Trump's Wall: Build It and Will They Stop Coming?

Well, it looks like it's finally going to happen. After repeatedly broken promises by former Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W Bush, and even Barak Obama, someone is actually stepping up to do something about illegal immigration, and that "something" is the construction of wall. Yelp, we've all heard it before, which usually ended up to pandering and lies, but it appears President Donald Trump is about to commit to spending approximately $8 billion dollars to seal the border with Mexico and cutback on the number of illegal immigrants crossing the border.

Mexico's President, Enrique Pena, is none too happy about it. It has said that the United States has "no right" to seal border because Mexico is "sovereign country". Eh...so what? Former Mexican President, Vicente Fox, is now trotting out Nazi dictator and all purpose bogey man, Adolf Hitler in his description of "The Donald". Of course, Mr. Fox had previously said that the U.S. had "no right" to prevent Mexicans from coming and going as they pleased or from sending money they earn in American back home to Mexico, which depends heavily on these fund to prop up its economy. The former Mexican president has even said that the Mexicans living in the U.S. had a "right" to free and unhindered education (in Spanish of course), housing, healthcare, and so forth. He added that that whole sections of the American southwest and central west, including States like Texas, Colorado, Arizona, California, Nevada, and New Mexico were stolen from his country and actually "belong" to Mexico. There is also the mythical Hispanic land known as "Aztlan", which was an extension of the Aztec Empire which encompassed these same lands.

Recently, a largely unheard of Native American tribe known as the Tohono O'Odham Nation has voiced its opposition to building the wall. The tribe, which has some 25,000 members, occupies around 2.8 million acres of land along the U.S. and Mexican border, with parts of its land actually stretching into Northwestern Mexico itself. Both Mexico and Washington recognizes the tribe as a sovereign nation as well. No doubt we'll be seeing other Native American tribes along the border, including the Navajo and Apache nations also stepping up to voice their opposition to the wall since it would leave them divided as well. As much as I dislike illegal immigration, I can't say I blame the Tohono O'Odham People, or any of the other Native American tribes. They were forced onto lands that were largely not their own and told how to live but not given the means to live. Native American reservations are on par with the poorest communities to be found anywhere in America, including Appalachia and Ozarks, but at least those people choice to live there for whatever reasons. It's a miracle any of them have survived, and so I can see their point about having their lands divided by a wall. But, for a wall to be effective, it has to be a solid continuous structure.

As for the upside, President Trump is expected to employ upwards of 20,000 people to help build the wall, which will include motion sensors, observation towers, barbed wire, trenches, and special access roads. That's a lot of potential jobs for these mostly unemployed Native Americans (Trump had also promised that only U.S. citizens would be employed in the construction and operation of the border wall). In addition, Trump has promised to reinstate the budget and manpower to the Border Patrol and ICE, cut by President Obama, and to restore its full law enforcement authority which had been stripped by former Director of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric Holder. Even so-called "Sanctuary Cities", which openly violate federal laws by providing legal cover for illegal residents, are now facing the loss of federal funding. Nevertheless, there is a downside too.

The drug cartels are experts at crossing the border; even crossing into the United States all along the Gulf Coast and up the Pacific coastline. They have dug more tunnels than the Germans did during World War II or Hamas has in the Gaza Strip...and they're just as professionally built too; complete with lighting, tracks, staging areas, fresh air vents, reinforced walls, and in some cases, even elevators. There are literally hundreds of miles of tunnels that run under our border with Mexico. Some open up into fields while most open into outbuildings like garages and sheds. Others come up into houses and businesses that line the border, with safe houses that spread out in out all directions. How do prepare against that? Despite decades of effort, even the DEA and FBI haven't been successful in stopping the flow of drugs into this country from south of border. In fact, the situation got so bad at one point, Attorney General Eric Holder essentially seceded almost an entire county in Arizona to the drug cartels---even posting signs for "Anglos" and others to stay out. Farmers and ranchers along the border often report of property and livestock being stolen, not to mention illegally banging on their doors demands food, water, or shelter. On several occasions, they've reported seeing groups of illegal immigrants being escorted across the border by Mexican troops and helicopters (and some have reported even being fired on).

