Democrat: Wall not needed, Fake ‘crisis’ is scare tactic

The Trump administration has turned to divisive scare tactics to manufacture a fake “crisis” on our southern border in order to obtain funding for an unnecessary border wall.

Never mind that the President promised Mexico would pay for the wall, congressional funding for a wall would not solve the border “crisis,” even if it did exist.

The wall will take years to build. If we have such a crisis that is worthy of shutting down the government and potentially being declared a national emergency, then should not the administration be asking for more immediate solutions? More funding for border agents or better technology at the border is obtainable.

Instead the President is fixated on his long promised border wall. An idea he has admitted was born of an applause line in one of his early speeches, not from any policy analysis. We are told the Democrats are to blame for the wall not being funded, but from January of 2017 to January of 2019, the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress. The president could not get his own party to support the wall, but now it’s somehow the Democrats’ fault.

There are several questions that need to be answered about the wall. How much will it cost in total? The $5 billion the administration is requesting is just a drop in the bucket of the total cost it would require to build the wall. Where will the construction start? The administration has not said.

What does it say about us as a people to have a wall? In his famous “tear down this wall” speech in Berlin in 1987, President Ronald Reagan called the Berlin Wall a “scar” and said that as long as it stood it was a “question of freedom for all mankind.”

Democrats in this country, both elected officials and not, believe in making the southern border secure. It is simply a question of how. It must be understood that most illegal immigrants do not cross the southern border. Most arrive by plane or at a coastal port and never leave. The same is also true for the flow of illegal drugs. The vast majority of illegal drugs coming into the country are not smuggled in by individuals hauling it across the southern border, but by being hidden in vehicles and planes that cross ports of entry.

We should not waste billions of dollars that could be used to truly help secure the southern border on an ineffective wall, simply because President Trump once used it to incite his political base.

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French is the vice chairperson of the Butler County Democratic Central Committee and a lifelong Democrat.