Don’t build that wall!

Frank Vyan Walton of Daily Kos examines what nasty guy has been saying to support his claims for a wall at the southern border. He goes into detail. I’ll summarize.

The border wall at El Paso has been a success! At the moment what is at El Paso is fence. Yes, immigrant crossings are down there. But immigrant crossings are down along the entire length of the border, including places that don’t have a fence. And a bit of specifics: Immigrant crossing of people from Mexico are down. Crossings of people from Central America are up – including at El Paso.

Crime in El Paso has plummeted since the “wall” was built! That’s really important since the town on the other side of the border is so violent. But violent crime all across America is down even more than in El Paso.

Immigrants are criminals! Look at the high percentage of immigrants in federal prison! But half of them are there for repeated immigration violations, not drug smuggling, murder, or even drunk driving (which are state crimes). In addition, studies have shown immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native born Americans.

Immigrants bring diseases! That claim is an old one going back to the early 20th century, first applied to the Chinese. It’s a racist presumption that Americans are healthier. Mexico has a national health care system for its citizens and its quality is almost as good as the broken American system.

Immigrants bring drugs! Yeah, they do. But not across the southern border. The come through Florida by sea and air.

The nasty guy is saying asylum seekers have to come through the “right way.” But he’s the one not following federal law.

There has been recent news that the nasty guy’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey has been hiring undocumented workers and threatening them. Walton wrote:

This is what they want: certainly not fellow citizens, but pliant and subservient serfs, ready and willing to be used as they see fit for their convenience and profit. They don’t see them as potential citizens, and they don’t even see them as human beings.
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He … wants to focus on importing useful, disposable workers and employees that you can then treat like virtual slaves and chattel until they displease, annoy, or dare to defy the company line. At that point they can have their company-dependent H2-B visa cancelled, or simply be deported for being undocumented—and then another chattel wage slave can be brought in to replace them.
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The “they bring crime” excuse is bunk. The terrorism excuse is bunk. The disease argument is bunk. The “they bring drugs” justification is bunk, the “merit” argument is bunk, and the “they should come in the right way” line is a crock. There is no “right way” to immigrate to the U.S. for a work visa legally without a pre-arranged corporate sponsor; you can’t do it on your own. If you have family or can afford to come for school or a vacation, then maybe, but if you’re poor or working-class and don’t have any connections, you’re screwed. It’s all bullshit. All of it.
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They only care about how they can make use of these people for their own enrichment, and if they have no way to make use of them, then they are considered worthless. Claiming that they are diseased, criminal, or are terrorist drug dealers that are dumb as dogs is just an after-the-fact rationalization based on moral cowardice, greed, and avarice.

Another line of attack is against Democrats and Liberals, who are supposedly doing all this because immigrants tend to dilute the power of the white vote and tend to vote Democratic. But it isn’t Democrats who have been grabbing power in the lame duck sessions in Michigan and Wisconsin, passing voter suppression laws, purging minority voters, and harvesting ballots in North Carolina. Democrats violate the rule of law?

Democrats don’t support comprehensive immigration reform (including reasonable border security) just to gain some kind of electoral advantage. We support it because it’s just, it’s right, it’s moral, it's kind, and it’s humane for everyone involved. Not just for us, for everyone.