Why I Do Not Support Trump's Wall

Phew, I'm back from the March for Life in Washington, D.C. It was a long day, especially with being on a charter bus full of rambunctious high school freshmen, but the trip was worth it in every respect. There was a special energy and purpose to the march this year, and the crowd was huge. The media coverage may have been grudging, partial, and condescending, but who cares? All it would take is a good Supreme Court nominee next week for me to retract my skepticism about President Trump's pro-life statements.

In a few political posts, however, I've let slip that I think Trump gets other issues related to human dignity dead wrong. Not that I won't stand behind Trump all the way in regard to overturning Roe v. Wade and restricting abortion in any other way, but these things do need to be said.

Which brings me to the border wall.

Yes, yes, reasonable people can disagree about prudential matters. But reasonable people also reason about prudential matters. So, please, hear me out.

Shantytown poverty on the outskirts of Lima, Peru.

Even Pope Francis, who implied during the campaign that Trump would not be a Christian if he built a border wall, has said elsewhere that "those who govern must also exercise prudence" with respect to controlling their borders. So, the pope's unfortunate hyperbole during the campaign aside, building a wall between the United States and Mexico is not per se un-Christian. To say that those who support the building of the wall are ipso facto not Christians is equally unhelpful.

There are many devout, serious Christians, including many whom I count as friends, who sincerely believe that the border wall is a necessary and prudent measure in order to protect integrity of the southern U.S. border. It is indisputable that millions of dollars worth of drugs and weapons pass over the border every year. Dangerous criminals cross back and forth over the Rio Grande with impunity. Human traffickers extort desperate people and regularly put them in harm's way.

But what effect would the border wall have? How would these matters change for the better if we were to build a wall stretching the length of the U.S.-Mexico border? A reasonable person needs to ask these questions before supporting the construction of a wall at the cost of billions of dollars. Given the drug-running tunnels that border agents regularly discover in populated areas, I would wager that a significant percentage of the illegal activity would continue unabated, no matter how many miles of wall were added to the border. Remember, these tunnels are usually constructed in highly populated areas, including, for example, the half-mile tunnel discovered last year extending from a modest house in Tijuana to an industrial park near San Diego.

Where there is cash, there is a way. Criminals, drugs, weapons--all these will continue to flow into the United States no matter how high a wall the Trump administration builds. Increased funding for border agents and patrols would certainly help, and yes, I know that's also part of the plan. A physical brick-and-mortar wall running the length of the border, though, not so much.

Again, reasonable people can disagree on prudential matters. That's what the pope was getting at in the second of the quotations that I provided. But reasonable people also discuss the facts on the ground in order to make prudential judgements, for example, whether to support the construction of a border wall or to oppose it. For myself, I am unconvinced that the facts on the ground related to drugs and terrorist activity support the construction of this wall.

The wall, however, might make it harder for innocent people to cross the Rio Grande in search of a better life in the United States. For all the hyperbole of Pope Francis' comment about Trump not being a Christian, for all the imprudence of his saying so during the election cycle, it makes sense in light of the thousands of African and Middle Eastern refugees who have fled from starvation or persecution only to drown in the Mediterranean or suffocate in the back of trucks in Austria and Turkey. The Holy Father sees Europe's reaction to the influx of Muslim immigrants as xenophobia, a repudiation of Christ, who said, "I was a stranger, and you welcomed me" (Matthew 25:35).

With the recent bombings in France and Germany, with the cold-blooded killing of Fr. Jacques Hamel in the midst of celebrating Mass, European Christians aren't universally receptive to the Holy Father's message. Despite Church leaders conflating these issues, I will leave the European crisis and Trump's executive order banning travel from Muslim-majority countries prone to terrorism for future posts. The facts on the ground are different in these different cases. Reasonable people disagree, and the Holy Father's impassioned comments aside, prudential decisions may differ.

With the U.S.-Mexico border, however, we are not talking about potential terrorists. Latinos have been crossing the border to the benefit of everybody for decades. They pick our produce, trim our Christmas trees, and clean our office buildings. They pay taxes, even if they crossed the border illegally and make use of a fake social security number. In the second generation, they are our classmates in high school and college, our colleagues at work. The particular irony for Catholics is that these strangers are, by and large, fellow Catholics. The stranger we refuse to to welcome is not a stranger at all, but family.

What is at stake except a matter of basic human dignity? Take away terrorist threats and drug and weapon trafficking, as I think an examination of the facts on the ground will do, and what will be left except an un-Christian fear of the other?  Far be it from me to level the charge of xenophobia against my serious-minded friends who support the border wall, but I haven't seen any benefit to the border wall except making it harder for us to welcome the stranger. While reasonable people disagree on prudential matters and come to different conclusions, that doesn't make all conclusions equal.