A GoFundMe campaign has recently been created to solicit money to build a border wall along the length of the southern U.S.-Mexico border. As of this writing, the campaign raised over $13 million. It was created by a disabled vet who claims to be the grandson of immigrants. It makes many assertions that demonstrate our utter lack of respect for facts and for ourselves as a nation of laws and faith whose values and achievements the world has long sought to emulate. I can tell you that there are more worthy causes for which money can be put to use. These include nonprofit organizations helping the disabled live better lives by bringing down walls that preclude them from full participation in society.
I am the immigrant son of an immigrant mother. I, too, am disabled: deaf and blind. Born in a war-ravaged country during a pivotal moment in its struggle for independence, I waited in line to get my papers to come to America. My mother had fled her country when faced with imminent danger, nearly becoming a hyena’s meal on the way to America. After settling down and having all of Uncle Sam’s requirements met, she attained what many call the American Dream: a long career as a nurse caring for fellow Americans, starting a new family and buying a home in Oakland, California. Meanwhile, my grandparents struggled to enroll me in school or provide me with other opportunities because I cannot see or hear. So, my mother started the process of bringing me to America, where I would attend public school at the age of 12 for the first time ever and going on to succeed in life and in the process give back to America. We are now both American citizens, fulfilling all of our responsibilities and contributing to maintaining the greatness of America.
There’s so much to show why we have lost respect for the truth, but I will mention just a few things. One of the claims in the GoFundMe campaign is that immigrants take our jobs. The last time I checked 2 months ago, there are currently 7.1 million job openings in America. An increasing number of places (such as supermarkets) have become automated (and in my case, less accessible). Almost all of the people I personally know of (including my relatives or their spouses) performed physically demanding tasks and for as little as $3 an hour. They ranged from cleaning the floors of hotels and airports to working in farm fields. Another claim is that undocumented immigrants increase crime. Let me be honest: my father was killed by a undocumented immigrant. But he could just as well have been killed by a native-born person, and I knew that the argument that undocumented immigration causes crime is untrue: fear, if we give in to it easily, overshadows fact and causes us to search for a convenient scapegoat. If this was the case, many of the undocumented people in my life would have been in prison. Multiple academic studies support my point, finding that undocumented immigration does not increase crime. And yet, the news media, it seems, thrives on conflict, thus creating storylines that feed into Americans’ fear. I know fear is a powerful motivator, for I had experienced it firsthand as a child living in a war zone.
In consideration of everything I just said, I would think that we Americans have far more to worry about than a border wall. Our roads and bridges are crumbling. Families are struggling everyday to meet basic needs. We have an opioid overdose epidemic that is destroying tens of thousands of lives. Health care costs are soaring, putting our collective well-being in peril. We have a homelessness crisis that challenges our moral compass. These are some of the growing list of dire challenges America faces. Instead of facing them with resolve and faith, our politicians distract us and make us turn away in search of someone or something to blame, so that they can earn our votes of confidence to remain in power. But for me and many other Americans with disabilities, there are even more pressing challenges that the general public does not face. They range from a decades-old federal law permitting people with disabilities to be paid pennies per hour for the same work performed by those in the general population; public facilities that, despite the Americans with Disabilities Act, need a lot of improving in order to welcome everyone; as in my case and those like me, reliable and accessible access to communications equivalent to what hearing and sighted people take for granted that let them converse with their friends and families, or a way to communicate with hearing and non-signing people without having to sit and carry heavy equipment; and many, many other hurdles that make it difficult to participate in all aspects of American life. For me, a border wall reminds me of and symbolizes a barrier to equal participation in society. My experience makes it abundantly clear that we are overreacting to the problem of people coming here without proper papers. This not only makes us look weak in the face of adversity, instead of facing our greatest challenges with calm resolve like the millions of immigrants, my mother included, did on the journey to America since the days of its birth. It is our resolve and the strength of our values, not a border wall, that will keep us strong and safe. A border wall cheapens the inspiring story of our nation’s founding and how immigrants helped build America. A strong nation of faith does not slam its heart shut to anyone trying to come in without papers, but instead deals with the problem resolutely yet compassionately.
We must reject this politics of fear, in order to regain respect for ourselves as a country. Just because some politician or television or radio personality whips up fear and drums up our knee-jerk reaction to a national challenge, it doesn’t mean we are incapable of facing our difficulties with faith and love, not fear and hate. We all want to secure our borders and we all demand that whoever comes here must go through our immigration system. But we must also refuse to give in to fear. After all, that’s what a powerful nation of law and faith is supposed to do. Technology, not some concrete piece of Earth or some barrier made of steel, will protect us, such as it has made a profound impact on my life as a disabled American. Indeed, most experts and even some of the senior aides to President Trump (including the Acting Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, who once called the idea “absurd and almost childish”) do not think a border wall is a smart solution, especially one originally based on the promise that some foreign country would foot the bill for it. Moreover, almost all the people that I had personally encountered who became undocumented did not cross either the southern or northern border but simply came here by air and then overstayed their visas, so perhaps we’ll need a sky-high wall at every one of our airports.
SOURCES:
- “America has a record 7.1 million job openings, making it an especially advantageous time to ask for a raise.” The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/10/16/america-has-record-million-job-openings-making-it-an-especially-advantageous-time-ask-raise/?utm_term=.2c24882f10e2
- “Illegal Immigration Does Not Increase Violent Crime, 4 Studies Show”. NPR: https://www.npr.org/2018/05/02/607652253/studies-say-illegal-immigration-does-not-increase-violent-crime
- «Immigrants Aren’t Taking Americans’ Jobs, New Study Finds”. NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/us/immigrants-arent-taking-americans-jobs-new-study-finds.html
- “Disabled workers paid just pennies an hour – and it’s legal”. NBC News: http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/25/19062348-disabled-workers-paid-just-pennies-an-hour-and-its-legal
- “Mick Mulvaney once called Trump’s views on border wall ‘absurd and almost childish’”. The Hill: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/422515-incoming-chief-of-staff-mulvaney-once-called-trump-views-on-border
- “Why The Wall Won’t Work”. Cateo Institute: https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/why-wall-wont-work