While we were tracking humans coming into America via ship back to the 1820s, the formal data collection approximating the modern system didn't even begin until 1891, seven years after the Statue was gifted to the US.
The "wild take" (which is, honestly, quite mundane) is the barbed wire fences don't even need to be up. We got along for a century and change soft-handling immigration (even longer, if you don't consider the border to be "strictly enfroced" until Operation Wetback in the 1950s). America has been strongest when it didn't care where you came from unless you gave it a reason to care.
Who is actually benefitting from a highly-militarized and exclusive southern border?
The "wild take" (which is, honestly, quite mundane) is the barbed wire fences don't even need to be up. We got along for a century and change soft-handling immigration (even longer, if you don't consider the border to be "strictly enfroced" until Operation Wetback in the 1950s). America has been strongest when it didn't care where you came from unless you gave it a reason to care.
Who is actually benefitting from a highly-militarized and exclusive southern border?