Once the wall goes up, we can expect to hear the whining of groups about separating families due to someone being caught and deported or the occasional individual who may actually go to jail. Of course, there will be the ubiquitous "People Aren't Illegal" or "No One is Illegal" signs popping up. People need to remember that these families are not randomly being "broken up" or separated. These are individuals who knowingly and willingly broke the law. They understood the risks and what it would do to them and their families. And, no, people aren't "illegal", but their actions can certainly be, and being in this country in violation of federal immigration laws is against the law. Requiring U.S. taxpayers to pick up the financial tap for someone not here legally is also wrong, be it the mandatory hiring of Spanish language teachers and tutors because a child can't speak English or their parents refuse to allow their child be to taught English. The same goes for religious institutions and other groups to brazenly help to smuggle and/or individuals, not to mention to find housing (including lying on leases), places of employment, and worse of all, teaching them how to bypass existing laws and regulations. These are things that a wall or any other barrier cannot fix.

Therefore, while I support the concept of wall, I don't think it will work. It's simply not apractical solution. Ask the former East Germans or the Israelis. For that matter, ask the FBI, INS, the Border Patrol or the DEA. There are no limits to human ingenuity, and if a wall goes up, there will those who will make it their mission in life to find a way through it, under it, over it, or around it. Even with the extra personnel and electronic gadgetry, every system has it flaws and weaknesses. So, while I support the building of a wall in theory, it reality it just won't work. However, there is a solution to the problem of illegal immigration which is much cheaper and more effective. That solution is enforceable regulations (i.e.: regulations which have teeth).

What I purpose is fairly simple. In fact, much of it already exists except the laws lack any "bite" and are rarely and poorly enforced. The solution is imposing large and stiff fines on any institution or group (religiously affiliated or not) and the automatic suspension of their tax-exempt status starting with the first conviction. Typically, churches and other religious organizations were always "untouchable" when it came to serving search warrants, even with probable cause. Individuals, families, or even small groups are smuggled into the church, where they remain until it's safe to smuggle them out. This made them the perfect place to hide. As long as they remained on church property, no one could (or would) touch them. Individuals, be it ministers, priests, rabbis, or just part of the network, would help to find places for them to live, including falsifying leases, as well as assisting in finding employers who wouldn't ask questions. I think that in addition to the institution being fined and facing a suspension of their tax-exempt status, each individual who assists should be fined as well (plus any other penalties for falsifying on legal agreements). If you're looking for a legal example, how bout Mexico? Not only do they have a wall with its neighbor to the south, anyone caught aiding someone in the country illegally gets to go to one of its fine federal institutions...on their first conviction. I'm not willing to go quite that far...at least for a first conviction...but for repeatedly convictions, I think the fine should become of increasingly stiff and certainly by the third conviction, they may require a "timeout" at some U.S. facility. As for any tax exempt institution, I think the fines should be increase harsh and their tax-exempt suspension should be increasingly longer so that by their third conviction, it should be permanently revoked and the officers prohibited from serving as an officer or member of any future boards.

As for the true criminal in this case, the employer, the penalty should be equally harsh. They should also be increasingly fined, plus a suspension of their business charter---perhaps something like 30 days, 90 days, six months, and finally, permanent. In addition, with the permanent suspension of their corporate chapter, no company which employs them as an officer or board member will be eligible to receive any federal loans or contracts, either directly or indirectly. As we all know from simple economics, if we eliminate the demand, we will eliminate the supply. By the same token, if we make the costs greater than the reward, people will seek other economic opportunities. However, as a caveat, we all know that certain employers---mostly in agriculture---depend on seasonal and often illegal workers. It should be incumbent on these employers to obtain work permits ("green cards") for those individuals, which should be made available with as little red tape as possible for obvious reasons. In addition, they should provide proof of health from a US physician or clinic. We are seeing to many instances of easily transmittable diseases such as TB entering this country.

