How much has border security been historically rooted in racism? (John Love; read my note at the end before you run screaming back into your cave!)
Reece Jones: If you look at the history of immigration laws in the United States, it’s a history of racial exclusion. The U.S. didn’t have any national immigration laws at all until 1875 [the Page Act], then the first big immigration law is 1882, which is the Chinese Exclusion Act, and the entire purpose of that act was to prevent non-white people from being able to migrate to the United States. The first comprehensive national rules for immigration is the 1924 National Origins Act, which was justified at the time very much on racial terms about continuing to allow white northern, western Europeans to migrate to the U.S. while it completely bans Asian immigration and dramatically limits southern and eastern European migration. The border patrol was established two days after those National Origins quotas were put in place. The entire idea of patrolling the border and having restrictions on immigration in the United States is founded on racial exclusion.
Note by John Love; Trump has actually promoted the idea stated in the last sentence above, on camera. Basically saying that Northern Europeans are the kind of immigrants we need, and at another historic moment called certain nations “junk countries” we need to exclude from our shores.
Elisabeth Vallet: I think the government that began building the India-Bangladesh border said something like, “You know, a border fence is the best way of doing nothing while showing that you are doing something.” The wall is really addressing internal politics. It’s symbolic, political, electoral and populous, but it’s not what it says it is.
It’s interesting, in terms of public policy, that we’re using border policy to address an issue that lies, like, 500 kilometers away, south of the border. The real problem in that instance is in Central America. The public policy applied here — border policy — is not the right one. It should be a foreign policy. So the remedy is like if you were giving aspirin to a cancer patient. The patient thinks you’re curing him, but you’re not really curing the root problem.
Joseph Nevins: The wall will not last forever. That’s the one thing that we can be sure of. Walls always fall. When, how, and under what conditions? Those are totally different questions, but social orders built on violence and injustice, which are inherently unstable. They can last a long time, in terms of a human lifespan, but history is littered with examples of unjust societies that dissolve very quickly. This will too unless we can rectify it in the meantime. And that’s the challenge that we have.
With the Israel-Palestine border, there are differences and there are also real similarities. The underlying issues in Israel and Palestine are as palpable as ever. What the wall does, it allows people in Israel, especially, not to have to think about them. At the same time, it builds up pressure on the other side, that when it explodes, it explodes with unprecedented strength. In the case of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, a similar type of dynamic is unfolding. This is why we see the caravans and things of these sorts. The problems on the other side of the border, whether they’re in Honduras, Guatemala or Mexico are treated as if they belong there, as if they were created there, and as if they have nothing to do with us. These people are fleeing issues the U.S. has helped produce, and fleeing to the place that helped produce them. The wall helps us and prevents us from seeing that. At the same time, at least temporarily, the goal is to prevent the chickens coming home to roost.
So my take here, (John Love) and one I hope you are starting to glean despite being lied to, is that the wall approach is not the “fix all” Trump wants you to believe that it is. You can look at all kinds of facts about how most immigrants get here, how most drugs get here, how terrorists get here. It is not prevented by a wall, and never has been! I do think barriers are necessary for many reasons though! Immigrants need to come here in an orderly legal fashion. But spending billions on steel or cement is not the answer. Tone that down some and spend the money on electronic surveillance. Hell, for the price of the wall as Trump wants it, we could have satellite surveillance that can read a newspaper over your shoulder and readily pin-point activity such as a person or persons tramping toward an unauthorized entrance into our country or the digging of a tunnel and immediately alert border personnel to the location!
Excerps from an article I found in Rolling Stone Magazine>
(Do not roll your eyes; I have fact-checked this periodical many times!)
The Love Chronicles 