Yareni De Anda
10/02/09
2:20pm
The article is about the US-Mexico border wall and the costs of keeping up with this system. The US government considers the border wall in which they have spent billions of dollars to be a “major challenge”. The author points out the fact that at this point is impossible to know how effective the border wall is In terms of keeping the people from crossing. Borders experts say this expensive wall is nothing but making it more dangerous to cross but not actually stopping migrants, which causes nothing but an increase in the fees charged by people smugglers and hundreds of deaths in the most dangerous areas of the desert. According to a study from the Mexico’s national Commission on human rights and other organizations, before this wall was put up deaths of immigrants were mostly traffic accidents on freeways in border areas. Now people are purposely being pressed to cross through the most dangerous areas such as Arizona desert ( a technique that the border patrol calls Deterrence) and dying of dehydration, hypothermia and also drowning in Rio Grande. “Customs and Border Protection has reported 416 deaths so far in 2009. That compares with 390 last year and 398 in 2007”. According to the author those are some of the major costs of keeping the “protective project“ up.
The reason why I chose this article is because the one thing that people who are so insistent in the wall having a reasonable purpose do not understand that the costs of the wall being there is too much, not only in dollars but in human suffering. There are a lot of articles out there that mention the amount of money that has been put into the wall but not enough of them mention that out there on the deserts, there are all kinds of people dying, from pregnant women and kids to old innocent people. I wonder which one of these two costs will, if ever, open people’s eyes or make them have compassion and encourage them to do something about it. I would be, not for the first time disappointed if people focused more on the monetary costs but not completely devastated if something could actually be done to stop these deaths. The question should be, does anybody deserve to die for a civil crime committed?
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/10/02-5
1 comment:
I feel as though people will always find their way to get across the border with or without a wall to cross, money is also a concern. If we are spending so much money on putting up a wall and keeping people out of our country why don't we spend that money on helping Mexico out. Create jobs and help make it safer for the people.
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