We should be a nation that welcomes immigrants. We should be the beacon of the free world, much like the words Emma Lazarus wrote so many years ago that reside at the base of our country’s world-renowned beacon of liberty.
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles.
From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
I spent two years of my youth serving on a border where machine guns, sniper towers, and land mines—collectively called a death zone—ruled the day in a foreign land. Today, men who served alongside me are being egged on by a man of limited intelligence in the White House and proposing the exact same thing on our southern border, all in the name of border security. But in reality, it is about fear, racism, and xenophobia.
If Individual 1 gets his wall, it won’t be long before guard towers, snipers, and mine fields follow. That is the mindset of Trump and his followers.
While they proclaim to be pro-life, they are anything but. If your skin color is not white, if you speak any language other than English, then your life is worthless to them. They would kill innocent, unarmed civilians for crossing the border, which is a misdemeanor crime on par with using Smokey the Bear’s likeness without permission.
Think about that for a moment: The current administration wants $5.7 billion now to fund this wall, and that price tag would continually go up. It’s a wall that would not work and is unnecessary to prevent someone from committing a low-level misdemeanor crime.
[S]ection 1325(a) of the 8 United States Code (U.S.C.), which states that “improper entry by alien” is a federal misdemeanor with a first offense carrying maximum fines of $50 to $250 and/or a six-month prison sentence.
The shutdown may or may not be over by the time you read this. If it is not, then shame on the Republican Party for supporting Trump’s temper tantrum. If it is over, it is my sincere hope that the Democrats were the adults in the room and did not cave in to the madman in the Oval Office.
If border security was an actual concern for the current administration, then they would be working on better ways to track, detain, and deport people who have overstayed their visas. They would be working on comprehensive immigration reform that would allow people to cross our southern border to fill the jobs that Americans will not take. It would give them a path to citizenship, if that is what they want.
Fear, racism, and xenophobia are driving this discussion. As a nation, we have never really recovered from the attacks on 9/11—the never-ending wars and the lack of a clear victory over a shadowy, ever-changing enemy has caused a wide swath of Americans to be fearful of anything or anyone different. Individual 1 plays up these fears in tweets to his followers and they eat it up, even though it is a lie.
No prayer rugs have been found on the border, and likely never would be. This is yet another baseless claim being used to drum up the support of his willfully ignorant followers.
“Standing in a clean place is a requirement of Islamic prayer,” she said. “Many of these rugs have images of the Kaaba in Mecca and other religious symbols on them. For all these reasons, they would not be just casually tossed around or carelessly discarded to be desecrated by others.”
These persistent rumors promote the message that Muslims inherently “constitute a menace and danger to our safety,” Professor Afsaruddin said. “Remember Sinbad and his flying rug in the Arabian Nights? Maybe that is what they are remembering — after all, the Arabian Nights ‘prove’ that this is how Arabs and Muslims get around — talk about enduring stereotypes from the world of fantasy!”
The Democrats must stand strong, united against Trump and his brand of racism. If they do not, then the America we want—the America we should be—will never come to be. The only compromise the Democrats should give Trump is money for new outhouses in our national parks. They can even offer to name them after him. Picture it: his name in gold, above every public outdoor shitter in America. Because that is all he deserves to have as his legacy.
The rest of us—well, some of us still believe in the best of America. So, in the words of Miss Lazarus:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”