Global Winds Strain the Great American Border Wall
When a Wall is not a Wall
The major political topic of concern in this presidential election year is the control of migration by closing the border. A recent bipartisan immigration reform bill failed in Congress due to opposition from former President Donald Trump. It was not in his interests nor those of his party to resolve a major issue before the November elections. Essentially, passage of the bill would have been a win for Biden. Stopping or controlling the crush of thousands and thousands of migrants at the border has become a national concern.
Closing the border is the most popular solution on the right. It is becoming popular with centrist voters. However, there are many reasons why it cannot and should not be done.
Closing the border would be an economic disaster, since Mexico is the United States’ second largest trading partner. Many US companies have extensive manufacturing and financial operations in Mexico. Increasingly, the US depends on Mexican farm products, and produce along with manufactured goods including appliances and American cars. The Mexican government has been destabilized by drug cartels which control about 15% of the country. The Mexican economy is strong right now. Any attacks on it would only create more of a political vacuum which would give the cartels more strength. Large segments of the US economy depend on workers from Mexico and Central America. Agriculture, food processing, hotels, restaurant, and maintenance services all require foreign workers. A declining US population and the reluctance of even first- and second-generation Americans to do this important work creates a demand. Efforts to fine US businesses for employing undocumented immigrants have not worked. Forcing this labor underground has created a market for child labor in dangerous occupations.
The Great American Border Wall delineates a global cultural and political interface. Boundaries are always porous. Trying to stop global migration flows is like using paper towels to create a reservoir. The current response by most Americans is to close the border, as if such a thing were possible. Encounters (apprehensions or expulsions) with the Border Patrol has reached highs of over 200,000 per month on ten occasions, according to the Pew Charitable Trust December 2023 had a high of 250,000 encounters while January 2024 saw a low of 124,000. The major sources of migration are Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. But this is shifting, with more migrants from Venezuela which jumped from 6,000 monthly encounters in December of 2022 to 47,000 encounters per month in December 2023.
Many of the Venezuelans crossed the Darien Gap – an undeveloped and dangerous corridor in the jungle between Panama and Colombia. According to the New Humanitarian, 250,000 Venezuelans made the trek. The rate has been doubling over the last several years and larger numbers of migrants are expected in 2024. Political instability, gang violence, and drug cartels are major drivers forcing people to leave their homes and families.
A Colombian couple approached me at the parish looking for a lawyer for their asylum case. The man had a brother who was an addict and had defaulted on his obligations to the gang who were his retail suppliers. They left his tortured body at the entrance to the family home. Since drug gangs also kill the remaining family members, they had to leave within hours. They sent their children away to relatives and set out across the Darien Gap. They left behind a successful restaurant and nice home. It took them a year to make it to the US border. His wife was pregnant, and they flew from San Diego to San Jose. They made it to Santa Cruz and were living in a car with their newborn, which entitled them to housing, fortunately. They want to go back and be with their children, but the rest of their immediate relatives have also fled to other parts of the country. Ideally, they would like to go back to the life they had but it is gone forever.
Grinding poverty, gang violence, and a weakened civil society has left many people in Mexico and Central America with few choices. Nevertheless, there is also the allure of jobs, security, and a future in the United States. The US-Mexico border represents a line of demarcation between the Third World and the First. The economic and political differential is obvious within 300 feet of each side of the border.
A family of asylum seekers from Central America had problems affording housing, getting jobs, and finding enough food, but their overall reaction was one of relief. They felt safe for the first time in their lives. This combination of forced and opportunity-seeking migration has created a smuggling industry. Another migrant from Central America signed on with a smuggling service that had gotten good reviews. (Yes, there are two, three, and four-star ratings. Those who don’t survive cannot give one-star ratings, tragically.)
I spoke with a young man who is married and has two small daughters. There was no real opportunity to give them a good life and heading to the US – El Norte – seemed to be a good option. It was not without its dangers, but others had made it safely using this unusual version of a travel agency. The journey was not exactly first class. It took over 6 months and cost $8,000. He was crowded into various truck trailers with no room to sit down. Many times, the only air was from the overhead vents. They were given one sandwich a day and a bottle of water. They ran from safe house to safe house and were almost caught a couple of times in Mexico. They slept on warehouse floors or on the ground beside the road. He was deeply shaken when he arrived and had lost 35 pounds. A year later he had regained his weight and “something to spare.” He was sending money home. His parents could buy medicine. His daughters had money for uniforms so that they could go to school and eat three times a day.
