The notion of a wall stretching from Brownsville to San Diego is the most idiotic, obscene, arrogant and undiplomatic gesture in human history.
The walls currently in place are mostly in locations of high population density where one would expect an abundance of opportunities for illegal crossings. It was demonstrated recently in a briefing to the [so-called] President and to his embarrassment that the same tunnels used by drug smugglers for decades can be built under these walls.
If you look at the map, there is a National Park (Big Bend), a National Monument (Organ Pipe), a wildlife refuge (Cabeza Prieta) on the border between Texas and Yuma. There is also an indian reservation (the Tohono O'odham nation or tribe) which straddles the border. Reservations have rights negotiated with the government that make them almost autonomous states under their relationship with department of Interior, and in this particular case, we're talking about an indian tribe with citizens who are either American, Mexican or both, able to cross the international boundary freely.
If you think it's OK for the government to put up a barrier at Terlingua Abaja and Santa Elena Canyon in Big Bend, I'm sure that the eco-terrorist group Earth First! will consider dynamiting it, and I will cheer them on. Same for Organ Pipe; same for Cabeza Prieta.
The wall that Trump envisions is a 2,000 mile scar across the land that isn't necessary. It would be a hubristic testament to Trump's "greatness" as a builder. It would be an affront to all the Latin peoples of the Americas, and an ecological disaster. The reason Trump and the Base accept it as a good idea is their sociopathic sense of racism, coupled with a lack of appreciation for the Sonoran Desert as a natural wonder. They want to impose this monstrosity on an entire region -- our Southwest -- with its cultural, historical and natural heritage. The wall will do irreparable damage.
As reported constantly by our own government agencies, the drug traffic comes mostly through ports of entry; illegal entry from possible terror suspects occurs at airports; a good deal of illegal entries arise from expired visas.
You can place sensors all along the border -- a technology developed through our decades of war in the middle east and Afghanistan. Border Patrol helicopters respond quickly to any sign of human movement across the border. Indeed, one such helicopter descended on my hiking party in 2003 simply because one of our camp stoves was belching smoke. These simple facts in our midst and the longstanding existence of the technologies only prove that Trump wants the wall as a monument to his name and a sop to his Base for his ludicrous campaign promise, in which "Mexico would pay for the wall." Now, Trump desperately suggests some ephemeral sleight of hand -- his outrageous imagination -- that somehow the renegotiated trade agreement with Mexico will somehow "pay" for the wall. But since Mexico also has an interest or regard for the land along the border, let them write a check. We know, of course, that they won't.
Then, of course, there is the matter of eminent domain and the privately-owned lands along the border. None or few if any of those citizens want a wall in their back yard.
There will be no wall, or if there is -- I predict consequences. There will only be the self-destruction of a dangerous and toxic presidency -- if the republic even survives it.
For that, I will be more eager in my Christmas wish for 2019: a grand re-make of the Zapruder film -- if Trump has any success at all in obtaining his wall. And I will hope that Earth First! will plant the charges and push the button.
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