Are border walls immoral and ineffective?

My submission to the Political Posturing column in the April 2109 issue of InBusiness Magazine.

“Border walls are no more immoral or ineffective than the walls and locked doors in your home, and they are a necessity. The phrase ‘immoral and ineffective‘ made famous by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is the worst kind of political posturing. It’s a lie used as emotional propaganda, it’s unethical, and it’s morally bankrupt to use that phrase in conjunction with a discussion about a border wall.

It’s the responsibility of the U.S. government to maintain the physical security of the United States, and that includes the security and control of our entire international border. The responsibility includes putting in place physical and non physical barriers to impede anyone attempting to cross our international borders and to apprehend, prosecute, and deport those that illegally cross our international borders using all available legal means.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service says: ‘Refugee status or asylum may be granted to people who have been persecuted or fear they will be persecuted on account of race, religion, nationality, and/or membership in a particular social group or political opinion.‘

There’s no acceptable reason for any person to illegally cross the international border of a sovereign nation unless that person is actively fleeing from an immediate, and I do mean immediate, threat of physical harm.

In addition, there’s a responsibility of the person illegally crossing any international border to immediately contact authorities within the country they illegally entered to explain why they’re there and apply for asylum if they qualify.

When a person is literally hundreds if not thousands of miles away from a perceived physical danger, or asylum-qualifying persecution, the person is no longer fleeing from an immediate threat of physical harm.

Thus, saying they have the right to illegally cross the border is false and an unethical rationalization. The political left has picked the wrong hill to die on.

Any person that illegally crosses an international border should be disqualified from staying in that country unless they can prove that they were fleeing imminent physical harm.

If not, deport them.”

Regardless of all the unethical rationalizations, overblown hyperbole, and emotional tear jerking from the “but they are good illegal immigrants” crowd it comes down to this; immigrants wanting to enter the United States need to follow our immigration laws and enter the United States the legal way or they will be deported. It’s really just that simple.

On the flip side of the question, Brad Werntz wrote a hateful anti-Trump rant that ended in this statement…

This wall — like the president himself — is both immoral and ineffective.

Werntz again shows us that his hate is absolute and that hate trumps any possibility for him to think critically. The kind of thinking that causes these blind hateful reactions is the kind of thinking that will destroy the United States. When people like Werntz choose to resort to these kinds of nonsensical emotional responses it shows that he has been completely consumed by the fires of hateful division in our society that’s been intentionally spurred on by a never ending “progressive” media propaganda campaign that’s hell bent on transforming the United States into some kind of totalitarian state.

Featured Photo Credit: Hung Chung Chih / shutterstock