News

Nov 06, 2023

It is clearly wrong

Question: In what universe is it acceptable to refuse water to thirsty migrants desperate to cross the U.S. (or any other) border? Another question: In what universe is it acceptable to spread razor

Question: In what universe is it acceptable to refuse water to thirsty migrants desperate to cross the U.S. (or any other) border?

Another question: In what universe is it acceptable to spread razor wire alongside a river, knowing that it will trap those migrants in a tangle of twisted galvanized steel studded with tiny blades?

Answer to both questions: In no universe.

Anywhere.

Ever.

As an old farmer and friend of mine used to say, let’s throw the hay on the ground so the goats can get at it: It is simply inhumane to withhold water from people. As for razor wire, it’s designed to rip clothing and flesh -- to deter animals and humans by maiming those who try to climb over it. That, too, is inhumane.

So why in the name of all that is good, right and responsible would Texas state troopers withhold water -- in blistering hot weather, mind you -- from people trying to cross the Rio Grande from Mexico to the United States? Why would they push people back into the river as those people straggled ashore? And how could they bear to watch as men, women and children -- including babies -- became entangled in coils of razor wire?

At least one trooper couldn’t bear to watch, and that trooper -- Nicholas Wingate -- wrote an email to his superiors about the atrocities he was witnessing. Once news media outlets obtained copies of his email, the proverbial you-know-what hit the fan.

As well it should have. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist or a moral ethicist, and you don’t have to identify as a liberal, a conservative, a libertarian or anything else to know in your heart that such tactics are just wrong.

A Texas congressman named Tony Gonzales, whose south Texas congressional district includes the border, tweeted, “Border security should not equal a lack of humanity.” He is a Republican, as is Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who authorized the $4 billion deterrence initiative known as Operation Lone Star. In addition to stopping migrants at the Rio Grande, Operation Lone Star has included busing thousands of migrants to Democratic-led cities and charging migrants with trespassing.

I’m certain the congressman could tell many true, data-filled stories of the societal and economic impacts of uncontrolled borders. I’m sure statisticians could paint a vivid portrait of a border so permeable that an estimated 10,000 people illegally cross it every day from Mexico into California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. And I know the Department of Homeland Security has horrifying statistics on the illegal movement of guns, drugs and other contraband from Mexico into the United States.

So I’m not denying that illegal immigration is a serious problem for our nation or that it has been for nearly a half-century. Way back in the 1980s, Republican President Ronald Reagan warned that “the simple truth is that we’ve lost control of our own borders, and no nation can do that and survive.”

The problem begs to be solved by the White House and Congress. That hasn’t happened, however, and won’t happen as long as the men and women who inhabit those institutions are so mired in combative partisan politics that they’re unable, unwilling and too gutless to tackle it.

And no, I don’t have the answer, although I believe that there are bound to be solutions out there, as challenging as they may be to formulate and enact. But I do have a conscience, and so do you. If we listen to them, our consciences will tell us that it is wrong and shameful to physically brutalize people who are fleeing violence and deprivation in their own countries.

The state trooper whose email launched investigations into this scandal expressed it well. Of the deterrence program, he wrote, “We need to operate it correctly in the eyes of God.”

To which I can only add, “Amen, Trooper Wingate. Amen.”

Frances Coleman is a former editorial page editor of the Mobile Press-Register. Email her at [email protected] and “like” her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/prfrances.

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