Some of the worst lies of Donald Trump (and most of the Republican party) have to do with immigration. On this issue, more than any other, racism, the great motivating force of much of the Republican party can most easily be seen. It can be seen in their unwillingness to acknowledge the contributions made by immigrants, their unwillingness to admit that conservative businesses are partly responsible for illegal immigration and greatly profit from it, their unwillingness to admit that communities with illegal immigrants have lower levels of crime than other communities, and their unwillingness to admit that illegals are often the ones abused, exploited and killed.
This racism directs and colors conservative thinking and leads them to some of the dumbest and most impractical ideas about how to control immigration problems. And if you are looking for an example of how this thinking distorts rational policy making, just consider Trump’s claim that we cannot secure the safety of our nation without a wall all along our southwestern border.
Whether you are a progressive, or just a thinking individual, it is easy to see why this claim is built on racism and not practical consideration or investigative insight for keeping Americans safe. Trump’s racism is easy to discern in light of his failure (or unwillingness) to consider three simple questions:
-Did Trump bother to ask the border patrol agents down there what they thought of the idea of a cross border wall?
Donald Trump wants to put a physical barrier, of steel slats or concrete, across the entire length of the southwestern border. It is not a wall at strategic points of entry or transportation. It is not about a barrier where we have high illegal immigrant penetration or where we already have agents on patrol. It’s a pile of concrete or steel stretching along the entire border.
Wouldn’t it be wise for an honest political leader, looking for insights to solve the chronic, but not urgent, problem of illegal immigration to ask the border patrol agents about this? After all, stopping illegal entry is their job, and nobody has more experience with this problem than the people who do it every day. Don’t these agents have an opinion on concrete across the border?
They do: they don’t want the wall. When you are dealing with the agents themselves, and learn what it is that they specifically request, it is not fencing (especially a fence, or wall, running along the entire border).
In a New York Times article of March 22, 2018 a survey of agents was concluded and found, “Border Patrol agents on the front lines say they need more technology and additional personnel to curb illegal traffic, according to a report release on Thursday by Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security Committee.”
The article continues, “The report was based on internal Customs and Border Protection documents from the 2017 fiscal year. It concluded that less than one half of 1 percent of the agents’ suggestions to secure the Southwest border mentioned the wall.”
What specifically do the agents want? Gizmodo, a design, technology, science and science fiction website that features articles on technology and politics, wrote in March 28, 2016, “Reuters has a new report citing unpublished documents and interviews within the Border Protection agency. What the American authorities on the ground want is roughly 23 more miles of real-world fencing. But mostly reinforcements to the “virtual wall” that they have been building since the 1970’s. That includes more sensors, drones, and cameras on the US-Mexico border.”
The article sums up the state of deterrence against illegal immigration and makes a blunt assessment of Trump’s call for a border long fence, “If Donald Trump were to listen to the people who are actually monitoring the border, he wouldn’t keep going on about his stupid wall.”
All progressives involved in this debate should be aware of something: reactionary conservatives like to quote articles and reports claiming that the border guard union officials and others endorse the idea of a cross country border wall. But if you actually ask the individual border guards what they really want, right now, the thing in hand, they themselves will tell you it is not a wall.
If you want to make good policy concerning the security of the southern border, wouldn’t it be a good idea to actually consult the very people trying to secure it? This is why progressives actually make laws and make those laws actually work. We know what people want or need because we bother to ask them.”
-Did Trump bother to ask the people on the southwestern border how they feel about the wall?
The wall that spans the entire southwest border must necessarily cut across open land, farm property, rivers, ranches, homes and slice right through entire cities. It can and will disrupt the movement of people and commerce between Mexico and the US. And it is unlikely to enhance trust and cooperation between the residents and the agents on either side of the border. This is important because any border guard will tell you that cooperation will local people is a key to effective enforcement.
Do these people whose livelihoods, safety and quality of life are connected to the border have an opinion on a cross border wall. They do: they don’t want it.
