The Government finally reopened January 25, 2019, after a 35 day shut down.
Since 1976, when the United States Government implicated their new budget process, the Government has shut down twenty-one times. The shortest being a nine-hour shutdown, and the longest being the latest from our 45th President, Donald Trump.
Our government, in its previous shutdowns, have been over things such as spending cuts, foreign aid, and healthcare. This time, the United States Government shut down because Congress was split on whether or not 5.7 billion dollars should be used to fund a wall between the United States and Mexico.
Whether or not you support Trump or his agenda, you should be against this wall.
Let's start out with the plain and simple. In his campaign, he promised this wall to make America "safer" with the grand idea that Mexico would pay for it. To his supporters, this claim was mesmerizing. Now, here we are-- after a 35-day shutdown that left 800,000 people without pay for over a month. Why? Newsflash-- Mexico isn't paying for the wall, and they never were willing to. The money is coming out of our national government's funding. Taking away money that could be used to fund our broken education system, to provide assistance to the veterans living on the streets because of their struggles once returning home, and so much more, but most importantly in this case--
To speed up the asylum/citizenship process so the people who want to come to the United States can do so legally and benefit this country.
Citizenship can take years to achieve here because of backlogged applications. In fact, 730,000 applications are backlogged under President Trump-- a whopping 87% increase from former President Obama. Let's also not forget that as a step to gain citizenship, you must pass the citizenship test, which a majority of legal American citizens cannot pass themselves. Maybe, if they were reminded of our history, they would realize that we took a land that was already inhabited and made it our own by tricking Native Americans into signing contracts for land by getting them drunk along with making deals with other imperialistic countries that also claimed an unjust stake in this land we now live in.
Instead, people want to believe a President that went back on his promise of not having the financial burden of this wall laying on the backs of the hardworking inhabitants of this country.
Yes, inhabitants. The President wants to feed you false propaganda to have you believe that every immigrant from the Southern border is a dangerous, drug dealing, welfare sucking criminal. If these are all of the problems you are worried about "infesting" our country, why don't we look at our own LEGAL citizens who are doing the very things that the President and his supporters find so despicable? Yes, there is a slim amount of immigrants who are dangerous. But isn't there a small percentage of bad in every group of people? No matter what their race, ethnicity, gender, occupation or literally any other aspect of any human being, won't there be some element we find undesirable as a United States citizen?
The wall isn't going to stretch from coast to coast. There will be gaps between where "nature does its best as a barrier" between the countries. The wall will only be placed in "high-risk areas". This, too, strays from Trump's original campaign. When will we be able to trust his word when he is constantly changing it? We want the face of our nation to be trustworthy and reliable. Is this reflected in our current President?
Will the humanitarian efforts be sent to help those down at the border who want to become citizens? Will the President stick to his word? Will the government shut down again February 15th? I can't give you an answer to that.
I can tell you though, that we seem to forget that we too all have immigrant ancestry. Our ancestors too came to this land with the clothes on their backs and hope for the future, just like those at our Southern border. Again, a reminder that Mexicans inhabited the current Southern states, like Texas and Florida long before The United States of America even existed.
I can tell you that there are far worse problems within our own country that need to be addressed before a wall is built. I will tell you that the same problems we fear from immigrants are already manifested in our own citizens. I will tell you that this wall is not worthy of a state of emergency. I will tell you that this wall is a waste of our time, money and completely goes against the ideals of this country. I'm not asking you to change your political ideology, I'm just asking you to sit and think if this really is the best step to making our country safer.
