Republican President Donald Trump is in a battle with Democrats about constructing a physical barrier along the nearly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border to prevent illegal immigration. After two years of the Republicans having a majority in both branches of Congress during Trump’s presidency, the Democrats now have a distinct majority in the House of Representatives by virtue of winning the mid-term elections last November. This further empowers Democrats to oppose Trump’s proposal to build such a barrier. Thus, our government is now locked in a stalemate over this issue, since Trump has refused to sign a federal budget Congress presented to him two weeks ago.
President Trump is asking Congress to provide $5.6 billion for early construction of the barrier. But new House speaker Nanci Pelosi, an articulate, savvy, tough, veteran politician says there will be no wall. Yet Trump won the presidency, and the main plank in his platform was building a wall or barrier. Americans are not opposed to this. Of course, Trump was nuts to say “Mexico will pay for the wall.” But that didn’t make the wall a bad idea.
Lately, Democrats have been chastising President Trump for changing about building a “wall” to building a “fence.” (He has made this change in language because his advisors say a steel-slats fence would be better. I like the idea.) I think that argument by Democrats and other critics is stupid! Trump’s point was always to build a physical barrier that will prevent illegal immigration. It was just easier to think of a wall.
Pelosi and many other of her colleagues claim a physical barrier is a “medieval solution” and therefore an antiquated one. Baloney! In the past twenty years, thus throughout the new millennium, nations have been building border walls and fences all over the world. Check it out by googling it. I know about this because I’m writing a book that has two chapters about it. And I’m predicting this trend will continue because it’s in the Bible. This book I’m writing is about Bible prophecy.
Frankly, Trump is not a detail or data person. Thus, he is not that good on selling or marketing his barrier proposal. At least he cites Israel. Its West Bank Security Barrier is nearly finished. It surrounds the West Bank except the Jordan River. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rightly says it is 99+% effective. Of course, it’s easier to build a barrier there than along the more difficult U.S.-Mexico border terrain.
Some critics of thus physical barrier concept along the U.S.-Mexico border claim that a “smart” barrier would be much more effective. It would consist of electronic equipment such as sensors, etc. Heh, the U.S. already tried that during the George W. Bush administration. It spent over $1 billion with Boeing to construct such a barrier. They had all kinds of trouble with it. They finally gave it up, conceding that it didn’t work.
Critics claim that people can tunnel under a physical barrier. It’s very difficult to build tunnels that are more than 6-10 feet underground that extend for hundreds of yards. A barrier can be extended underground easily to ten feet. Plus, sensors can be used to trace noise that is necessarily produced by building tunnels.
Anyone who reads my blog knows that I have opposed Donald Trump being president ever since soon after he began campaigning for the presidency. I’ve written perhaps 150 posts about my assertion that he is non-presidential and unqualified to be president. However, I have admitted that he might be able to help the U.S. economically. And I have always supported his proposal for a wall/barrier. After all, he did build buildings.
For almost the past sixty years, I’ve been a resident of two of the four states bordering Mexico: Texas and Arizona. I’ve been for a physical border in helping to solve our illegal immigration problem for a long time now. I was for J. D. Hayworth about this. He represented Scottsdale and Phoenix in the Arizona’s fifth congressional district for a decade. He lost reelection due to his strong stand on the necessity of building a physical barrier on the U.S.-Mexico border. It’s all in his book, Whatever It Takes: Illegal Immigration, Border Security, and the War on Terrorism (Regnery, 2006).
I think Trump is wrong about a lot of things having to do with being president of the USA, mostly on how he treats people and his foreign policy. But on this issue, I think he is right. If it happens, it will be his legacy, and many people will call it Trump’s Wall.
For more of my posts about walls, see “Trump’s Wall Will Be a Miniature Compared to the Size of Babylon’s Wall,” and “The Pope and the Walled Vatican.”
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In