Individual currently in this country illegally, gainfully employed, and with no criminal record, should be given 90 days to apply for permission to live and work in this country. If they fail to, they should be deported and not denied an opportunity to reapply for five years. Schools should continue to provide taxpayer paid teachers and/or tutors, however, the objective will change to teaching this children how to speak English in addition to helping with their education. Lastly, the notion of "anchor babies" is out the window. The original concept was to keep the British from reasserting the influence over the new American Republic by flooding our shores with their immigrants. Therefore, it was assumed that a child born in America would be to this country and not to the country of their parents or ancestors. Henceforth, the concept of an "anchor baby" should be relegated to the history books. A child should be considered an American Citizen if one or both of its parents are a U.S. citizen either by birth or naturalization. So, there you have it folks! That's my take on the notion of a wall with Mexico and how was could deal with the problem of illegal immigration. It's not a perfect solution I know, but what I suggest is practical and could be accomplished with minimum cost, little disruption (especially to Native American tribes), and the legal outline is already in place.

By the way---Trump's promise that Mexico will pay for the wall, perhaps through a tariff on Mexican products? Don't count on it. Businesses operating in Mexico will most likely raise the cost of their products and as always, U.S. consumers will do the paying. The Mexican government could even levy their own tariff on American made products. I have a simpler solution. According to the latest U.S. State Department figures, in 2013 we gave Mexico $51.5 million dollars in aid to help prop up their government and economy. Why not simply offset the cost of the wall from that?


As Trump Orders Wall, Mexico's President Considers Cancelling U.S. Trip
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/world/americas/trump-mexico-border-wall.html?_r=0


Trump and Mexico's president had an hour-long phone call
http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/trump-and-mexicos-president-had-an-hour-long-phone-call/


Trump orders construction of border wall, boost deportation force
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/25/politics/donald-trump-build-wall-immigration-executive-orders/index.html


Border wall may face Arizona hurdle from Tohono O'Odham
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/25/politics/donald-trump-build-wall-immigration-executive-orders/index.html

Taking "The Train to Crystal City" : A Story of Courage, Betrayal and the Triumph of the Human Will

Last January, I got the opportunity to review one of those rare books which takes the reader by surprise by its depth into the nature of humanity. The book, "The Train to Crystal City" by Jan Jarboe Russell, is the rarely told story of community, uprooted by war, fear, and anger; stripped of nearly everything and held captive behind barbed wire and watchtowers and ultimately used as pawns by a government they trusted in as told from the prespective of two American-born teenage girls; one of Japanesse ancestry and the other of German. Their stories are made even more tragic by the fact that these were ordinary Americans, differing only in national origin or race, but otherwise little different from you and I.

Like any American family found in every city, town, or wide spot on a country road, they had their own family traditions and beliefs. They shared the desire for a new and better life for themselves and their children. They believed strongly in a strong work ethic, in family and community, and most of all, in freedom. What happened to these family was a national tragedy, but also a warning that such things have happened here and may happen again.

The publication of "The Train to Crystal City" was a literary success. It was listed in the New York Times' "The Top Books of 2015" and the New York Post's "2015 Favorates". I would like to think that my pre-publication review of the book, which I am re-posting below, aided in some small way to its success, but the credit belongs entirely to Ms. Russell's ability to bring the stories of these remarkable individuals to life in such a way that even with the passing of some 70 odd years we can easily relate to them as if they were one of our own. With that, I am pleased to say that "The Train to Crystal City" has been released in paperback. If you haven't had the opportunity to read this book, I urge you to do so now. It may just open your eyes.

