“A wall, in my view, is an immorality. It’s the least effective way to protect the border and the most costly. I can’t think of any reason why anyone would think it’s a good idea — unless this has something to do with something else,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said shortly before the government shutdown.
That’s the latest talking point from Democratic leadership and congressional members in the House and Senate. Walls are immoral and they don’t work anyway. Of course, both of these things are untrue.
{mosads}Right now, walls are working on the southern border to curb illegal immigration, stop human trafficking and limit the number of drugs pouring into the United States. It’s happening in San Diego, Yuma and other select places along the 2,000 miles that stretches from California to Texas.
“We built new infrastructure along the border east and west of the San Luis Arizona Port of Entry in 2006. The existing fence was quickly lengthened, and we added second and third layers to that fencing in urban areas. Lighting, roads and increased surveillance were added to aid agents patrolling the border,” former acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke explained in a 2017 op-ed for USA Today.
“Although there is still work to do, the border in Yuma sector today is more secure because of this investment. Even under lax enforcement standards, apprehensions in fiscal year 2016 were roughly a 10th of what they were in FY 2005 — and are on track to be even lower this year,” she continued. “Crime has significantly decreased in the Yuma area, and smugglers now look for other less difficult areas of the border to cross — often areas without fencing.”
With these results, the southern border clearly needs more barriers. Cutting down on human trafficking, illegal immigration, drug flow and crime is a moral cause, not an immoral one as Pelosi has claimed.
Congress overwhelmingly passed the Secure Fence Act because fencing, walls and barriers work. If they don’t, shouldn’t Democrats call for current barriers to be ripped down? After all, they are “immoral.”
When you break down the facts, Pelosi and her party are engaged in immorality when it comes to border issues, not the Trump White House trying to solve a crisis.
According to Customs and Border Protection, 17,000 illegal aliens with previous criminal records were arrested at the border in 2018. Six thousand gang members, including those belonging to MS-13, were apprehended.
The drug crisis plaguing American communities across the country is a border security issue. More than 72,000 Americans died from overdoses last year. Ninety-percent of the heroin in the U.S. comes through Mexico, and in 2017 fentanyl trafficking increased by 73 percent. Methamphetamine is up by 38 percent.
Every year, transnational criminal organizations make billions in profit by extorting innocent families and taking advantage of endless loopholes in U.S. immigration law. Caravans made up of thousands of illegal aliens falsely seeking asylum have grown over the past year. According to the Department of Homeland Security, the level of violence within these large groups is unprecedented and a threat to national security.
Children are used as human shields and recycled pawns for strange men to enter the U.S. without consequence. According to Doctors Without Borders, 31 percent of women and 17 percent of men who cross the border illegally or make asylum claims have been sexually assaulted at least once on their journey. This includes small children. Amnesty International puts this number much higher and estimates at least 60 percent of women traveling from Central America are raped along the way. If not sexual violence, the vast majority of men and women experience some kind of violent abuse.
Profiting traffickers lie to their clients about the conditions of the journey, prompting Border Patrol agents to rescue more than 4,000 individuals in distress each year. Fifty people per day are referred for serious medical treatment after suffering severe dehydration and unsanitary conditions.
Open borders are inhumane borders. Democrats refusing to acknowledge the crisis, currently heightened but one that has been going on for years, enables the worst criminal actors in North and South America.
{mosads}In the U.S., there are serious and lethal consequences for this ongoing lawlessness. Just hours after spending Christmas Day with his family, legal immigrant and small-town California police Cpl. Ronil Singh was shot to death by illegal alien Gustavo Perez Arriaga. Singh leaves behind a five-month-old baby boy, a wife and an American dream cut far too short. His story is just one of many each year.
It is the moral duty of the commander in chief to protect the sovereignty of the country and the American citizens who live within it. If President Trump declares a national emergency for the sake of border security, he would be justified in doing so.
While President Trump stayed in Washington, D.C., to work through the shutdown, with a goal of protecting Americans, Pelosi vacationed in Hawaii. When asked about why she left town, Pelosi told NBC News that “it’s totally unimportant.”
The data, the stories and the ongoing crisis at the border prove otherwise. It is important and the situation is dire.
“I campaigned on Border Security, which you cannot have without a strong and powerful Wall. Our Southern Border has long been an ‘Open Wound,’ where drugs, criminals (including human traffickers) and illegals would pour into our Country,” President Trump tweeted.
President Trump, rather than Speaker Pelosi, has the moral high ground.
Pavlich is the editor for Townhall.com and a Fox News contributor.