Part of the U.S.-Canadian border is marked by potted flowers. You can view a photo in the New York Times article “Where U.S.-Canadian Border Is Marked by Petunias, Not a Wall” (June, 18, 2018)
This is from Wikipedia: The Canada–United States border is officially known as the International Boundary is the longest international border in the world between two countries. It is shared between Canada and the United States, the second and fourth-largest countries by area, respectively. The terrestrial boundary (including portions of maritime boundaries in the Great Lakes, and on the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic coasts) is 8,891 kilometers (5,525 mi) long, of which 2,475 kilometers (1,538 mi) is Canada’s border with Alaska.
Here’s a typical sign on the Canadian border:
Does the United State really need any kind of barrier between Mexico and the United States?
I don’t think so for all the reasons Democrats have elaborated upon. An article in today’s New York Times, “Border Wall Is Out of Sync With the Southwest.s Canging Politics,” tells us that there is a toll being taken on the Republican Party for Trump’s insistence on hundreds of miles of new border barriers. “Nowhere is that clearer than in the Southwest, where growing diversity and Mr. Trump’s demeaning rhetoric about Latino migrants are pulling parts of the region from the once-firm grip of Republicans……… Each of the nine House members whose districts touch the border from California to Texas opposes a wall as the wrong solution for border security.”
What, then is the alternative to a physical barrier?
Consider what the billions Trump wants for his vanity project could pay for if the wall was off the table, or literally, off the desert. From humanitarian aid to making the process of applying for asylum easier and common sense law enforcement efforts to thwart drug trafficking $5 billion would do a lot of good.
Trump says the words “open borders” as if those who want them, all Democrats of course, want to open a hellgate. As of June 27, 2018, according to the NY Times “President Trump (had) falsely claimed at least two dozen times since taking office that Democrats want to open American borders. But legislation shows that Democrats support border security measures, though not the border wall he wants to build.”
These tweets from the summer were typical:
Fast forward from the summer to a few days ago. This is from the Jan. 16, 2019 Washington Post: “Trump blasts Democrats, points to border wall construction elsewhere in the world.”
President Trump lashed out Wednesday at Democrats as “a Party of open borders and crime” and pointed to a surge in construction of border walls by other countries as a standoff continued over his demand for funding a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The president’s latest arguments, in his Thursday morning tweets, came on the 26th day of a partial government shutdown amid no signs that the White House and Congress are making progress toward resolving the underlying dispute.
“It is becoming more and more obvious that the Radical Democrats are a Party of open borders and crime,” Trump said in one tweet. “They want nothing to do with the major Humanitarian Crisis on our Southern Border.”
Here are his most recent tweets with his newest tag line in his caps: “BUILD THE WALL AND CRIME WILL FALL!”
It’s time for the Democrats explain the benefits of open borders and not run from Trump’s attempt to make it sound like the United States needs a wall to keep out marauding hoards of bloodthirsty bandidos.
Simple signs every few hundred feet apart delineating the border and instructing people wanting to cross to head to the nearest entry point is all that would be needed. Both immigrants and the pronghorn and lechuguilla of the Chihuahuan Desert would appreciate it.
UPDATE 3 PM EST: Trump reopened the government for three week in a speech that offered more fear-mongering about immigrants. He talked about hundreds of thousands of criminals being apprehended and released (but not, he said, into the districts of Democratic members of Congress). We need a fact check on this. He described in gruesome detail how women were brought across the border in the backs of vans in the human trafficking trade with their mouths duct taped shut so at times they couldn’t breath.
He said we should admit immigrants with useful skills, not of course mentioning our asylum policy to admit those fleeing violence.
He omitted mentioning that if immigrants had to prove they had a useful skill during the major wave of immigrant his mother, who listed her occupation as domestic or maid might never had come here. His father was born in the Bronx, but grandfather came at 16 and ran restaurants in Seattle. Would grandpa have made the cut if Trump’s immigration rules were in force? (Wikipedia)
Trump’s only reason for building the wall is to keep people he considers undesirable out of the country, and of course to fulfill a campaign promise he can’t let go of by admitting the wall was never necessary. He knows that the vast majorty are not dangerous.
Instead of “build the wall” he should be saying “post the signs!”
UPDATE: 9:00 PM JAN. 25, 2019
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