A Another Opinion Book Review:
"The Train to Crystal City"
by Jan Jarboe Russell


World War II, like all wars, encompassed more than just military successes or defeats or the rise and fall of an ideology. Wars impact every aspect of human existence, thus it comes down to the individual and how their lives are impacted in ways where they had little, or more often than not, no choices. So what becomes of those who trusted their country to protect them and instead, betrayed them? What about governments who selectively disregard individual rights out of fears---perhaps real; perhaps not? How does one cope with suddenly being stripped of their job; their school; the friends and loved one and imprisoned for an undefined crime? We've come to expect this of a dictatorship, but what about America?

I had the opportunity to recently review "The Train to Crystal City" by Jan Jarboe Russell. This is the story of just a few of the thousands of lives that, through war, became intertwined in ways that are scarcely imaginable today. These ordinary individuals found themselves thrust upon a world stage, not as bit players, but as set pieces to be used and discarded by events far greater than any of them could comprehend at the time. This is the story of what happens to the American Dream when fear and prejudice are allowed to engulf a nation's soul.

Most of us are familiar with the stories of internment camps which housed Japanese-Americans following the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, but most of us don't know about the Germans and Italians, some of whom having been nationalized and living ordinary lives for years, who were also interned after being stripped of their citizenship. Fewer yet know that many of those imprisoned included their American born spouses and children or that they included individuals, mostly businessmen, kidnapped along with their families by the US Government from various Latin American countries such as Peru or Mexico, and then brought to America illegally, to be held as essentially bargaining chips along with the rest of the internees.

The internment camp in Crystal City Texas was a one of a kind facility designed to hold families and serve to facilitate a secret prisoner exchange program created by President Roosevelt. Its internees would be exchanged, sometimes involuntarily, along with their families and sent to Germany for key personnel, such as downed US pilots or prominent businessmen held by the enemy, and later in the war, for American or non-aligned Jewish nationals held in concentration camps. Then there was those Japanese-Americans who just wanted to go home---not to Tokyo or Yokohama---but to Los Angeles, San Francisco or perhaps Lima and return to their lives before the war who instead found themselves on liberty ships sailing to a devastated and defeated Japan; a Japan their parents did not recognize. As wonderfully told by Ms. Russell, many of the children, who were American born, didn't speak the language of their parent nor understand the culture. In countries where thousands were fleeing and millions were trying to rebuild their lives, these former Americans or Latin Americans were trying to find their way amid rubble, despair, and suspicion.

Then, of course, there were those who benefited from secret exchange like a former baseball pitcher and pilot who was shot down over Germany and lost a leg, exchanged for an internee and found a new life back home in America, or a Jewish girl, who had been interned in the notorious Bergen-Belsen concentration camp along with her family, and managed to obtain a forged passport from Ecuador, exchanged for an denationalized German and his family at the last minute, but then left stranded in Algiers awaiting changes in a government policy that would allow her to complete her journey, while her family remained stuck in a Swiss hospital thousands of miles away.

These stories are as compelling as they are compassionately told through Ms Russell with each turn of the page; many of their stories having never been told until now. Thanks to Ms. Russell, we can relive their memories with them; their fears; their anger; their sense of betrayal; and their sense of aloneness and shame as their time behind barbed wire and watch towers slowly changed from days into months, and then into years, and ultimately the bitterness that they faced when they were forced to leave the country they loved so much and return to a world they barely remembered or knew at all. Some would adjust. Some would be broken, but all would carry the weight of their internment.

In the end, "The Train to Crystal City" is a story that every American needs to know. As hard as it is for us to believe some 70 years on, this is a story of people as real as you or I who had to suffer the indignity of imprisonment and loss of nearly everything they held dear for nothing more than being born in a foreign land or looking different. Finally, it's the story of perseverance; of family and the human spirit's ability to overcome hardships. It's also a warning. If it happened once before, could it happen again, and if so, who will its victims be this time?

