Weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. Some of these walls are only a couple feet high. What are they for?
Didn’t you hear Trump was running for president?
It’s a Mexican thing. They do it here in California as well. Often times they have elaborate wrought iron atop the decorative walls. You could do a nice room addition for the price of some of these walls, but I guess they like em a lot?
It was popular in housing tracts in California in the 60’s. Then the builders got cheap and used wood, or sometimes nothing.
You know the rules Nick. Where are the photos???
Probably critter control, to some extent. My Dad lives in Roswell, where swarms of tarantulas go across the road during the summer. Might help keep the rattlesnakes out of the yard too. Up in the Albuquerque area, newer housing developments seem to all have those walls.
I rented a trailer in Tucumcari when I went to college.
The block wall was 6 ft tall and cost more than the dumpy trailer.
People have always built walls.
Here are some pictures from my Great Great Grandfathers ranch just south of Las Vegas, New Mexico.
He started this ranch in the 1850’s. Hot water in the home piped in from a hot springs nearby. An 8 room house with a fireplace in each room.
His place was also a stage coach stop. He was a merchant in Las Vegas, NM.
That sounds logical.
Walls work at keeping the unwanted out, it is no secret.
You have to live there or have visited there. You can see it on googlemaps. Each yard has a 2-foot (or so) high wall made of cement blocks. They are not high enough to keep anyone out and there aren’t gates or anything to keep anything in. Every yard has a block wall around it. It’s really perplexing.
Curios, I looked at some maps there… along with small walls, many of the homes there seem to have no crawlspace or attic, seems an inspector’s paradise 
Here is a PIC of what I mean. I passed hundreds of homes with short block walls around their yards. Some neighborhoods I drove through all had them. What are they for?
So would you ask the same question if it was a short wood picket fence?
- Its the desert and there is not a lot of trees so block is used?
- tumble weed stop?
- To contain the decorative yard rock?
- To drive outsiders crazy
No. A picket fence can hold in a dog or a kid and is decorative. I’m thinking it has to do with stopping sand from blowing around.
I went to school there. I lived at the Buckaroo Motel, it was cheaper and lots cleaner by a long shot. 
They’re probably a remnant of frontier times.
Have you seen the movie “Sicario”?
It’s all about walls and borders.
The opening scene has walls like those you noted.