The Border

I don’t usually go too political with my blog but I feel these times call for unusual measures.

We just crossed a line as a county.  I may not know much about the workings of American government or international relations.  I do, however know about the things I’ve seen with my own two eyes and I trust what my friends tell me of their own experiences.

Many people are filled with fear and hate because they have nothing to counter it within them.  If you are afraid of something, learn about it.  My fiancé, Erin and I spent two months last year travelling through northern Mexico from the Sea of Cortez to the Gulf of Mexico.  We visited desert cities and tiny villages in tropical forests.  We walked along beaches and tried our best to communicate with locals in our bad Spanish.  We spent a lot of time learning about Mexico.  Besides the time we’ve actually spent in Mexico, we’ve also lived for about 8 months all together in Tucson, Arizona.  We’ve driven through Texas and New Mexico in the last year.  I can say with-out the smallest shred of doubt in my mind – there is no emergency on our southern border.

I’ve talked with friends who’ve travelled into Mexico before and after me.  I know a man who donated a dinosaur skeleton to a museum in Coahuila.  I know another guy who travelled with Yaqui tribe members from Arizona to visit other Yaqui people scattered across villages in northern Mexico.  Both men agree they’ve always felt safe travelling in Mexico.  I’ve had conversations with a person who has gone to Mexico for years to explore caves and someone who backpacked the Yucatan peninsula.  There is no wave of violent criminals and drugs rising toward our southern border threatening our lives and security.

An article on Forbes took the claims of a national emergency Trump made to task.  Looking at official government statistics, the national emergency seems underwhelming.  Last year was recorded as the lowest level of illegal border crossing in history.  This year shows only an 11% increase from this time last year in border crossings.  There’s been a drop in border crossing apprehension of 80% from 2000 to 2017.

What is the threat?  The people who are arriving now are desperate, they face the threat of being separated from their children and possibly never reunited like immigrant children that died in US custody.  The threat is one only to xenophobic racists who are afraid of people unlike them in race, language or culture coming into their nation.

The reason that Central America is such a violent, dangerous place for families is because of US intervention that left the region broken. We continue to show we’ve learned nothing from these mistakes with our posturing and threats to Venezuela.

It may not matter too much to you if people from another nation suffer from mistakes of our national leaders.  I would ask you though, are you willing to suffer such extreme distortions of reality as we’re served daily?  The time for tolerance of ignorance and lies is past.  Our nation is quickly turning towards a totalitarian leadership with no respect for different opinions or even hindered by the restraint of reality.