As I watch the unified Marxist party fight the President and freedom caucus over funding for the border wall, the intense push-back doesn't make sense to me. How can anyone have an issue with keeping bad people out, and forcing everyone through an application and verification process? Even if you disagree with the wall concept, why the radically devout opposition?
I remember this article from the LA Times, this snippet in particular:
Border Patrol agents discovered a drug-trafficking tunnel west of the San Ysidro border crossing this week after a sinkhole gave away its location.
The tunnel had yet to be completed but was already showing the tell-tale signs of a sturdy trafficking passage, including a rail and air ventilation system.
The sinkhole exposed a tunnel, one of countless undiscovered connectors running under the southern border. That was one single tunnel, never discovered by law enforcement. How many are there?
Years ago I had a contractor I used on some real estate projects who did work with the government on drug-trafficking tunnels. He told me I would not believe the size of the underground tunnel network and how many exist. When you conceptualize the length of the border, that's a hell of a lot of ground to cover. One tunnel is like what an earthworm digs in your backyard.
When I saw the President refer to the wall as "slats", it hit me. These slats are close enough where people can't squeeze between them, so essentially inch-by-inch these slats would be nailed into the ground. It seems to be that any tunnels under the areas the wall will be installed will be discovered. Every single one. I'm sure this was going to happen regardless of the structure of the wall, and to secure them into the ground may or may not really be like driving a nail, but referring to slats got me thinking about what the wall is really about.
For those involved on border security related projects, this may be assumed and common knowledge, but for many of us on the outside that don't have expertise on this topic, we're thinking in the context of stopping the flow of inbound invaders, like what happened a few weeks ago. Stopping the flow of traffic above ground is what the wall is about, but it's about shutting down underground traffic as well.
Where do these tunnels lead? What properties are nodes for these tunnels? Who owns these properties? Who are on the deeds? Who are they involved with? What organizations are they part of? It seems there's a lot to learn about who's involved with these tunnel networks.
With this in mind, if you're a politician involved with enabling human trafficking, you're going to be aggressively against this border wall. A politician who is against the wall in principal would say something like "I don't like it, but the President, who ran and won on it, wants it, the people clearly want it as we can see with that GoFundMe campaign, DHS and ICE want it and they're experts, so I'll go on record against it but will vote for it since everyone else wants it."
When you and I hear the President say "I'm going to build a wall", the bad guys hear "I'm going to discover and literally nail shut every human trafficking tunnel under every inch of the border." The bill with wall funding passed the House yesterday, so it will be interesting to see who opposes it in the Senate.
