What good is the border wall?

After going through the aggregate data from DHS' estimates from earlier this year, I have three observations:

1. The economy appears to have had a huge impact on the direction that illegal immigrants go.  As Asia suffered less of an economic setback than that of the US, it appears Asians chose to leave for greener pastures. Call me crazy, but isn't a global dynamic work force what global open market advocates point to, as an efficient market?
2. Even as Mexicans were actually LEAVING the US in 2009, more Guatemalans and Hondurans were entering the US illegally.  Doesn't seem like the border's walls and stepped up spending for enforcement of the border itself has made a difference one way or another; people move back and forth either way.
3. Border apprehensions have also dropped, which seems to support the idea that fewer people are entering the US from the Mexican border, and in fact there is an out-migration.

Country/Area	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009
Mexico	5970000	6570000	6980000	7030000	6650000
El Salvador	470000	510000	540000	570000	530000
Guatemala	370000	430000	500000	430000	480000
Honduras	180000	280000	280000	300000	320000
Philippines	210000	280000	290000	300000	270000
India	280000	210000	220000	160000	200000
Korea	210000	230000	230000	240000	200000
Ecuador	120000	150000	160000	170000	170000
Brazil	170000	210000	190000	180000	150000
China	230000	170000	290000	220000	120000
Americas	7280000	8150000	8650000	8680000	8300000
Asia	930000	890000	1030000	920000	790000

I don't think it's a good idea to crack down on illegal immigrants, as it seems highly likely that we'll end up with goods and services price inflation from a lack of a non-living wage workforce.  We need to identify which market sectors need cheap labor, and provide for a legal migration system for workers in those areas, while taxing them for the time that they're in the US, maybe a flat $600 / year, increasing automatically by 2% every year?

And I'm all for granting illegal immigrants who have children that were born in the US, so long as they pay a hefty fine...say $1000 for every year they've been in the US illegally, or a minimum of $5000 for those who do not have proof of their length of stay.

Sources:

• http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/ois_ill_pe_2009.pdf (top chart and table)
• http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/ois_apprehensions_fs_2005-2008.pdf (bottom chart)