AUSTIN— Today, the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Right on Immigration project published the paper, Border Security: An Assessment of the Metrics.

“The ability to quantify what a secure border looks like is essential for maintaining the sovereignty and national security of the United States,” said Igor Magalhaes, legislative fellow with the Texas Public Policy Foundation. “In order to make informed decisions on the performance of immigration enforcement agencies, elected officials need metrics that clearly identify what a secure border means. Such metrics will also help the American people hold their government accountable for carrying out one of its core responsibilities—protecting the nation’s borders. However, adopting long-standing metrics that properly measure the most consequential aspects of border security has proven problematic.”

Key Points:

  • Given the complexity of illegal immigration, metrics aimed at evaluating immigration enforcement between ports of entry are elusive, imperfect, and incomplete.
  • A lack of continuity in the metrics and their respective methodologies impede an accurate and holistic historical assessment of border security.
  • Comprehensive border security is more than just apprehending illegal border crossers. It also requires the ability to turn them back and deter them from attempting again in the future.
  • While flawed, border security metrics are crucial. Numerous actions could be taken to improve them moving forward.

To read the paper in full, please visit: https://www.texaspolicy.com/border-security-an-assessment-of-the-metrics/