这个故事是“转型中的美国”系列报道的一部分唐纳德·特朗普美国的遗产，乔·拜登的变革计划，以及2021年的利害关系。它在星期二晚上播出美国广播公司新闻直播东部时间晚上7点。
即使在特朗普政府的暮年，纳伊达·阿尔瓦雷斯(Nayda Alvarez)也在努力阻止边境墙的修建超出她在德克萨斯州南部的后院。
“他们让这看起来像是有入侵，”阿尔瓦雷斯说，他的财产坐落在格兰德河沿岸，看着墨西哥。“这只是一个过分夸大的谎言。”
美国南部边境的几个地主在法庭上与政府对抗因为它试图通过征用权夺取他们的部分财产，并在离家仅几英尺的地方设置障碍。许多人坚称，他们没有看到非法越境或隔离墙旨在阻止的其他活动。
“如果我看到移民疯狂穿越，我的孙子们就不会出去玩了。为了我自己的安全，我可能会搬到这里，”阿尔瓦雷斯说。她在自己的屋顶上画了“没有边界墙”的标语，以表明她希望这一切都停止。
“没有危机，没有国家紧急情况。我们现在面临的国家紧急情况是一场流行病，”她说。
当唐纳德·特朗普总统准备离任时边界墙仍然是分裂的象征他的移居即使当选总统乔·拜登发誓要冻结建设和改革执法政策，这一遗产也不会轻易被撤销。
美国纳税人在过去三年中至少获得了100亿美元的合同分析由ProPublica和德克萨斯论坛报。尽管特朗普一再承诺，墨西哥没有付款一美分。根据国土安全部的说法，到目前为止，已经新建或重建了400多英里的隔离墙数据。
“这是一个游戏规则的改变，”即将离任的海关和边境保护局局长马克·摩根说。“它不仅仅是地下的钢筋和混凝土。它有照明、通路和综合技术。这也是多层次战略的一部分。”
边境官员称非法越境已经减缓到相对涓流最近几个月由于新冠肺炎(新型冠状病毒肺炎)，经济衰退和特朗普的墙壁。
摩根说来自中美洲北三角国家的家庭流动人道主义危机在2018年南部边境，比最高点下降了75%。
“批评者现在说，他们想撤销所有这些。摩根说:“如果你这样做，记住我的话，你将会——就将要发生的事情而言，去年的危机将看起来像是儿戏。”。
拜登表示，他将冻结新的边境墙建设，结束特朗普的做法国家紧急状态声明停止使用五角大楼的资金来支付它。他还计划开始扭转特朗普为限制合法移民到美国而实施的一系列行政法规。
即将上任的政府承诺恢复数万人的接收流离失所的难民，将年度上限从2020年的15000人提高到明年的125000人。拜登还承诺向寻求庇护者重新开放边境，这些人现在被拒绝入境在其他国家等待。
“人们一直生活在日益贫困的环境中。他们是卡特尔暴力的受害者，”无党派倡导团体全国移民论坛的主席兼首席执行官阿里·努拉尼说。“现在，我们的庇护系统几乎不存在。”
尽管特朗普政府结束了有争议的儿童分离政策2018年，这4000多个家庭破裂造成的人员伤亡仍可感受到。
估计545名儿童根据美国公民自由联盟的说法，从父母那里被带走的孩子还没有团聚。
“非常令人震惊的是，在这项政策停止后的两年半时间里，政府仍在移交信息，我们仍在寻找其中一些家庭，”积极寻找中美洲父母的倡导组织“正义在行动”的创始人兼执行董事凯瑟琳·卡伦说。
卡伦说，拜登承诺在上任的头几个月建立一个政府工作队，旨在帮助父母和孩子团聚。
“这些家庭将永远受到这项政策的伤害，”卡伦说。“我们希望他们回到美国，然后我们希望所有受这项政策影响的家庭在美国都有合法身份。”
特朗普多年来一直严厉谈论执法突袭和大规模驱逐，拜登计划根据他的竞选政策蓝图，初步减少强制驱逐。
皮尤研究中心(Pew Research Center)的数据显示，估计有1100万无证移民仍生活在美国的阴影中，他将与这些人一起就职。
“让我们使他们的地位合法化。让我们确保他们走上了作为公民拥有美国梦的道路，”诺拉尼说。
但在任何获得公民身份的途径之前，民主党人表示，首要任务将是加强对64万多名儿童抵达延期行动(即DACA)接受者的保护。特朗普试图扼杀该计划，但在2019年最高法院挽救了它-现在。
“我已经在美国建立了自己的生活。我的大部分时间都是在这里度过的，”休斯顿急救医疗技师耶稣·孔特雷拉斯说，他是大约27000名DACA获奖者之一在大流行的前线。“对我来说，潜在的被送回墨西哥——引用，引用我的家——将是毁灭性的，不仅对我，而且对我的社区，我的雇主，我的家人，我的朋友。”
与此同时，移民强硬派警告称，特朗普政策的倒退将带来可怕的后果。
“如果你奖励那些非法入境者的行为，它将继续发生，”摩根说。
拜登的批评者说，像废除特朗普这样的举措旅行禁令在穆斯林占主导地位的国家，这将带来安全风险，扩大外国工人的签证只会让失业的美国人更难找到工作。新政府誓言采取这两个步骤。
“特朗普总统希望我们谈论的是隔离墙。作为一个国家，我们需要谈论我们的移民制度。“没有移民，我们就不会有科学家开发疫苗我们也不会让那些在养老院照顾我们的老人。"
对阿尔瓦雷斯来说，在辩论的前线，华盛顿的总统换届是双方重新关注最重要的事情的机会。
“人们必须在食品银行排队等6到12个小时才能拿到一盒食物。你去做COVID测试，你必须等三个小时才能做COVID测试，”她说。“我认为长城应该是人们现在最不想看到的东西。”
Trump's immigration legacy: A border wall Biden vows to freeze
This story is part of "America in Transition," a series of reports on key parts ofDonald Trump's legacy, Joe Biden's plans for change, and what's at stake in 2021. It airs Tuesday nights onABC News Live Primeat 7 p.m. ET.
