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In this article the quote:

The result? Since border wall construction began in Tucson, Arizona, illegal crossings are down 24 percent. In San Diego, California, they’re down 27 percent. And in Yuma, Arizona, they are down over 78 percent.

I was wondering since it's illegal, how do they measure the numbers? 78% in Yuma is impressive. Is this claim supported by the real numbers or is this just an estimate or wishful thinking?

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Grasper
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    Given that construction has only *begun* it would seem odd to attribute a drop in numbers to it. In fact if the Great Wall of Trump was going to be effective you would expect numbers to increase in the short term as people made a last dash to get through. – Paul Johnson Jan 15 '20 at 13:41
  • They don't need to observe fewer foreigners _in the moment when they cross the board._ They can observe fewer foreigners _somewhere deeper inside the state_ and make an estimation (or make it up). – Jan Jan 15 '20 at 13:49
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    I've heard (though I don't have time right now to look for a source) that Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric was deterring people from crossing the border even *before* the wall started to go up. Why would you want to move to a country whose leader so openly loathes you? Stories about the conditions in ICE detention centres may also have been a factor. – F1Krazy Jan 15 '20 at 14:15
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    Correllation does not equal causation, correllation does not equal causation, correllation does not equal causation... I.e., "thanks to" is not even *claimed* in the quoted text. They just make it *look* that way. Are you asking for the correlation (which *is* claimed), or the causation specifically (which can't really be proven, see above comments)? – DevSolar Jan 15 '20 at 14:26
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    Edited the title for now to match the claim in the question. – DevSolar Jan 15 '20 at 14:29
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    It makes intuitive sense that border crossings are down while the wall is being built; there's a lot more people moving around which makes illegal crossing more dangerous in that area. – Erik Jan 15 '20 at 14:56
  • Why down-votes? I'm asking if there are some official data that supports the claim. Is there something wrong with the question? – Grasper Jan 15 '20 at 15:13
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    My downvote is because the answer is obvious. **Three miles** of new wall has been constructed, but many other punitive measures have been taken to curb immigration (legal and illegal). Would any person really believe that it is the tiny amount of wall that has made the difference rather than the other measures? – DJClayworth Jan 15 '20 at 15:14
  • @DJClayworth, how do you justify the numbers? Why don't they just say 100%? – Grasper Jan 15 '20 at 15:26
  • I told you that in the previous comment. If I take a new part time fast food job, and I also win the lottery, it's pointless to ask if the million dollars in my bank account is because of the part time job. – DJClayworth Jan 15 '20 at 15:39
  • @DJClayworth, you still don't get it. I'm asking about the numbers if the percentage is correct and how did they come up with it. I'm not asking whether the immigration went down in general. For example: how do they know that the ones from Yuma are not the ones from Tuscon? Do they stand there and count and label them? – Grasper Jan 15 '20 at 16:27
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    If that is what you are asking I suggest you remove the irrelevant stuff about the wall. If the question is "are these figures for the decrease in illegal immigration since 2017 correct" then say that. And find a better source, since the source you are using definitely attributes this decline to Trump's tiny wall. – DJClayworth Jan 15 '20 at 16:37
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    Even ignoring measurement issues, "since " is a misleading causal attribution. Trump put in place a good number of other measures intended to deter immigration (and not just the illegal one). Massive deportations from the US, threats against Mexico to better police its southern borders, etc. Without accounting for all these factors how they might influence the decision and ability to enter the US, it's a fake attribution to say the wall caused it. – Fizz Jan 16 '20 at 03:11
  • most people cross in spring and summer, so it's always going to be down this time of year. – dandavis Jan 16 '20 at 18:20

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You know that Larry David gif when he made the "I can't make sense out of it" gesture?
This is the thing. The claim in linked article is unquoted. Yet on FoxNews you can, again without a quotation marks, read

Wolf said the wall was top of border officials’ priority list and cited stats suggesting that the wall acted as a deterrent for illegal immigration, drug smuggling and human trafficking. He said that since border wall construction began in Tucson, Arizona, illegal crossings are down 24 percent. In San Diego, crossings are down 27 percent, and in Yuma crossings are down by over 78 percent.

Both bolding by me. So we have a statement that it was Chad Wolf who said those number backed up with stats. So there should be some data to look at and conclude those numbers

And there are - U.S. Border Patrol Southwest Border Apprehensions by Sector Fiscal Year 2020. There the apprehensions that are noted. With divide by age and family status. Now for Yuma we see that Alien Children (0-17 yr old) Apprehensions dropped by 79%. Family units by 88% and single adults by 50% . (To compare, in Del Rio it was up 50% children and families. And in Tucson up by 120% for families). Those are all "compared to previous year"

So it's not the immigration that is down. It's the amount of people who are caught that is down.
Second thing is that, as you can see, there is no "78%". With such exact numbers it would be easy to calculate overall apprehensions OR rounded up for better impact "almost 80%".

So from where the 78% comes from? We know that the quote state since border wall construction began. In Yuma there as already a vehicle barriers, and on October 10 2019 the work started to replace it with 30-foot bollards. We need to assume that this is what means "wall construction".
Based on method of comparision we would need to measure the apprehensions from 10.10.2019 till 01.14.2020 with similar date of october 2018 to January 2019 (to December as January data for 2020 is not yet avaiable).

And the data show that the apprehensions were down by around 30%. So 78%. Where it is? It's in the article by AzCentral.com

More than three quarters of the apprehensions (78 percent) this year are unaccompanied minors and family units, the term the Border Patrol uses to refer to adults traveling with one or more family members.

The only problem is that the article if from May 2018.

So, NO illegal immigration is not down. It's the apprehention rate that is down. And only compared to previous year. For example for December 2017 and 2019 the rate was almost the same, 40 thousand.

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    Just a quick point, its impossible to know how many illegal immigrants aren't apprehended. The best we're going to get is apprehensions. – Ryan_L Jan 16 '20 at 00:15