The extent to which these border folks do not want Trump’s wall is easy to discover (if you bother looking). Back in 2016, when Trump and the Republicans were making a campaign issue of this for political gain (as opposed to good national policy), The Texas Monthly ran an article on July 27,2017 entitled, “Not Many People on the Border Really Want Donald Trump’s Wall.” At the start of the article they state very clearly what they found, “Perhaps the two most important groups who oppose building a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico are those who have the closest relationship to it: border town residents and border patrol agents.”
Further in the story they highlight the results of an effort made to discover just how much people did not want the wall, “The Dallas Morning News, Cronkite News, and Univision News partnered together to conduct a series of surveys in fourteen cities along both sides of the U.S. and Mexico border. Of the 1,427 residents asked whether they believed the U.S. should build a wall along the border, 65 percent of the people on the U.S. side and 75 percent on the Mexico side voted ‘should definitely not’.” Among the residents of the fourteen border cities how many voted affirmatively to have the wall? It was only 14%.
The opposition of the border agents, whose union made a general endorsement of Trump, is illuminating for understanding why the demand for the wall should be seen as an example of racism and not reality. The Texas Monthly continues, “And the wall? The (border agents) union made no mention of it in their endorsement announcement, but Border Patrol agents along the Rio Grande Valley largely view it as a waste of time and money that wouldn’t actually solve any of the security problems.”
If we actually listened to the people who live and work on the border what would we find? The Texas Monthly concludes, “Rather than a wall, agents are calling for better infrastructure, improved technology, and the recruitment of more agents. With 51 percent of U.S Border city residents voting “no” and 44 percent “yes” as to whether more agents are needed, residents and Border agents may not necessarily see eye-to-eye on everything the border needs.” But at the very least, they both know a wall isn’t the solution Trump thinks it is.”
-Did Trump bother to think about the upkeep of the wall?
To have a wall is one thing, to maintain it so that it creates a reliable and continuous physical barrier is very different.
The southern border runs about 1,950 miles long, with about 650 miles of fence (not wall) already in existence. That would leave about 1,300 miles of open ground to cover. Much of this area is remote, harsh, taken up with private property and Indian reservation land. How much would it cost to build the wall across the rest of the open space on the border? Estimates run from 8 billion dollars up to 25 billion dollars or more.
But what would it cost to maintain the wall? Without insuring the integrity of a physical barrier it soon loses all value as a deterrence. In short, if you have a wall of steel slats and people punch enough holes in it then what you have is just so much metallic Swiss cheese.
And how hard would it be for a relatively small number of people to punch holes in the wall? Not hard at all. A limited number of people with dynamite and few more with cutting torches (for steel slats) and you have your Swiss cheese. And don’t forget, Mexico has a lot of good mining engineers - they would have no problem digging tunnels (or causing massive cave-in craters) at virtually any point under the wall. And, of course, there are lots of 35 foot ladders for 30 foot high walls. Truly, when it comes to any kind of wall the offense always has the advantage.
It is not hard to understand what this would mean for actual border enforcement. We could not allow a breach (or many breaches) at any point in the wall or it loses its effectiveness. Border agents would be constantly checking the wall for holes or tunnels and just as constantly having to repair or rebuild them. Human and other resources would be exhausted on repair and maintenance. There would be less and less left over for actually stopping all the rapist and murders that the Mexican government allegedly dispatches north.
Keep in mind that there are already about 650 miles of fencing at the southwestern border. This fencing, however, was built at strategically placed points, and is reinforced with border personnel. If you have areas known to be used by smugglers, or well established routes illegal immigrants have used for easy access, then it makes sense to have some kind of physical barrier to impede movement. The border agents already know where they want additional fencing (and the use of drones and sensors). Putting a wall in places where it does little good, is easily destroyed, or difficult to back up with real live border agents, is not good policy (although it is wonderful conservative talking points).
