A campaign ad from 1994 shows a haunting image of migrants darting through highway traffic, with a voiceover declaring, “They keep coming,” and accusing the federal government of failing to stop them while forcing Americans to bear the cost. The ad, supporting Republican Pete Wilson’s reelection bid for California governor, tapped into fears during a period of severe economic downturn. While immigrants weren’t the cause of California’s recession, Wilson used them as a scapegoat to turn around his campaign, winning reelection that November.
Today, the U.S. faces a similar political landscape, with rising concerns over immigration amid economic challenges. President-elect Donald Trump, repeating misleading claims about immigrants contributing to crime and high housing costs, has pledged to close the southern border and deport millions of unauthorized immigrants. However, research suggests that Trump’s approach will likely worsen the situation, enriching criminal networks and pushing migrants into more dangerous and exploitative conditions.
The ‘Prevention Through Deterrence’ Strategy
A few months after Wilson’s 1994 ad aired, the U.S. Border Patrol introduced a strategic plan focused on “prevention through deterrence.” The idea was to make crossing the U.S.-Mexico border so perilous that potential migrants would be discouraged from attempting to enter. The plan concentrated enforcement efforts in urban areas, driving migrants to cross in harsher, more dangerous terrains such as the desert, thus increasing both the risks and the costs of illegal immigration.
Three decades later, illegal migration has become even more dangerous and costly, just as the 1994 plan predicted. Yet, the policy’s authors believed that the increased risks would deter migrants, causing them to stay home. They were wrong.
Fortified Borders and Increased Enforcement
Over the years, the U.S. has heavily invested in border security, building walls, deploying drones, and increasing surveillance in remote areas. The Border Patrol’s budget has surged, and the number of agents has quadrupled. The U.S. has also provided substantial funding to support Mexico’s immigration control efforts, totaling over $176 million between 2014 and 2023.
While these measures appeared effective at first—apprehensions along the southwest border dropped significantly in the early 2000s—the deterrent effect has worn off. In 2012, border arrests began rising again, and by 2019, they had spiked to over 850,000. Apprehensions continued to soar in the years that followed, reaching an average of 1.9 million per year between 2020 and 2024. These numbers exceed previous historic peaks, even though migration has become far more dangerous and expensive.
Why Deterrence Doesn’t Work
In 2023, my team interviewed over 130 migrants in Colombia, Costa Rica, and Mexico to better understand why they risked everything to reach the U.S. Our findings show that deterrence is failing because of shifts in the demographics and motivations of migrants.
Until the early 2010s, most unauthorized crossers were young men from Mexico, often seeking better economic opportunities. However, as Mexico’s economy improved and fewer young people migrated, the number of Mexicans crossing the border declined. Today, more than 60% of migrants come from countries other than Mexico, including Central America, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Haiti. Many of these migrants are fleeing violence, corruption, natural disasters, and economic collapse. For them, the risks—whether of being kidnapped, dying in the desert, or being deported—are worth the chance of escaping dire circumstances.
A Honduran mother of three, interviewed in Tijuana in June 2023, put it bluntly: “If you go back, you die. So you have to go forward, forward, forward all the time.”
The Rise of Smuggling and Criminal Exploitation
While deterrence has failed to stop migration, it has bolstered organized crime. Smugglers have profited from the increased difficulty of crossing the border. A Salvadoran smuggler told an Associated Press reporter in 2019 that his fees had doubled due to the heightened risks. The cost to cross the U.S.-Mexico border now ranges from $2,000 to $15,000, compared to just a few hundred dollars in the 1990s.
Estimates show that the smuggling industry in the Americas grew from $500 million in 2018 to $13 billion in 2022. Criminal groups have shifted much of their focus from drug trafficking to migrant smuggling, with some experts estimating that 60-70% of their activities now involve people smuggling.
As Mexico’s own immigration policies have tightened, migrants have increasingly fallen prey to kidnapping and extortion rackets operated by criminal groups. This has created a cycle of violence and exploitation that has grown in parallel with U.S. enforcement efforts.
A Failed Policy with a Human Cost
The strategy of “prevention through deterrence” has proven disastrous. It has failed to stop migrants from fleeing desperate conditions, while simultaneously enriching smugglers, criminal gangs, and corrupt officials. The consequences have been deadly: as more migrants seek to cross, they are exposed to greater violence, exploitation, and even death. Meanwhile, the criminal organizations that prey on them thrive.
Rather than stemming the flow of migration, the policy has only fueled a vicious cycle of insecurity and suffering, exacerbating the very issues it aimed to address. Without a fundamental shift in approach, this cycle will likely continue to worsen, with stricter enforcement and mass deportations only driving more people into the hands of criminals.
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