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Dudley Poston on immigration, border walls, and census data

Sociology professor Dudley Poston shares his research on the changing immigration policies in the United States and how it affects Texas.

By Hannah Falcon ’21

It’s uncommon to pick up a newspaper or turn on a newscast these days without seeing something about President Donald Trump’s proposed policies on immigration and border walls. That’s one reason why sociology professor Dudley Poston decided to share his research on the history and effects of border walls around the world and the perceived effect of a new question on the 2020 census.

Walls and Immigration

In February, Poston presented his research on the effectiveness of border walls at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual conference in Washington D.C. In addition to border walls, Poston also looked at how undocumented immigrants might react to a citizenship question on the 2020 census.

Poston, a professor of demography and sociology at Texas A&M, conducts some of his research in China, where he’s had the opportunity to study the Great Wall of China and visit it several times.

“President Trump sometimes says ‘the Great Wall of China is great, because it kept people from coming into China,’—but it didn’t work at all,” Poston said.

The Great Wall of China and other border walls around the world failed to stop people from crossing because of migrant selectivity, a term used to explain the phenomenon that only the most determined and most innovative people migrate, according to Poston.

“Only the very best people are able to successfully migrate and to change their residence, especially from one country to another,” Poston said.

Photo: Provided.

Poston explained that another reason a wall will not be effective in keeping out undocumented immigrants is that most undocumented immigrants are not crossing the border illegally.

“The number of Visa overstayers is getting bigger and bigger, and the number of what demographers call EWIs—people who ‘Enter Without Inspections’—are going down and the Visa overstayers are going up,” Poston said. “Trump’s wall is meant to keep out the EWIs, but it’s never going to keep out the Visa overstayers.”

Sociological and criminological research on immigration has shown that immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, have lower crime rates than people born in the United States, likely because they are worried about being caught and deported, according to Poston.

“President Trump often states that we don’t want to let these EWIs into our country because they’re rapists, they’re murderers, they’re criminals…and that is completely wrong,” Poston said.

Poston said the problem at the border is with drugs, not immigration. However, he also does not believe a wall will stop the entry of drugs and other illicit material, because contraband almost always enters through checkpoints at the border.

“The drugs come in on trucks and tractor-trailers and go through the points of entry in Laredo, Brownsville, and El Paso,” Poston said. “A wall is not going to keep out drugs, because they only come in through the points of entry.”

Impact of Census Question

Besides border walls, Poston also looks at how other policies may affect or be affected by immigration, including the 2020 census.

Poston and Amanda Baumle, a Texas A&M doctoral graduate and now a professor of sociology at the University of Houston, recently published an article on their research about how Texas would be affected by the addition of a citizenship question on the 2020 census.

Secretary of Congress Wilbur Ross has proposed adding a question to the 2020 U.S. census that asks, “Are you a citizen of the United States?” In their article, Poston and Baumle state that millions of undocumented immigrants may not respond to the census if the citizenship question is included. This would cause Texas’s population to appear lower than it actually is, which would in turn lead to Texas having less seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“A most immediate impact of this change will be a differential distribution of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives,” Poston said.

Without the additional question, Texas is projected to gain three more seats in the House. However, if the addition of the citizenship question results in all the undocumented immigrants not responding to the census, this would result in Texas losing one of its three projected new seats, in addition to as much as several billion in funding, according to Poston and Baumle. Even if only half of the undocumented immigrants do not respond, Texas would still lose one of its projected new seats.

“Adding a citizenship question to the census will not be good for Texas,” Poston said.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear the arguments for and against the addition of a citizenship question in April and come to a conclusion by the end of June.

Poston believes it’s important for his students to stay up to date on salient issues, such as border walls and changing immigration policies, and studying the liberal arts is a key way to do that. He brings his research on immigration into the classroom by relating terms, such as migrant selectivity, to his students’ lives.

“I tell my undergraduate students they’re a very good example of the concept of migrant selectivity,” Poston said. “You take a chance to move here, to get an education. So you’re going to come here and do the best you can.”