What would a progressive’s solution be? The details will be the subject of several in depth blog posts. However, the solution(s) would certainly recognize the historical need and value of immigration, a realistic appraisal of the cost and effectiveness of all kinds of immigration control, and a sensible policy towards the illegals who are already here. Stand by.
Even as the partial shutdown of the government reaches into its third week Donald Trump keeps demanding a ransom of five billion dollars to sign a budget. And of course the Democrats in congress remain adamant in their refusal to break the impasse by authorizing it.
The cross border wall is a stupid idea. It won’t protect any of the other borders, it does nothing to increase deterrence at commercial entry points, and will never be of any use in stopping people from entering legally and then overstaying their visas. Moreover, the cost to build the wall will be huge, the cost to maintain the wall will be huge and the whole expense will draw money, time and manpower away from other, more effective, means of deterrence.
All Democrats should continue to be strong, forthright, and outspoken in their denial of any more money for a cross country border wall along the southwestern border.
Although the focus of Democrats is now on the immediate effort to stop the funding it is important to build an on going and affirmative defense of immigration in general. This is vital because, in truth, the conservatives don’t want to just stop illegal immigration, they want to stop it all. As I have said before, the wall is not a solution to a problem, it is just a way to scratch the racist, xenophobic itch that infects too many conservatives.
Here are two important issues I wish the Democrats would stress right now in their fight against Trump’s wall.
-Make the case, right now, and forcefully, that we need more immigrants.
That’s right we need more immigrants, a lot more. And we need them right away! We should start working on this by tomorrow afternoon. If America wants to remain the dominate economic, political, industrial, and military power in the world then it needs more people.
In this world, all things being even roughly equal, the country that has the largest population is going to win the battle: the battle for innovation, the battle to lead the world, the battle to control the seas - nearly every battle worth fighting.
The United States is currently the greatest power in the world. Much more than, say, Canada or Australia. Why? We have smart people, lots of natural resources and stable and democratic institutions to govern us. But the Canadians and the Australians, too, have all of these things.
Why are we stronger than they? Mostly it’s because we have had so much more immigration over the last 200 years. This is mainly why we have a population of about 320 million people. Canada and Australia, both of which have had much less immigration over the same period of time, have only about 36 million and 25 million respectively. Their populations are tiny compared to that of the U.S.
Our biggest economic, and increasingly military and technological, rival is China. It has a population of about 1.415 billion people. That’s more than four times the size of the United States. That means that China potentially has four times the number of computer programmers, four times the number of infantry soldiers, four times the number of biochemists and four times the number of cyber hacker as we have. Like I said, size counts.
And it counts right now. Will Martin, of the Business Insider website, has some disturbing numbers concerning the rise of Asian economies in his article of January 10, 2019, “The US is Set to Lose its Crown as the World’s Most Powerful Economy, and is Unlikely to Ever Get it Back.”
Martin gives the bad news right up front, “The United States could lose its position as the world’s biggest economy as soon as next year, and once that happens, will likely never regain the the top spot as developing Asian economies power ahead.”
You want to mark the date for this to happen? Martin has a forecast, “According to research released this week by Standard Chartered Bank, China will most likely become the world’s biggest economy by some point in 2020, when measured by a combination of purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates and nominal GDP. Using PPP alone, China is already considered the world’s largest economy, but on a nominal basis, the US remains in the lead for the time being.”
How about another large country, like India? It has a population of about 1.32 billion people, almost exactly four times our population. And Yeah, them too. Martin continues, “Not only will China likely overtake the US in 2020, but by 2030 it will be joined by India, Standard Chartered said in its report, wthl annual GDP growth set to accelerate from around 6% to almost 8% in the coming decade.”
Wait, it gets worse. The projected shirt of the economic power away from the US extends beyond India. Here’s Chartered Banks’s expectation, “India’s rise will also reflect a growing trend of Asia becoming the dominant region of the planet economically as the size of its output starts to match the size of its population.
Note the last four words, “size of its population”.
