To answer the question specifically, yes, it is real.
Not sure why the wall is so controversial. The specific needs of local law enforcement and the border patrol is what the wall is for. Politicians including Pelosi, Schumer, and even Obama, have called for this wall for years. It is not ‘Trump’s wall’ though most on the left do not want to see Trump be the one who actually gets it done.
It is pretty ridiculous when Ted Coppell or Beto O’Rourke stand behind a safe area with a finished section of wall, or behind additional walls, even with the border walls plainly in sight, and declare this as evidence there is no problem at the border. Its in fact pretty serene, and that walls don’t save likes but they kill people. Isn’t THAT what’s REALLY beyond ridiculous?
Think about it.
To use crime reparations to fund prevention of the specific crime (such as drugs coming over the border) is actually a pretty standard practice in America.
To you, its just politics or hatred of Trump. But the footage of what border patrol goes through on a daily basis and calls for, yes, even the charging of thousands of people storming the border—human smuggling, drug trafficking and big guns, is what’s really going on there.