Principles over Party

Lately there has been a lot of talk about the US-Mexico border and the need, or lack-there-of, for a more extensive border wall. When President Trump ran his campaign in 2016 on a promise to “Build the Wall”, the nation seemed to be torn apart by the proposal. It has since become a highly politicized idea with a lot of emotionally driven rhetoric. The facts, the history, the application, none of it seems to matter. If you are a Trump supporter you want the wall, if you are not you don’t. 

Unfortunately, this is where the majority of our political opinions begin these days. The more tribal and partisan you become, the more you lose your ability to think critically. Without critical thought and analysis, we become vulnerable and subjected to massive amounts of propaganda and brainwashing.

People tend to know which side they stand on when it comes to a border wall but asking them to defend their stance with critical reasoning and without throwing unsubstantiated insults, seems to be a whole different challenge. We have allowed our emotions to control our minds and the emotions most prevalent when it comes to politics are anger, hatred, and fear.

For the past two elections, the message from the masses has been to “vote against” the candidate you don’t want, to choose the “lesser of two evils”. The two-party system has played us. Prying on those emotions of anger and fear, thus trapping us in a theoretical revolving door of partisan driven hatred above all else. How then can we have any type of critical or thoughtful discussions about anything, let alone the need for a border wall?

When I chose this topic, I did so because it is a topic I had not quite made my mind up on. When I think of our government expanding our border wall, my mind does not go to the thought of keeping people out, but instead, to the thought of being trapped in. This is also the reason I could never live on an island and don’t go on cruises. I thoroughly enjoy the ability to move around freely and don’t like the thought of being trapped. While this might be a trivial and possibly juvenile point of view, until I began research on this topic, it was the main extent and basis of my opinion on expanding the border wall.

I began my research by looking back through the history of the US-Mexico border wall. What I found was very interesting and rather inconsistent with a lot of the basis for many of the arguments both for and against a border wall today. What I also found was a ridiculous amount of opinion-based journalism reeking in propaganda and emotion triggering language. It was hard to find one piece of journalism regarding the border wall that did say Trump, democrats, and/or republicans at least 20 times. What was even more surprising, was going back to read journalism from the 1990’s. The border wall was a hot topic then as well. On the contrary to today’s attempts at journalism, articles from the 90’s were well thought out, fact driven and noticeable void of “republicans this, democrats that” rhetoric. It was refreshing, to say the least.

After about a week and a half of researching and working through my opinions on the border wall, I was still unsure of where to stand or what to believe. I had an extremely hard time finding multiple sources with the same information. One article would claim the cost of something was $1 billion, the next article would put the cost around $500 million, and the third would throughout a random number like $680 million. It was frustrating and confusing, and I no longer wonder why we can’t find a way to work our issue out in an intelligent and respectful manner.

When there are no objective, bipartisan and/or fact driven sources of information to rely on, it becomes extremely overwhelming. Everyone loves to say, “do your own research”, but I can’t help but wonder how many of them actually do their own research and what method they use to choose which information is reliable and which is nothing more than a load of partisan/one-sided bullshit. How many people are willing to question their beliefs and how many jump on to the first article that confirms their biases and then claim to be “woke”.

The process has left me quite annoyed, as I am sure is obvious by now. However, I put in the time, shifted through the nonsense and complied some interesting information. Without a strong background on the history of the border wall, I felt it would be important to begin building my opinion on the wall with a brief, but informative breakdown of its history. Below is what I was able to come up with.

Dating back to the early 19th century, Mexican immigration into the United States was encouraged. The end of American slavery left a huge need for cheap labor. And when the 1924 Immigration Act was signed by President Coolidge to limit the amount of immigrants let into the United States by applying quotas to different countries, Mexico was effectively exempt. At this time in history, migration from Mexico to the US made up less than one third of the overall flow of immigration into the United States.

US immigration would change drastically after the 1960’s Civil Rights reforms and the signing of the 1965 Immigration Act by President Johnson. The purpose of the 1965 Immigration Act was to bring immigration policy more in line with other anti-discrimination efforts of the time by undoing the quota restrictions from the 1924 Immigration Act. According to Vice President Hubert Humphrey, “We have removed all elements of second-class citizenship from our laws by the [1964] Civil Rights Act. We must in 1965 remove all elements in our immigration law which suggest there are second-class people.” 

The 1965 Immigration Act, more than any other 20th century law, would have a huge impact on the US demographic character. In 1960, a vast majority of immigrants came from Europe. By 2010, nine out of ten immigrants were coming from other parts of the world. The share of the U.S. population born outside the country would subsequently triple, thus become far more diverse overtime. I want to note here these numbers are in reference to legal immigration.

