This is a terrible injustice that needs to be changed. This wall, along with the wall that Israel built around the Palestinian people, needs to be torn down. It's void of comapassion and it's completely inhumane.


The Injustice of an 800 Mile Wall
by John Carlos Frey 02-05-2010


I was born in Tijuana, Mexico, and grew up in San Diego, California, only a few hundred yards from the actual borderline. As a kid, there were always border patrols around but I never felt like my birthplace offered any threat. A few years ago, though, I noticed a massive escalation of security infrastructure along the U.S.-Mexico border. I couldn’t figure out what had changed. How had Mexico and our neighbors to the south become a threat? Did we really need to spend billions of dollars on fencing, technology and thousands more border guards? And was any of it working? I decided to investigate, and to document my findings.






From 2007 to 2009, I followed the construction of what is now close to 800 miles of border security infrastructure along the U.S.-Mexico international boundary. What I found was a mess. Dozens of environmental laws were being waived in order to acquire land to build the new border walls. New technology for border security enforcement was over-priced and non-functional. The natural landscape was permanently scarred to ‘protect’ us from migrants. The assessment from scholars, government agencies and even the border patrol was that this multi-billion dollar effort was not going to solve America’s immigration problems. All of these details on their own would have made a compelling documentary. But there was something even more conspicuous and tragic than the blunders and cost overruns: increased border security was proving to be a massive killer.

According to numerous reports, migrant deaths were escalating, and increased border security was the culprit. Migrants were being funneled into more remote areas than ever before. In 2009, because of the slumping economy, though migration as a whole was down by thirty percent, migrant deaths were up – there were less people crossing but more people dying.

That’s what caught my attention and that is the reality that The 800 Mile Wall exposes. There is a human rights crisis occurring on U.S. soil. Thousands of people have already died, and thousands more will die until U.S. immigration law is reformed. Migrants are drawn to the U.S. with the promise of low wage jobs and then forced through a deadly obstacle course to get here. U.S. border policies are inhumane and not worthy of a country that calls itself a nation of immigrants.

The 800 Mile Wall is about to embark on a nationwide tour to raise awareness about this under-reported, ongoing atrocity. If comprehensive immigration reform fails to deal with migrant deaths at the U.S.-Mexico border, it is neither comprehensive nor reform. As a nation that prides itself on respecting human rights, the death penalty needs to be removed from U.S. border security policy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMWSYGpOwVY


John Carlos Frey is an award-winning director whose films include The 800 Mile Wall, The Gatekeeper, The Invisible Mexicans of Deer Canyon, and The Invisible Chapel. He is currently working on a series of documentaries on the Latino experience in the United States as well as a new feature film, The Lone Star.



Love, Connie

Just a note to add that, although Sen. John McCain speaks nice words in this video it was his party that constructed that wall and added onto the border patrol. McCain is a party liner and goes along with anything his party does. So I am not fooled by his words here. He has not even made the inhmanity and injustice of this wall an issue, either in his bid for the Presidency or in Congress.

And Talk about a waste of tax dollars!!!!!!!

Here in Michigan Homeland Security brought some of these new border patrol people up from Arizona and placed them at the Blue Water Bridge in Port Huron and at the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. However, they don't just stay at the bridge. They also drive down the streets of my city in their black vans that say U.S. Border Patrol on the side in white lettering as a way of intimidating the many Middle Eastern immigrants who live in the neighboring city of Sterling Heights. It's a whole lot like the Gestapo of Hitler's regime in my mind and not something I like to see in what is supposed to be a nation of immigrants and a nation of freedom and justice for all.