street of Palomas who used to sell supplies to the throngs heading north from here. "Things are going back to the way they were before."

I've written several times about Israel's success with its border fence, and there's no reason that a fence on America's border won't work just as well. It won't stop every illegal crosser, but it may stop 80%, and that's a huge success.

Perhaps there is hope for Mexico yet, at least in the next generation.

Then [elementary school principal] Villasana told of a daydreaming young student who gazed out the window at the new wall during class last month.

Villasana asked the boy, What are you thinking about?

"They have built us a wall of shame, professor," the student answered.

'How is that?" Villasana asked.

"It's shame because people have to leave our country to find work," the boy responded.

And the shame is due to the corruption, criminality, and incompetence of the Mexican government. Pulling away the crutch of illegal immigration might finally be enough to bring substantive change to Mexico, and both our countries will benefit.