Closing of the U.S.-Mexico Border and it's Effects on the Economy

As Central American migrants sought to cross the border from Mexico into the U.S. this weekend, the Trump administration shut down the busy crossing in San Ysidro, California, between San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico. It later reopened, but President Donald Trump's threats to "close" the entire 1,954-mile border with Mexico raise many questions -- including how realistic such a threat might be. 

So, what impact would closing the U.S.-Mexican border have?

"An economic impossibility"

The San Ysidro crossing is the biggest passenger land port in the Western hemisphere -- closing it alone would be hugely disruptive. Every day, an average of 120,000 commuter vehicles, 6,000 trucks and 63,000 pedestrians use the border gateway, many to go to and from their jobs in the U.S. 

Sealing the entire border between the countries, meanwhile, would cause economic chaos. In 2017, about $558 billion in goods flowed across the U.S.- Mexico border in both directions, making Mexico our third-biggest trading partner for goods behind Canada and China. U.S. goods exported to Mexico totaled $243.3 billion, while trade in services accounted for another $58 billion.

Trucks transport the bulk of goods: In September 2018 alone, $34.7 billion in freight -- 69 percent of all southern border freight -- crossed in from Mexico by truck, according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Another $6.8 billion crossed by rail, $5.9 billion by vessels, $1.3 billion by air and $400 million by pipeline.    

The closure of the border between Tijuana and San Diego for almost six hours Sunday cost businesses in San Ysidro, California, an estimated US $5.3 million, according to a local business group.

Jason Wells, executive director of the San Ysidro Chamber of Commerce, said that more than 700 businesses located in the area immediately north of the port of entry suffered financial losses and that 75% of them closed for the entire day.

“The situation facing our border – mass migration of Central Americans from failed states – is complex and is felt nowhere as strongly as in San Ysidro,” Wells said, explaining that 93% of local businesses’ customers are from Mexico.

“Obviously businesses in Chula Vista, San Diego and further away were also affected,” he added.

Meantime, back in San Ysidro 

San Ysidro, the busiest of the southern border's two dozen passenger land crossings, sees about 70,000 northbound vehicles and 20,000 pedestrians crossing each day (The top three crossings, for both people and traffic, are San Ysidro, El Paso, Texas, and Otay Mesa, California, according to government data.) 

Long lines and other inefficiencies at crossings like San Ysidro cost $7.2 billion in lost economic output and 62,000 jobs on both sides of the border, a 2007 study by the San Diego Association of Governments and California Department of Transportation found. The study even calculated that economic impact of an extra 15 minutes of border wait time: an additional loss of $1 billion in productivity and 134,000 jobs annually.

In all, about 6.8 million people live on the San Diego-Tijuana border, with a combined annual economic output of $220 billion, according to The Outline. Traffic at the port is projected to rise 87 percent by 2030.

An extended closure could cost the area billions, Paola Avila, a vice president at the San Diego Chamber of Commerce, told Bloomberg this week after the president again threatened to close the southern border. "The uncertainty of border closures occurring at any time is a substantial economic threat for our region," Avila said, adding the economies are "inextricably linked."

Still, the economies on both sides of San Ysidro are economically resilient when it comes to short, temporary closures, said Adam Rose, a professor at the USC's Price School of Public Policy and one of the co-authors of the 2011 CREATE report on total border closure.

"It is a significant inconvenience, but it's unlikely to last if it's only for a couple of days, or have a major effect on the economy of the U.S. or Mexico," Rose said.  "Longer than that, it would be harder to make up the losses."

Can Trump legally 'close' the border?

While the President may actually have the ability to close the border under the same national security authority by which the Supreme Court approved his travel ban, but as in that case there would likely be limits.

"The key, as in the travel ban case, is that he can't do it in a way that violates constitutional rights -- whether of those of a particular national origin, or of those non-citizens with sufficient connections to the US to trigger due process protections," said Steve Vladeck, a CNN contributor and law professor at the University of Texas.

"For instance, categorically closing the border between El Paso and Ciudad Juarez would trap thousands (if not tens of thousands) of Americans and non-citizens lawfully entitled to be in the US on the other side of the border, even though many of them would have a strong claim of a right to travel / return home / etc. that could raise serious constitutional problems," said Vladeck.

Other legal experts aren't sure Trump could even get that far. Trump fan and Fox News legal pundit Judge Andrew Napolitano has questions. "He cannot legally do it," Napolitano said on Fox News. "We know that because of federal statutes. They were last revised in 1986, when our relationship with migrants coming north was very different than it is now."

Almost certainly there would be lawsuits.

Information Via: CNN Politics and CBS News

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