Economic power grows with and is roughly equal to population. Bring in more people and let’s even up the odds while we are still ahead. That means more immigrants. Remember, in mature democracies populations do not really grow by high birth rates - they grow by importing people. So if we are going to grow then the people will have to come from somewhere else, because they ain’t gonna be local boys! (Need some quick easy to understand proof that immigration leads to economic power? In our country which two state have taken in the the most legal and illegal immigrants? California and Texas. Which two states have the biggest economies? California and Texas. Coincidence? I don’t think so.)
And let’s start talking about this now! I am sick and tired of listening to reactionary conservatives taking every opportunity on Fox Fake and Phony News broadcast to go on and on about how immigrants are stealing our jobs, raping our women and taking welfare payments. It is time to powerfully make the case that more immigration is good and necessary.
-Remind people that every time Trump opens his mouth about a cross border wall he is insulting and demeaning the Customs and Border Patrol.
This is a point that no progressive seems to be making in public. But everyone in the country needs to hear it and understand it. Trump has nothing but contempt for the hard work and sacrifice of human border agents.
Every time Trump talks about how we can’t control the border without a wall he is insulting every single border agent that has ever risked his or her life to protect the country! Every time he tells us that only with a wall can stop illegals, or drugs or human trafficking he is saying, “You border agents are so incompetent that a long pile of concrete could do a better job than you!”
Republicans like to criticize Democrats and progressives for disdaining law enforcement. But we don’t. In fact, we actually listen to them. This is how we know that border agents themselves feel that a physical barrier across the entire southwestern border would be a costly and ridiculous mistake. It is how we understand that it is just plain demeaning to their effort and work. But Donald Trump doesn’t - for that he would have to put aside his indifference and disdain of these agents and actually listen to what they say.
Two final notes:
-There is now little point in Democrats negotiating with Donald Trump about the border wall funding.
A bedrock principle of negotiation is that you always bargain with the decision maker: Anyone who enters a negotiation must either be the decision maker or be given that power by the person who is. It is pointless to negotiate with anyone else.
Should any Democrat attempt to bargain with Donald Trump? Not unless he can show us he actually makes the decisions. He has to prove this because he clearly is not the real decision maker on the wall - or maybe anything else.
Earlier this year the house Democrats actually had an agreement with the Republicans: the house would give Trump about 1.3 million dollars on an omnibus spending package for “border security” funding. The Senate had agreed to it and Trump himself was prepared to accept that amount, sign the bill, and go forth with the overall budget. In short, this proposal was acceptable to everybody and would have prevented the shutdown.
Then the real decision makers spoke. Ann Coulter, a Fox news contributor, blasted the president for his willingness to accept the deal and said that his would become, “a joke presidency that scammed the American people” and then added, “he’ll have no legacy at all.”
Worse yet, Rush Limbaugh, the radio god of reactionary Republicans, thundered that Trump was, “getting ready to cave” and that, “Trump gets nothing and the Democrats get everything, including control of the house.”
Various other decision makers, mostly from Fox Fake and Phony News, put Donald Trump in his place. These included such renowned and respected national leaders as Steve Doocy and Laura Ingraham.
Trump did cave - to the real decision makers. He turned his back on the deal he was prepared to sign and walked away.
This is no way to run a government. He is clearly cowed by the girls and boys of Fox News, and most certainly by Rush Limbaugh. On immigration, and probably most other national issues, it now seems pointless to negotiate with Trump. You never know who really has veto power.
-There should be no reason why funding should even be an issue.
In defending Donald Trump many of his supporters, and particularly the people on Fox Fake and Phony News, love to promote him by talking of “promises made, promises kept.” Appointing conservatives to the bench, passing a tax cut and owning the libs are all offered as proof of a man who does what he says he will do.
Ok, good.
Trump said that Mexico would pay for the wall. He promised it over and over again. It is a large part of why he was elected.
So there is no need at all for us to pay anything at all. Right?
And, Progressives, please remind everyone again and again and again that Donald Trump publicly assured us that he would be proud to take responsibility for the shutdown.