The 1960’s would also see a huge increase in drug trafficking from Mexico. In an attempt to stop drugs from crossing the border, President Nixon would introduce Project Intercept, involving the US in the Mexican Drug War for the first time. With Project Intercept would come an increase in both air and sea border surveillance and mandatory individual inspections for any and all border crossings. Inspections were mandated to last 3 minutes and resulted in a near shutdown of border crossings from Mexico into the US. Project Intercept would effectively last only 20 days but would appear to catapult the modern-day US-Mexican immigration debate.

In response to a continued increase in illegal immigration and illegal drug trafficking, President Clinton would introduce a multi-million-dollar initiation to combat illegal immigration. Included in the initiative would be a drastic increase in funding and in the number of border patrol agents. It would also include Operation Gatekeeper which involved the building of a 13-mile wall between San Diego and Tijuana. The San Diego wall would effectively decrease border apprehensions from 100,000/day to 5,000/day.

The story doesn’t end happily there though. While illegal immigration was drastically slowed between Tijuana and San Diego, the neighboring areas would all see vast increases in illegal border crossings. And the 1994 NAFTA agreement would cause a new wave of migration as jobless Mexicans would begin crossing the border illegally in search for jobs.

Following the 9-11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, border security would become a national security issue. Passports would now be required for all US border crossings. Unfortunately, this would have little effect on illegal border crossings and in 2005 more than 1 million people would be arrested crossing the border, 500 would be found dead in their attempt.

In response, in 2006 President Bush would pass the Secure Fences Act with huge bipartisan support. The Act called for just under 700 miles of fencing to be installed with the goal of also adding 2,000 miles of virtual fencing with censors, cameras, and other high-tech equipment. But, just like with Operation Gatekeeper in San Diego, the newly erected walls and barriers would only cause those looking to cross illegally to find other paths to do so. In fact, in 2010, 51 unauthorized tunnels from Mexico to the US would be discovered.

Illegal immigration into the US from Mexico would continue to increase until 2009, when the 2008 Great Recession would cause the all-time peak of 12 million illegal residence to begin to decline by 300,000 per year. In 2011, DHS would complete the Secure Fences Act requirements with 649 miles of barriers, including 350 miles of fencing costing $6.5 million/mile, 299 miles of vehicle barriers costing $1.7 million/mile, and 53 miles of virtual surveillance at a cost of roughly $15 million/mile. President Obama would cut funding for the remaining 1,947 miles of virtual wall required by the Secure Fences Act.

Even with all of this, in 2012, 463 human remains would be found as a result of illegal border crossings. Illegal immigration would take on a whole new life in 2014 when Central America and South America sent a massive amount of refuges into Mexico headed for the Southern US border. For the first time ever, the number of Non-Mexicans crossing the Southern border illegally would exceed the number of Mexicans. The number of unaccompanied minors crossing would also surge. And in 2015, a heartbreaking 3,000 human remains would be found along the Arizona-Mexico border.

In response, in 2016, President Trump would vow to build a 2,000-mile border wall between Mexico and the US. Once elected, in 2017 he would also execute executive orders to increase border patrol and ICE agents. His administration would also become infamous for separating (and caging) children from their parents before deporting them. In 2018, now a hot and triggering political topic, the senate would vote against the building of a 2,000-mile border wall.

In 2019, illegal immigration seems to be picking up again to all-time highs. The 2012 trend of Non-Mexicans crossing the border has continued. What has historically been single Mexican men slipping across the border to find work, is now entire families from Central America attempting to cross the border. In the first six months of the fiscal year that began in October 2018, Border Patrol has caught 136,150 people traveling in families with children attempting to cross the border, compared with 107,212 during all of the fiscal 2018 year. Poverty and the prospect of a better life in the US, seem to be the driving force.

It would appear those downplaying the importance of what is going on at our Southern border would either be highly misinformed, or simply playing politics. After combing through the history of our Southern border and its relation to legal and illegal immigration, it’s obvious something needs to be done. I am however, still unsure on what that is exactly. Is the right thing to build a massive “Wall of China” type structure or are the consequences of doing so too harsh?

There is still soo much to explore when it comes to the Southern border and the need, or lack thereof, for a border wall. Now that we have a good background of its history, I am going to continue the discussion and explore how it relates to my three principles in a separate post.

I am grateful for the opportunity to share these thoughts and feelings with the world. Should you find yourself here, please feel free to share your thoughts and opinions as part of an open and respectful dialogue aimed at gaining a better understanding of ourselves and of one another.