Our Take On the Wall

It’s always fun to start with a disclaimer, so here’s one of those: 

Generally one of us is going to start with our take on something and the other one is going to read it and respond. That’ll work when we’re tackling heavy issues like “Should Alternate Oreo Flavors Exist??”. 

For our first post, though, we decided to break the norm (that we really haven’t even established) and write our pieces blind. You see, we’re totally comfortable talking about bodily functions, our marriages, or death, but politics is tricky. We wanted you to know all of this because you’re going to wonder why we didn’t take the time to take each other on point-by-point. The truth is that we love each other, and we don’t want to fight because we’re not going to change each other’s minds. We’re WAY too bullheaded.  

His Take: 

Before you even start to read this, unfortunately, I have to tell you that I'm NOT a racist. I say unfortunately because as soon as I tell you that I'm in favor of a wall as part of border security, the average person will automatically assume that I hate Mexicans and want only white people in the country and that I have a confederate flag hanging in my garage. This couldn't be farther from the truth, my confederate flag is on the wall behind the bar in my basement. I KEED!!! It is too bad that people with conservative beliefs are lumped into a redneck, racist stereotype, but that's a story for a different time. What we're tackling today, though, is the need for a wall along the border between the United States and Mexico. Now, I know that Mexico isn't a very wealthy nation, but TONS of people vacation in Mexico every year and enjoy some great weather, beautiful oceans and tons of other activities and sightseeing. So why the heck are people trying to get outta that country? 

According to statistics, as of January 2015, there were around 12 million illegal immigrants living in the US. I have to wonder what life is like for them. Just imagine, you leave all your friends and family behind, manage to get into this country with little more than the clothes on your back. You have to find a place to stay, you have to find work and of course, that place has to hire undocumented workers. You need to get some form of ID so that you can get a bank account or get paid from your job. Then you spend the rest of your life constantly looking over your shoulder, worrying about the police, Immigration, and any other kind of law enforcement. Is this really anyone's ideal life? 

I haven't even touched on the criminal aspect of this. In every group of people, there are always a few bad apples. We've got plenty here already, and some of the people that come into this country illegally are no different. There's huge money to be made off drugs coming into this country every day. If some of these people get caught, they have to be given a trial. This costs the US money. If convicted, they might receive jail time. This costs the US BIG money, as we have to clothe, feed and pay the guards who work at the jail. Bottom line, it costs $87.61 per day to keep a prisoner in jail. That's $31,977.65 per year. 

Now, let's look at this from a different perspective. Illegal immigrants cost the United States around $54 billion dollars in 2013. Do you have any idea what we, as a country, could do with 54 billion dollars? Better teachers, better roads, better parks. Most of all it would go a long way in feeding the homeless right here in our country. We could also educate the homeless, not to mention those who can't afford an education so that they could get jobs and make better lives for themselves. That's just the tip of the iceberg, really. 

The Presidents wall may not be a PERFECT solution, but it's certainly a step in the right direction. Not only will it be physically harder for people to come into this country, but it's also sending a message that we, as a country will not be taken advantage of. What do you think of a country where people can just come in whenever they want, do whatever they want, and we basically just sit there and not only take it, but we pay for it too. As the President has said, there should be a great big fat door in the wall for people to come through. LEGALLY. We need people from other countries to come in and make a home here in the United States. Other citizens of the world have SOOO much to offer. It would be an honor for some of the brilliant minds out there to make their home in our country. Don't get me wrong, I'm not of the "What can you do for us?" mindset. There should be a mix of people that can come into the country each year. As long as it's done LEGALLY. 

Each year, on average, the US gives over 700,000 people citizenship. That's about one person every 79 seconds To compare, Canada made 128,996 people citizens last year. I'd say we're being pretty generous. 

In the early '80s my mom met a man who was visiting this country from the Philippians, They fell in love and got married. Shortly after getting married mom, my new dad, and me moved to Los Angeles because the job market there was a little bit better there than in central Wisconsin. After getting "settled" in LA, my dad soon began the process of becoming a US citizen. I remember them going through countless interviews about their marriage. Let's just say that the people doing the interviewing were less than polite about the whole situation. They tried to put the fear of God in my mom that as soon as he became a citizen, dad was going to leave her. They also tried to get my dad to "admit" that he had only married my mom for a green card. They tried not to let it get to them, and eventually, it was time for my dad to take his citizenship test. I remember dad studying day and night for that thing. He would get home after working a long day and hit the books. He studied at night, on the weekends, and whenever he had 10 minutes to spare. Finally, the big day came and he passed his test by getting 100% of the questions right. When I hear of people coming into the country illegally, it feels to me like they're pissing on my dads' shoes. And my moms. And every other person in the history of this country. I for one, take offense at that. Do the people coming in illegally think they can't pass the test? 