Even in the twilight of the Trump administration, Nayda Alvarez is battling to keep construction of the border wall out of her south Texas backyard.
"They make it seem that there is an invasion," said Alvarez, whose property sits along the Rio Grande, looking intoMexico. "It's just been an over-exaggerated lie."
Several landowners along the southern U.S. border have beenfighting the government in courtas it seeks to seize parts of their property through eminent domain and erect barriers just feet from their homes. Many insist they have not seen the illegal crossings or other activity the wall is meant to prevent.
"If I would see immigrants crossing like crazy, my grandkids wouldn't go outside and play. I'd probably move here for my own safety," said Alvarez. She painted the slogan "no border wall" on the roof of her house to make clear that she wants it all to stop.
"There's no crisis, no national emergency. The national emergency that we have right now is a pandemic," she said.
As President Donald Trump prepares to leave office, theborder wallremains a divisive symbol ofhisimmigrationlegacy that won't be easily undone, even as President-elect Joe Biden vows to freeze construction and overhaul enforcement policies.
American taxpayers are on the hook for at least $10 billion in contracts awarded over the last three years, according to ananalysisby ProPublica and Texas Tribune. Despite Trump's repeated promises,Mexico has not paidone cent. More than 400 miles of barrier has been newly built or reconstructed so far, according to Department of Homeland Securitydata.
"It's been a game changer," said outgoing Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan. "It's much more than steel and concrete going in the ground. It has lighting, access roads and integrated technology. Again, that's part of that multilayered strategy."
Border officials say illegal crossings have slowed to arelative tricklein recent months thanks toCOVID-19, the economic recession and Trump'swall.
Morgan says the flow of families from Northern Triangle countries in Central America, which precipitateda humanitarian crisisalong the southern border in 2018, is down by 75% from the peak.
"The critics now say they want to undo all of it. If you do that, mark my words, you're going to -- last year's crisis is going to look like child's play with respect to what's going to happen," Morgan said.
Biden has said he'll move to freeze new border wall construction, ending Trump'snational emergency declarationand stopping use of Pentagon funds to pay for it. He also plans to begin reversing a wave of administrative regulations Trump imposed to limit legal immigration to the U.S.
The incoming administration promises to resume acceptance of tens of thousands ofdisplaced refugees,lifting the annual cap from just 15,000 in 2020 to 125,000 next year. Biden has also pledged to reopen the borders to asylum seekers who are now turned away towait in other countries.
"People have been [living in] increasingly destitute situations. They've been victims of violence from the cartels," said Ali Noorani, president and CEO of the National Immigration Forum, a nonpartisan advocacy group. "Right now, our asylum system pretty much does not exist."
And while the Trump administration ended its controversialchild separation policyin 2018, the human toll of those more than 4,000 family breakups is still being felt.
An estimated545 childrentaken from their parents have not yet been reunited, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
"It's pretty shocking that 2 1/2 years later, after this policy was stopped, that the government is still handing over information and we're still searching for some of these families," said Cathleen Caron, founder and executive director of Justice in Motion, an advocacy group actively searching for the parents in Central America.
Caron said Biden has promised to create a government task force aimed at helping reunite the parents and children in his first months in office.
"These families are forever going to be harmed by this policy," Caron said. "We want them to come back to the U.S. and then we want all the families affected by this policy to have legal status in the U.S."
After years of tough talk by Trump about enforcement raids and large-scale deportations, Biden plans to initially scale back forced removals, according to his campaign policy blueprint.
He will take office with an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants still living in the shadows in the U.S., according to the Pew Research Center.
"Let's legalize their status. Let's make sure that they're on a path to own the American dream as citizens," Noorani said.
But before any path to citizenship, Democrats say a first priority will be shoring up protections for more than 640,000 recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. Trump attempted to kill the program, but in 2019the Supreme Court saved it-- for now.
"I've established my life here in the U.S. I've been here the majority of my life," said Houston emergency medical technician Jesus Contreras, one of an estimated 27,000 DACA recipientson the front lines of the pandemic."For me to potentially be sent back to Mexico -- quote, unquote my home -- would be devastating, not only to me, but to my community, my employer, my family, my friends."
In the meantime, immigration hardliners are warning a rollback of Trump policies will have dire consequences.
"If you reward the behavior of those coming across illegally, it's going to keep happening," said Morgan.
Biden's critics say moves like rescinding Trump'stravel banson predominantly Muslim countries will pose a security risk, and that expanding visas for foreign workers will only make it harder for out-of-work Americans to find jobs. The new administration vows to take both steps.
"President Trump wants us to be talking about the wall. We as a nation need to be talking about our immigration system," said Noorani. "Without immigrants we would not have the scientists who aredeveloping the vaccinesnor would we have those who are caring for our elderly in nursing homes."
For Alvarez, on the front lines of the debate, the presidential transition in Washington is a chance for both sides to refocus on what's most important.
"People have to wait six to 12 hours at a food bank in line to get a box of food. You go to get a COVID test, you have to wait three hours for a COVID test," she said. "I think the wall should be the last thing on people's minds right now."
