A puzzling aspect of the debate over the border wall is this: Mr. Trump has often articulated why we need a barrier between the U.S. and Mexico. He and others who share his conviction that a wall should be erected have claimed that we need to control who comes into the country to minimize the risk that criminals, terrorists and other unsavories will gain easy access.
They've insisted that we can't afford to allow masses of poor people to overwhelm our social welfare network nor our institutions and resources. Nor can we allow our culture to be extinguished by waves of illegal immigrants whose presence in the country would profoundly alter the nation as it has existed for 250 years.
You may disagree with these reasons, but the point is they're out there to be argued about.
The Left in general and Democrats in particular, however, never seem to
argue that the reasons are false. They simply deny them and act as if their denials are sufficient to refute them. Nor do they themselves offer with much conviction reasons why they oppose a wall.
More precisely, whatever reasons they give seem so silly, even to their advocates, that they're usually advanced only half-heartedly.
Here are a few examples you may have heard:
- $5 billion is too expensive.
- A wall won't work.
- A wall would be too easy to circumvent.
- A wall does not represent "who we are."
Maybe there are some others, but these are some of the most frequently stated reasons for refusing to grant the president the money needed to begin construction of a wall along our southern border.
Let's briefly consider each:
1. This objection is raised by Democrats who think nothing of wasting enormous sums on projects that accomplish nothing, but that aside: There have been
tens of thousands of Americans killed, either by deliberate murder or by motor vehicle accidents caused by illegal aliens. Tell the families of those victims that the lives of their loved ones were not worth a relatively tiny fraction of our federal budget.
2. This is an odd objection for two reasons: First, it's obvious that the wall built by the Hungarians has worked to keep refugees from flooding Hungary, and the wall built by the Israelis has worked to keep Palestinians from crossing illegally into Israel. Terrorism in Israel has dropped sharply since their wall was built.
Second, saying that walls don't work is like saying that locks on doors don't work. Of course, people who are determined to get into the country might find a way to defeat the wall, just as people who are determined to get into your house will find a way to do it, but that's not an argument against putting locks on your doors.
The real reason progressives oppose the wall is that they fear it
will work, not that they think it won't.
3. This objection is similar to the last. Drug smugglers will tunnel under a wall, we're told. Others will ladder over it. Ironically, many of the people who think this argument makes sense have placed walls and fences around their homes, including
former president Obama.
Again, no wall will stop every single illegal entry, but the more difficult it is to gain entry the fewer people there are who will try it, and the more resources that can be devoted to stopping those who do try.
4. It's hard to say exactly what this objection actually means, but regardless, anyone who says that we should be the kind of people who allow anyone in who wants to come in should be asked if they have adopted the same policy for their home. When they leave their house or car do they lock the doors? If so, why? Isn't that being selfish, depriving others who may be in need of the accumulated resources safeguarded behind those locked doors? If they have a dinner party in their home do they allow anyone to come who wants to join in? If not, why not?
The left won't often come out and say it, but what they really want is a borderless world.
This would, of course, be a calamitous absurdity. Imagine that the U.S. had no border and a foreign government decided to move an armed force into our country and occupy, say, California. What grounds would we have for telling them they can't do this? What would it even mean to declare such a move an act of war?
If we had no border there'd be nothing illegal with what that foreign government would be doing. Anyone could go anywhere and live anywhere they wish.
Even if we thought there
was something wrong with such an occupation, we could only repel the invasion with an armed force of our own, but not having any borders to defend why would we even have an armed forces?
No nation could continue to exist for long without borders which means that there would ultimately be one government for the entire world, and it would perforce be totalitarian.
It's a progressive's dream, to be sure, but it's a realist's nightmare.
