In all the hype over the last few years about an illegal immigration crisis, few people have stopped to ask what the fuss is all about. The truth is that nothing has really changed in the issue of illegal immigration over the last three or four years except that right wing politicians have started making a big deal over it. Nothing significant has happened that indicates that the border between the United States and Mexico is cause for more or less concern than it was back in 2002 or 2003.
Right wingers started the latest anti-immigrant stampede with the claim that there was a surge of violent crimes by illegal immigrants, but as Jim has shown, that claim was a hoax.
Politicians may have discovered that they can exploit Americans’ emotional reactions to the idea of border violations, but that doesn’t mean that there’s a real border crisis. We don’t need to go along with politicians’ attempts to create the appearance of an illegal immigration crisis when there is none.
We would also do well to remember the history of the border between Mexico and the United States. When people talk about the need for Homeland Security to put huge fences along the border in order to protect American heritage, they’re forgetting that the land on the American side of the border has heritage in Mexico. If we’re going to start talking about homelands, as if the people of the United States of America have some kind of ethnic roots in cities like Dallas and Chicago, then we ought to remember that California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas are Mexican homelands that the United States took possession of.
Personally, I think that the idea of national homelands is a poorly-conceived attempt to get people to start thinking about their citizenship in terms of nationalist ideals of property and security instead of in democratic terms of liberty and equality under the law. The attempt to put a wall up on the border with Mexico is a reflection of the shrinking of the American vision to a literalist obsession with protecting turf.
So, take a look at the turf we’re protecting. The photograph you see here is an arial shot of part of the border between Mexico and the United States. I challenge our readers. Show me where the border is. Show me where the Mexican homeland ends and the Homeland States of America begin.
Building a wall is a great idea. The people who come over it will be in better shape; the people who can’t come over it will just find other ways in. And think of the joy we’ll feel when we get to tear that wall down (c.f. Berlin) or the pride we’ll feel later, after the distinction between the nations matters less, and we have this great tourist attraction (c.f. China). Think of all the poor folks on both sides who will now have a wall to shelter against, or use as one side of a home. And it’s a great modern CCC project; think of all the rebuilding we’ll get to do after every major earthquake.
Quit being so now-centric and embrace the long view, jclifford. Good fences make good neighbors for all sorts of reasons — mostly they’re investments. And America needs some good investments right now.