The Wall Professor Ramos Blog

The Wall Daniel Milliken English 101 6 August 2018 The Wall We all live on this planet called Earth. Us humans are going to be living here for hundreds of more years, but we still can’t seem to get along with our neighbors. When will we understand that no good can come from discrimination. Everyone is different in some way and it isn’t fair to assume things about people when you haven’t heard the full story. There have been many walls put up along country borders for different reasons. But There is an issue with the plan to build a wall across the Mexican – American border. The issues differ from other countries because of the negative connotations put on the Mexican people, as well as the length and cost of the wall. They say that the wall will help stop drug smugglers and illegal immigration from coming into the United States but just the wall alone isn’t going to be enough. Usually, when you build a wall of some sort you are trying to keep something out. When you think about the things on the other side o f the wall they usually have a negative connotation attached to them. There are people who can use their popularity to broadcast their beliefs which can be biased and are meant to persuade their audience into believing the same ways as them. For example, our President, Mr. Trump has said things that make his followers believe in a single story and not telling them the whole story. When Trump calls the Mexican immigrants â€Å"murderers, rapist, and thieves† he is trying to persuade his listeners to believe that all the immigrants are like that. He is using his position to make the public afraid of Mexicans so that there will be more people approving the border wall. This is causing the Mexican citizens to resent trump in every way. They are not going to work with a man who is going to accuse them of doing these things. He is making the wall become more of a race issue than a device that can help decrease illegal immigration and illegal contraband from entering the U.S, as O’Niel says in her journal â€Å"The Mexican Standoff†, â₠¬Å"In a recent Pew survey, Mexico ranked last among 37 nations in terms of public confidence in Trump.†. If he continues to belittle the Mexican people, they will soon get tired of America and return to Mexico which can put a dent in the U.S. economy as we depend a lot on migrant workers. Trump hasn’t been a good neighbor with Mexico’s President Pena Nieto. Trump was planning to meet up with Nieto, so they could discuss the wall but unfortunately, â€Å"In January, Trump took to Twitter to declare that Peà ±a Nieto should not come to Washington unless he would agree to pay for the border wall. Peà ±a Nieto, humiliated, canceled the trip† (O’Niel). I’m sure this is not the right way to speak to someone when you want them to help you figure out a solution to a problem. There have been many situations in which a wall across the border of two countries can help. Let’s take the southern immigration border of Israel for instance. Esteban Flores says, â€Å"The wall- which is more of a fence- is made of steel and barbed wire and stands surrounded by unending hills of desert sand and brush.†. The wall is approximately 150 miles long and the U.S. invested $400 million. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that the creation of the wall has stopped all illegal immigration, but the wall isn’t the only thing that helped the illegal immigration rate go down. The Israel government has made it difficult for immigrants to enter the country and made it less desirable to live there as an immigrant. Because of the relatively small wall, the Israeli government has been able to maintain the number of people crossing illegally because they can patrol and respond to breaches quickly. There is also a Steel barrier that Egypt has cre ated to stop the contraband from coming in from Gaza. This wall is made out of bombproof, super steel and extends 20 meters underground. Even with the wall going deep underground they still had problems with smugglers digging tunnels underneath. The only way to prevent this was to place another underground wall that would force Palestinians to dig deeper and deeper. The Mexican American border is close to 1,700 miles long and the expected price of the wall is estimated to be around 10 billion dollars. At first, when they questioned who was going to pay for the wall Trump would say â€Å"Mexico†. The president of Mexico has said that Mexico is not going to be paying for the wall. This is a problem for Trump because the cost is now going to have to come out of our own pocket. There are things that can be done to keep the border safe, but it comes at a price. If Trump wants the border to be really secured he would need to greatly increase the border patrol enforcement. They will need to be able to monitor the entire length of the wall during all hours of the day. There is a lot of wall that would need to be gotten to quickly if there was to be a breach. There would also have to be an underground barricade of some sort to keep them from just digging tunnels underneath the wall. If Trump was to block off the border completely then it might cau se the illegal immigrants to cross through the sea. This is a problem because when they cross illegally the paths they take are not always the safest. For all of this to come together it is estimated to cost more than double the original 10 billion. The plan to secure the borders and stop the illegal immigration is a great idea but the truth is there is not enough money. The wall is more of a statement piece as of now. Annotated Bibliography O’Neil, Shannon K. The Mexican Standoff: Trump and the Art of the Workaround. [Foreign Affairs].  Foreign Affairs, vol. 96, no. 5, Sep/Oct2017, pp. 43-49. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=truedb=khhAN=125669789site=ehost-live. this article is focused on Trumps relation with the Mexican president and how he treats other countries. I am using this article to show specifics that had happened between the two and how it effects the citizens. I believe this is a scholarly source because it was published on a scholarly website and has a credible author Dorsey, Margaret â€Å"Beyond Surveillance and Moonscapes: An Alternative Imaginary of the U.S._Mexico Border Wall† Visual Anthropology Review Nov 1, 2010://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2sid=61c2e2ff-b002-4155-95cf-6f690c83b8d4%40sessionmgr120 In this article Dorsey is explaining the negative effects putting up the Mexican American border wall and how it effects the citizens of Mexico. I’m using this source to help explain how Trump is using his power to portray Mexican citizens a certain way. This is credible because the author is educated in the subject. Flores, Esteban. Walls of Separation: An Analysis of Three Successful BorderWalls.  Harvard International Review, vol. 38, no. 3, Summer2017, pp. 10-12.EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=truedb=bshAN=123620519site=ehost-live. This article gives examples of the other countries that have built walls to keep illegal immigration and contraband out of their own country. I’m using it in my article because I am able to show what is needed to create the right border wall that would be the most effective.