"The only thing that will stop the flow of migrants is improved conditions in migrants' countries of origin: Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and other areas," Ev Meade, director of the University of San Diego's Trans-Border Institute told local KPBS radio last December.
However, the reality was much more complicated than researchers' words.
Vincent and all of the other local residents told Xinhua that, most of the Mexicans working in El Centro, including legal and illegal immigrants, did not really want to live in the U.S., they just want to make money in the U.S. and spend them in Mexico.
Most of them go back to Mexico every week or even everyday. It is the U.S. employers that do not want them to leave. Not many locals can do or want to do the work that Mexicans are doing. Vincent said he had a part-time job repairing air-conditioners, only a few people in the agriculture-based Imperial Valley know how to do it.
Statistics showed that "illegal immigrants" contributed a lot to American economy.
A cross section of California leaders in business, education, law enforcement and religion testified at Supreme Court of the United States last year that a quarter of illegal immigrants in the U.S. lived in California, which accounted for 7 percent of the California population, meanwhile, over 34 percent of agriculture laborers, 22 percent of manufacturing laborers and 21 percent of construction workers were illegal immigrants.
"The undocumented workforce alone made over 130 billion GDP for California last year, which was more than the entire respective GDPs of 19 other states." they said in a court brief.
"If you build a 20-foot wall, they (illegal immigrants) will build a 21-foot ladder and they will try to get in," said Shawn Moran, vice-president of the National Border Patrol Council last November during an interview. Nevertheless, he also stated that fence or wall was, at least, a warning that would eliminate incentives for migrations to enter the country illegally.
David FitzGerald, co-director of University of California San Diego's Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, pointed out that a tall wall would also make crossing border more dangerous, which may increase the death number.
U.S. started to build the existing barrier since the 1990s. It is now over 700 miles (1,180 Kilometers) and about one-third of the total length of the land border. Since then, about 7,000 to 10,000 people died trying to enter the United States illegally.
Immigration experts and human right groups also raised the question that if there was a wall where illegal immigrants could not pass, would they try to enter the US from the sea? If the answer is yes, then tragedies happening in Mediterranean now could happen here.
"Why waste the money?" Leo Poldo, the manager at a local Italian restaurant called Marino, believed that Trump's wall plan was a "hoax" or a "political game."
Trump is committed to renegotiating North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and if partners refuse conditions that give American workers a good deal then the president would give notice of the United States' intent to withdraw from NAFTA.
For residents and people doing business in Imperial Valley, this threat, which could lead to a tax wall, bothered them more than the border wall.
The border wall is more like a symbolic gesture. However, local businessmen said that the "tax wall" could bring down the local economy, and as a result more people would try to climb over that border wall.
According to the Imperial County Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy, Mexico is California's highest ranking trading partner. Over 30 percent of the trading products come through the two land ports in Calexico. The total value of the trading products in 2013 was worth at 13.1 billion dollar.
Border cities, such as El Centro and Calexico, thrived on international trading in last decade. Indian, Korean, and Chinese businessmen came to invest because of international trading. Moreover, Laborers living on the other side of the border had no strong willing to immigrate to the United States as they found a comfortable post in global economic chain.
The Imperial Valley-Mexicali Binational Alliance held a seminar on this issue at CETYS University in Mexicali last Thursday. They reached conclusions that they had to talk to the U.S. And Mexican governments, to prepare for the worst time and to believe there would always be a way.