The Train to Crystal City: A Another Opinion Book Review

A Another Opinion Book Review:
"The Train to Crystal City"
by Jan Jarboe Russell

World War II, like all wars, encompassed more than just military successes or defeats or the rise and fall of an ideology. Wars impact every aspect of human existence, thus it comes down to the individual and how their lives are impacted in ways where they had little, or more often than not, no choices. So what becomes of those who trusted their country to protect them and instead, betrayed them? What about governments who selectively disregard individual rights out of fears---perhaps real; perhaps not? How does one cope with suddenly being stripped of their job; their school; the friends and loved one and imprisoned for an undefined crime? We've come to expect this of a dictatorship, but what about America?

I had the opportunity to recently review "The Train to Crystal City" by Jan Jarboe Russell. This is the story of just a few of the thousands of lives that, through war, became intertwined in ways that are scarcely imaginable today. These ordinary individuals found themselves thrust upon a world stage, not as bit players, but as set pieces to be used and discarded by events far greater than any of them could comprehend at the time. This is the story of what happens to the American Dream when fear and prejudice are allowed to engulf a nation's soul.

Most of us are familiar with the stories of internment camps which housed Japanese-Americans following the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, but most of us don't know about the Germans and Italians, some of whom having been nationalized and living ordinary lives for years, who were also interned after being stripped of their citizenship. Fewer yet know that many of those imprisoned included their American born spouses and children or that they included individuals, mostly businessmen, kidnapped along with their families by the US Government from various Latin American countries such as Peru or Mexico, and then brought to America illegally, to be held as essentially bargaining chips along with the rest of the internees.

The internment camp in Crystal City Texas was a one of a kind facility designed to hold families and serve to facilitate a secret prisoner exchange program created by President Roosevelt. Its internees would be exchanged, sometimes involuntarily, along with their families and sent to Germany for key personnel, such as downed US pilots or prominent businessmen held by the enemy, and later in the war, for American or non-aligned Jewish nationals held in concentration camps. Then there was those Japanese-Americans who just wanted to go home---not to Tokyo or Yokohama---but to Los Angeles, San Francisco or perhaps Lima and return to their lives before the war who instead found themselves on liberty ships sailing to a devastated and defeated Japan; a Japan their parents did not recognize. As wonderfully told by Ms. Russell, many of the children, who were American born, didn't speak the language of their parent nor understand the culture. In countries where thousands were fleeing and millions were trying to rebuild their lives, these former Americans or Latin Americans were trying to find their way amid rubble, despair, and suspicion.

Then, of course, there were those who benefited from secret exchange like a former baseball pitcher and pilot who was shot down over Germany and lost a leg, exchanged for an internee and found a new life back home in America, or a Jewish girl, who had been interned in the notorious Bergen-Belsen concentration camp along with her family, and managed to obtain a forged passport from Ecuador, exchanged for an denationalized German and his family at the last minute, but then left stranded in Algiers awaiting changes in a government policy that would allow her to complete her journey, while her family remained stuck in a Swiss hospital thousands of miles away.

These stories are as compelling as they are compassionately told through Ms Russell with each turn of the page; many of their stories having never been told until now. Thanks to Ms. Russell, we can relive their memories with them; their fears; their anger; their sense of betrayal; and their sense of aloneness and shame as their time behind barbed wire and watch towers slowly changed from days into months, and then into years, and ultimately the bitterness that they faced when they were forced to leave the country they loved so much and return to a world they barely remembered or knew at all. Some would adjust. Some would be broken, but all would carry the weight of their internment.

In the end, "The Train to Crystal City" is a story that every American needs to know. As hard as it is for us to believe some 70 years on, this is a story of people as real as you or I who had to suffer the indignity of imprisonment and loss of nearly everything they held dear for nothing more than being born in a foreign land or looking different. Finally, it's the story of perseverance; of family and the human spirit's ability to overcome hardships. It's also a warning. If it happened once before, could it happen again, and if so, who will its victims be this time?

"The Train to Crystal City" by Jan Jarboe Russell is a must read for anyone interested in American history, FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, German, Japanese, or Italian history, WWII history, Constitutional law, philosophy, human or civil rights or civics. I could easily see this book in every high school or college library.