Chris Powell: Trump's border wall beats Conn. AG's demagogic posturing

President Trump looking at new border wall prototypes in San Diego, in March 2018.

Connecticut Atty. Gen. William Tong has joined a lawsuit with 15 other states against President Trump's declaration of a federal emergency, which the president plans to use to justify spending otherwise-appropriated money to complete a wall across the Mexican border. Tong says that he aims to protect the U.S. Constitution and the state, but, accusing the president of "racism and hate," he is engaging mainly in the demagogic posturing that characterized his recent campaign.

Tong notes that Congress has refused to authorize spending for the wall and that diverting funds to build it could hamper federal projects in Connecticut. Further, the attorney general and other Democratic officials in Connecticut and nationally argue that illegal immigration is not really an emergency.

But federal law authorizes such money transfers upon an emergency declaration and leaves the president to define emergencies. So even legal analysts who disdain Trump expect the lawsuit against the declaration to fail at the Supreme Court.

Besides, those who object to Trump's emergency declaration long have gotten far too comfortable with illegal immigration.

Illegal immigration was supposed to have been stopped by the Simpson-Mazzoli Act of 1986, which bestowed a grand amnesty on illegal immigrants in exchange for more border security, but the border security never materialized. So today the foreign-born proportion of the U.S. population is higher than ever; the country's illegal population is estimated at 11 million; most illegals intercepted at the border enjoy the government's hapless practice of "catch and release"; most of those released never appear for court proceedings, instead disappearing into the ever-growing communities of illegals throughout the country, like New Haven, one of the first "sanctuary cities"; and there is less assimilation and more separatism by immigrants.

While Tong postures against "racism and hate," his party's legislators in the General Assembly are advancing legislation to require medical insurers to sell policies to illegal immigrants, which will be more facilitation of illegal immigration and more nullification of federal law on top of the driver's licenses and tuition discounts Connecticut already offers illegals.

Yes, there may be better measures than a wall for stopping illegal immigration -- like requiring all employers to use the "e-Verify" system of confirming eligibility for employment, and imposing serious penalties on employers of illegals.

But most Democrats oppose such measures and anything that might substantially reduce illegal immigration. And while Democrats in Congress complain about the cost of Trump's wall, every month they happily sneeze away far more money on the futile 18-year military adventure in Afghanistan. Trump's wall won't be perfectly effective, but it will be far more effective and humane than what the Democrats condone in Afghanistan.

Despite the attorney general's demagoguery, there is nothing racist or hateful in controlling immigration so the country knows what it is getting -- whether it is getting people of decent character and skills, people who want to live in a democratic and secular society rather than a totalitarian and theocratic one, people who want to become Americans and help build the country, or people who just want to undercut wages in menial work and wire the money back across the border or exploit the country's generous welfare system.

So even if illegal immigration isn't an emergency, at least Trump sees it as a problem. His wall beats the Democrats' nullification.


Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer, in Manchester, Conn.

Sergio Avila: Border wall on U.S.-Mexican border would imperil wildlife

Jaguar in Arizona.

Via OtherWords.org

Some Americans think of the U.S.-Mexico border as a wasteland. In fact, the mountains and deserts of our borderlands are teeming with wildlife.

Here you’ll find large cats such as the jaguar, the subject of my research.

Jaguar sightings have been reported in New Mexico and Arizona for over a century, even as far north as the Grand Canyon. Their presence is a stamp of approval — they mean healthy habitats, prey populations and the connection of critical wildlife corridors across the border.

Humans, after all, aren’t the only animals that cross the border. And they aren’t the only ones whose lives will be disrupted if a Trump administration border wall slices through cross-border wildlife corridors like Big Bend National Park in Texas and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona.

Unfortunately, a federal court recently approved waivers for dozens of environmental and health safeguards in these border regions — all so that wall can go up.

That means the border communities who oppose this wall and fear its destruction of the surrounding lands will have to swallow a wall with no public process. It means there will be no comment period, no baseline research on impact, and a lack of monitoring throughout the building process.

A wildlife preserve in Socorro County, New Mexico (Photo: Michael Littlejohn / Flickr)

And the worst part is, there will be no way to hold the government accountable.

It started when Congress passed the Real ID Act. Though it was billed as an immigration security measure, it gave the government the power to waive the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, the Wilderness Act, and even the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, among others.

Since then, miles of border infrastructure have been built along the California, Arizona, and Texas border despite a majority of people in those states opposing the wall. So far, the Trump administration alone has waived 37 laws in San Diego, 28 in Calexico, California, and 23 in Santa Teresa, New Mexico.

Protected areas on both sides of the border are the stepping stones for jaguars to move through and reach new territories. Without legal protection, the wall will destroy their habitat — forever risking their future in the region.

Human communities are at risk, too.

This waiver power resulted in extreme flooding that led to at least two deaths in Nogales, Arizona. According to Harvard researchers, the blockage of underground drainage and natural water routes through Arizona’s border created an effect like a burst dam after strong summer storms.

Other waivers threaten to pollute air and watersheds for hundreds of miles into the borderlands.

This is more than a red flag. It’s a human rights issue.

The Government Accountability Office has failed to provide any conclusions about the benefits of this mission to “protect” the border at all costs. But those of us who actually live in the borderlands have to live with its consequences.

It means the dangers of contaminated water sources, the destruction of our lands, the deaths of our brothers and sisters, and the evisceration of treasured local species like the jaguar.

We — and our public lands in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas — are the ones paying the highest price for this unchecked and unnecessary power.

Sergio Avila is an outdoors coordinator for the Sierra Club in the Southwest region. He’s studied the impacts of border infrastructure for over 14 years.