(thoughtful opening music)
- I actually was born and raised
in the Rio Grande Valley, which is the southern tip of Texas
where the Rio Grande flows into the Gulf of Mexico.
And so I was trained as a political scientist
doing comparative politics, Latin America
and really my research had been on Mexico.
But about 10 years ago there was more and more literature
about the border, border politics.
You know, relationship between US and Mexico
and border politics, and then what happened
is that around 2006, between 2006 and 2008
a border wall was built in roughly 620 miles
along the US-Mexico border and part of that border wall
was built south of my hometown of Mission, Texas.
So I became, of course, very interested
not only because of my intellectual interest
but also my personal interest
since it now was actually affecting my hometown.
And so yeah, so my research started way before
Donald Trump brought up this issue of the border wall.
I think for me one of the frustrating things has been,
recently in the last couple of years,
has been that so many people are talking
about the border wall as if it were a new thing.
And in fact, the border wall that was built in 2008
was built as a result of two pieces of legislation.
One of them was the Real ID Act of 2005.
And the Real ID Act was mostly about
standardizing information on driver's licenses
across the country for purposes of security,
but there's also a provision in the Real ID Act
that gives the power to the head of DHS,
the head of Homeland Security to unilaterally ignore
any law that interferes with the construction
of barriers at the border as long as they're designed
to enhance national security.
The other important piece of legislation
is a 2006 secure wall act.
And in that piece of legislation Congress actually says
to DHS that they must build 613 miles of border wall, again,
to enhance national security.
In Texas you have a very long border.
You have, for example, land owners who have been very upset.
I can give one case study.
A village called Granjeno, Texas, which is again
in the southern tip of Texas in the Rio Grande Valley.
So they have complained bitterly
about their experiences with the 2006 Secure Fence Act
and they've had several complaints.
One is that the border wall that was built
actually divided their village in half.
And so again, this is a little town
that goes back to the 1700s, has a lot of historic value,
and is now cut in half by an 18- foot wall.
Another group that has been very upset
with the border wall, and again, this particular area
of the Rio Grande Valley, is environmentalists.
This area of South Texas
is a very unique place environmentally.
It looks superficially a lot like, perhaps, Florida
with a lot of palm trees, a lot of vegetation
and it's also a place that is home
to many endangered species of animals and plants.
So I think President Donald Trump and his supporters
have been calling for a border wall.
And what I find interesting is that
in that discussion you rarely hear
that we already have this 600- mile border wall.
I think that a lot of people in this country
either have forgotten about that wall
that was built 10 years ago, or were never aware of it.
And I think that there's still so much fear an anxiety,
which drives people to want a real visible barrier
that they could point to
that would be solving these problems.
And again, these problems are fear of terrorism,
so wanting to protect national security,
fear of the other, of the undocumented people.
Perhaps some people are worried
that this country will no longer
be a predominantly white country.
The idea that some people are trying to get here
and not waiting in line, not understanding
the intricacies of our immigration system
and I think in general, just thinking
that drug trafficking can be solved
by building a border wall, whereas we know, I think,
that we need to think hard about
the problems of addiction in this country.
The problems that these walls are supposed to address,
the problems are too complicated.
A lot of border scholars say that we actually in many ways
on purpose create these flawed projects at the border.
So on the one hand you have a border wall.
We already have one now.
Has it actually stopped drug trafficking?
Has it stopped undocumented immigration?
No, it has not.
If we add even more miles to the border wall
the same is going to continue, but that is because
you can't satisfy both sides at the same time.
Some people still want their cheap labor
or their products to go back and forth across the border.
Some people still want a closed border
because of their own anxieties.
I think I just hope that more people pay attention,
not necessarily just people who live on the border,
but pay attention to something like that fact
that the head of DHS has been given the right
to ignore any law as long as that person
is building a barrier at the border
that enhances national security.
We've already had over 30 laws waived.
Again, laws having to do with the environment,
with the protection of Native Americans and their property,
their lands and properties, the Clean Air Act,
the Endangered Species Act.
I think we need to think about the erosion
of our democracy in light of our focus on national security.
(thoughtful electronic music)
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