Yes.
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/border-issues/2017/11/07/mesh-added-slats-nogales-border-wall-thwart-smuggling/841011001/
That kind of knowledge sort of provides background to people who are debating either sides of the "wall"--from the "we'd never build such a thing" to "what a stupid idea, slats, who came up with that--surely not a previous administration" to "see, this will certainly work." All sides show a lack of knowledge and argue out of their butts when that's necessary for their cause.
Note that the tunnels are probably a lot harder than just walking across the border. If there's a barrier, then you stop and think, "What's easier? Get through or over the barrier? Go around it by heading east or west? Is going under it easier? Or maybe I'll just try to smuggle at the port of entry?" Talk to Hamas and the Israelis about borders and fences and tunnels. And the optics of having mostly young men rush the border with a small number of women and kids, and a press that assumes you're wrong because of who you are and only really shows horrendous wide pictures of teargas (with mostly young men) and then narrow-focus pictures showing just the teargassing of the poor weak things that kids and women must be.
It's like water: You do one thing to handle much of the rain that could flood your house. If that's not sufficient, you don't say, "Meh, it didn't work, so let's do nothing." Instead you do something else or improve what you already did. And if that doesn't work and you still think that the water's a problem, you try a third thing. An organization my kid's with was asked to help the adult version of that same organization after Harvey. There were storm drains. There were berms to keep the creek in its banks; there were diversion basins and other things to mitigate flooding. And yet at the end the men in the organization got a large pile of sand, hundreds of sandbags, and some nice waterproof sheeting, and used them wisely. Other buildings in the area had to be gutted, they had 2-3 feet of water standing in them for a day or two. This particular non-profit had a couple of square yards of wet carpet where the water seeped in under the door, not through the walls. (Had the water gone too high, the building would have imploded, of course, so it was a risk--one that they thought about and which paid off.) I guess it didn't work--some water got in--so next time it'll be better to just accept the insurance money and not have a place to meet for 6 months.
This is the retort to the "most drugs intercepted are at ports of entry" observation. Well, yes, that makes sense--not only do you get a lot because of relatively small amounts carried by lots of people, but if it's harder to get them across the border then it pushes the traffic through what's left. Tunnels, obscure areas, ports of entry.
If you think this is bad, find another contraband that's lucrative. You smuggle drugs out of Mexico into Arizona, you can smuggle guns into Mexico. It's a two-way deal. There used to be a huge business in illegal cigarette and alcohol smuggling. Still is, in some areas.
That's the then- and current-complaint about the human costs of the fence. It impedes illegal immigration and pushes migrants into more dangerous areas. But by upping the cost and the risk, it only stands to reason it impedes the flow. It's a cost-benefit analysis (done in a not always logical way), and works with illegal drugs as much as with car parts and people.
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