Another man I met was a skilled tradesman, but his wife needed expensive medical care. The political and economic situation was too unstable for him to make a reasonable living. He paid more for a better rated travel package and arrived by air at the border. He got taken across the border and left outside San Diego. He had no network of contacts and struggled to find food and shelter. He wanted to go home. His wife’s condition had deteriorated, and he and his children missed each other terribly. Another migrant came to his aid and asked me if I could help him get the money for a return plane ticket which was going to cost about $750.00. I was in the process of getting the money together when he started finding work. He told me that he could not return right away since he couldn’t go home without repaying the friends and family who had raised the $10,000 to pay for his passage. He got connected with another skilled tradesman in construction and started to make money. He now has the money to return but his family’s standard of living has risen. The money has been repaid and he does not plan to return.
Border walls have a checkered history throughout the ages. Of course, there is the Great Wall of China, which is the only human made structure visible from outer space. Smaller but equally ambitious walls include Hadrian’s Wall in what is now northern England to keep out the Picts. Built starting in 122 over a period of years, it was the largest wall in the Roman Empire and was visible for miles. For the most part, though, the Romans, like other empires used chains of fortified installations. A good example are the lines of forts of the United States’ frontier as it moved westward from the colonial period to its manifest destiny across the continent. There was the Berlin Wall, which was the latest version of a walled city. Most recently, Israel has built a West Bank “Wall” between the cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Instead of cement or metal this barrier is mainly chain-link fencing. The wall surrounding Gaza has created the world’s largest concentration camp of 2 million people, who are now on the verge of starvation. President Biden has just announced the creation of a temporary port on Gaza’s Mediterranean coast while Israeli armed forces severely constrict any aid coming into the enclave.
The border wall on the southern boundary of the United States is difficult to name. It is a combination of actual walls, fencing, and outposts with high tech surveillance equipment. It was begun during the administrations of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman to control immigration from Mexico after World War II. It has grown ever since, under Democratic and Republican administrations. Presidents Reagan, Obama, and George W. Bush were among the greatest builders.
Walls are not a complete solution to the issues of global migration. Ultimately, the border fortifications of the Roman Empire were overcome by various peoples who were pushed by groups emerging from central Asia. The Rhine River was a suitable barrier until it froze over in a quirk of climate change. Even though the Mediterranean has been a barrier to migration, it has also been a relatively easy “wall” to cross. Tragically, the spread of deserts and turmoil in Sub-Saharan Africa, along with the need for labor in Europe, has forced people to make the journey on overcrowded makeshift rafts and boats with fatal consequences. Spain has fences in its toehold possessions across the Strait of Gibraltar in Africa. Once migrants can put their feet on Spanish soil a whole new set of strict but more benign European Union regulations comes into play.
Borders as shown on a map can give a false sense of permanence and delineation. The actual process of human movement throughout history is not only dynamic but constant. We often forget that the spread of humanity around the world is the result of various migratory waves over centuries. Several groups went to Eurasia, southern Asia, and the Americas. Others headed west. Whether it was on a small tribal level, or a much larger sweep of huge populations, conflict and cooperation led to dominance and innovation as humans spread across the globe and our Neanderthal cousins disappeared.
The border with Mexico represents a futile delineation between the culture and peoples of northern Europe with the culture and peoples of southern Europe, Africa, and indigenous people that comprise the Spanish and Portuguese speaking civilizations of the Americas. It is more than a difference of language. It is a different way of thinking, acting, and being. Despite its multi-national character, or perhaps, because of it, the United States has an overarching identity that supersedes ethnicity. It has an English speaking and northern European core, which has assimilated other ethnic groups on a grudging basis, except for those of African, indigenous, or Asian descent until recently. The United States holds on to its ideals of equality and governance by the people in a Democratic Republic. The Constitution of 1789 is itself the framework of this identity, it began as a process to negotiate the competing interests of white men with property and the states they controlled. Over time, courts established by the Constitution have expanded and restricted the assimilation and rejection of various non-northern European groups such as Italians and Eastern European Jews. Asian immigration was completely forbidden except for workers needed to build the western portions of the railroad. The subjugation of enslaved Africans and conquered indigenous people have only begun to relent.
One of the greatest losses of the crisis at the border is not looking for ways in which we can use it to our advantage. There is an opportunity to select the people we need not only for our workforce but the younger rising population that the country needs. Many in the Republican business community have made this argument. However, in an age of identity politics, the struggle to control migration is about something more important to Americans.
One of the great fears is that these waves of migration are sources of crime and violence, which they are not. However, they are changing American culture in ways that are threatening our current notion of northern European American identity. Controlling the border is a misplaced effort to prevent or control the social and cultural upheaval of American society.
Controlling the border with a wall, as if it were a solid stable line, will not work since the winds of global forces have shown that the border is a destination for freedom and a sign of hope for millions. Large waves are about to top a large sea wall. We stand at the shore bidding the waves to stop.