And now that it's come down to crunch time, and the President wants to start on the wall, Democrats are doing anything they can to prevent it from happening. The President has stuck to his guns and shut down the government. Again, leaders of the Democratic party are having a fit. Crypt Keeper stunt double Nancy Pelosi has called the wall "immoral". Wait, it's immoral to take action on preventing something that's against the law? Maybe somebody needs to explain to her that the first part of the term "illegal alien" means against the law. If any other law was being broken I guarantee this would not be the case. So, why is it okay for people to break this one? 

  

Her Take:  

My family comes from Prussia. Well, part of my family anyway. My father’s grandparents on his father’s side emigrated from Prussia just before the turn of the Century-before-last and ended up in Central Wisconsin.  

The climate and landscape here make it the immigration equivalent of COPY>PASTE so it’s totally logical that they - and a whole lot of other Prussians - settled where they did.  

Now, you might ask yourself: “Where is Prussia?”  

Good question. Prussia isn’t. 

It was an independent and diverse little nation adjacent to Germany before the early 1900’s when Germany did… well, Germany was busy for about the first half of that century, right? 

I could make up a gut-wrenching story about how my ancestors ran for their lives from the oncoming military storm and it might be true. What also might be true is that one day the husband looked at his wife and said “This place is kind of a craphole and it’s not going to get better, wanna go to Wisconsin?” but, like, in German.  

That’s not the point. The point is that there was a time and a place where that family could decide that this place I’m in now would be better for them and come here and be better.  

And because of that, I show up about 80 years later. Like a friggin’ angel.  

Just kidding.  

Can I tell you that it’s objectively good and right that my great-great-grandparents were able to immigrate to the US? I mean, it takes a lot of people being in the right place at the right time to make a human (Not just the two you’re thinking of.. The 4 before that, and the 8 before that, and so on.) so I’m not going to complain about it working out for my brother and me. We appreciate life and all.  

But I don’t really think that “I’m here and I’m awesome” is the answer to immigration? 

We also have cousins that are serious liabilities so, yeah, if you could reverse engineer that move from Prussia, the an argument against it could be made.  

In light of that, what’s the point here?  

Here ‘tis: They had the chance to leave there, come here, do the things families do to grow, and play the odds that we’re going to make a contribution.  

Let me be totally honest, I equate an Anti-Immigrant sentiment too closely with Anti-Us and it stresses me out. The confluence of humans that made me have only been in the US for 4 generations or less and if they hadn’t had a chance I - and my kids, and my granddaughter who is really the one we’re all relying on to redeem us - wouldn’t either.  

My mother is the daughter of a Norwegian immigrant. My grandfather lost all of his brothers in WWI and came to the US as a Merchant Marine. This isn’t ancient history for us.   

I watch the coverage of the debate over the Wall, which has turned into the debate over the Government Shutdown because we just have smoosh all of the issues together and make it impossible to sort out, and I’m not just angry, I’m heartbroken.  

How did we let ourselves get here, brothers and sisters? To be so afraid of other human beings that we’d sooner let them starve in tents at our southern border than find a path to the citizenship that our grandparents had? 

Here’s what I really and truly believe: 

People assume that building ‘A Wall’, which will actually be steel slats and not a wall at all, is a easy solution because it’s big and expensive, but it’s not the solution at all.  

The problem it vastly more complicated so there’s no easy solution, but there is a place we can start. We start by understanding that the crisis some of us see at the border was bought and paid for by good ‘ol American ingenuity. We’ve helped - intentionally or not - Central American governments and the cartels that control them make victims out of entire populations. We’ve looked away as our neighbors have lived in fear and we’ve made it easy for the wrong kind of people to make vasts amounts of money along the way.  

Now isn’t the time to blame the families who’s lot in life it was to be born into this destruction. It’s the time to seriously, carefully sort through the rubble, save the people, and then rebuild.  

This is what the United States did for my family and it’s something we can always do.