BY DAMLA KALAFAT
The US is. a nation. of immigrants. It hosts 20 percent of migrants of the world, because of the numbers of migrants, Trump used unauthorized migrants' problem to win the elections. The end of the elections Trump became the president of the US and he started to make remarks immediately. First, he starts to build a wall. I will answer what is the main idea to build a wall? Why people and government against the wall? What are the consequences and effectiveness of the wall?
President Trump has used a discriminatory and nationalist campaign strategy. He involved several issues during the election time which the most important one is migration. Before the election in 2015, Trump argued that Mexicans are bringing drugs, crime, poverty by using advantages of the US illegal immigration act. Therefore, Trump builds a wall between Mexico and the US border. According to Jusionyte (2017) “monitored and supported by adequate personnel so as to prevent illegal immigration, drug, and human trafficking, and acts of terrorism.”p(2). The wall actually projects a symbolic idea because of the campaign promises of Trump. It is used as a metaphor of power which represents the economic and social problems. It represents American nationality because it is excluded non-Americans. The common argument of the undocumented Mexican workers is they are taking away from the American’s jobs from them. Trump also uses slogans in the presidential campaign. The most well-known quote is tweeted by him’’ A nation WITHOUT BORDERS is not a nation at all.’’ Therefore, Trump effect on the audience by the wall. It is represented by the ethnonational fantasy. It starts with the ‘’operational control’’ in 2017 then it changes by ‘’prevention of all unlawful entries’’. We can clearly see that how the government prepare to people for this action.
According to the House of Representatives, the construction costs of the wall will be approximately 1.6 Billion. Because of the high costs, the Senate is unwilling to pay this money. The wall caused another important problem which is; environmental impact, and Mexico-U.S relations. Because of the high cost, most of the people in the US did not want to wall. According to a Public affairs poll 58 percent against the wall. On the other hand, most of the research shows that the Mexican economy started improved significantly; therefore, fewer Mexicans want to pass across the borders nowadays. So, people argued that money should spend on education or other related problems. Also, the wall does not solve the problems because it is not effective and it caused human rights violation in many ways. Immigration reforms are more effective than the wall. There were other efficient ways to restrict to the border which are, drones, new high-tech technologies and might be surveillance cameras. Border agents argued that controlling the border is exhausting because they cannot control every part of the border. John Kelly, the Department of Homeland Security argued Trump wall policy and called that this is the beginning because ‘’it has to be a layered defense’’.
Another important issue is the property. Most of the built wall in the federally-owned land. However, the new phase of the wall built by the privately and most of the lands belong to native tribes which it is violates the right of land ownership. Therefore, the US faces facing a legal problem before the building. Also, the division is more widely affect because of the ‘’border zone’’. It is effect territorial agreements between two sides. One of these territorial agreements is; (CBP) Custom and Border protection and (ICE) Immigration and Customs Enforcement. CBP has constitutional power on immigration which affects the border control widely.
In the US there were two policies. approaches to deal with. immigrants. First. one is enforcement-only (enforcing laws and regulation for immigrants) and the second one is comprehensive. immigrant. reforms (increase legal immigration-decrease illegal immigration). These policies never became law by the. constitution. In the Obama era, the state used. to control immigrant reforms. However, Trump. used none of these. He mostly. uses federal involvement in states and local governments for identifying unauthorized foreigners. Federal involvement became a problem between cities and federal authorities. People do not want to cooperate with the federal so state threatened cut to federal money. Therefore, President Trump decided to end DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) policy which first established by Obama. The main idea of the policy gives undocumented immigrants to work permit and protection from exile. Consequently, Republicans and Democrats work together for the save to DACA. Also, there was another decision-maker to building a wall like ‘’US border control efforts’’. According to CBP, an agent of BORTAC make explores countries like Panama, Belize, Mexico, Honduras, Peru, and Ecuador. First, they find the problem in these countries, they called ‘diagnosis’’. After that, they offer ‘’prescription’’ and solve to border ‘’woes’’. It is not only happened in Latin America and Iraq. Also, the US State Department makes other restriction for countries such as Morocco, Algeria, Libya, and Turkey. BORTAC mostly related to the (EXBS) Export Control & Related Border Security Programs. DACA and BORTAC show us the walls are a physical barrier. It changes by the meaning of the concept from time to time.
Populism has a deep history of American politics. It never started by Trump but today he was more successful than others. Trump's campaign increased white populism in America. The populist movement gathered around three common areas all around the world. These are; fear of terrorist attack, fear of social change and other physical threats like migrants. The issues spread between the white people to protect their position and values which they are settled by the elected government. According to Taub (2016, November 09), scientists identified them as a ‘’authoritarian voter’’. After the election, Mexican immigrants became a major issue for the US. The migration problem caused by the domino effect for other issues such as trade. Mexico is the third largest trade partner for the US. So, the wall might damage to the North American Free Trade Agreement. Trump pledged the agreement to be re-negotiated. Today most of the people believed that the wall is xenophobic of symbols but it is probably spreading far beyond in the US borders.
REFERENCES :
Castillo, A. (2017). US-Mexico relations are officially off-the-wall. Eureka Street, 27(2), 59-61 Martin, P. L. (2017). Election of Donald Trump and migration. Migration Letters, 14(1), 161-171. Miller, T., & Nevins, J. (2017). Beyond Trump’s Big, Beatiful Wall. NACLA Report on the Americas, 49(2), 145-151. Jusionte, l. (2017). The Wall and the wash: Security, infrastructure and rescue on the US- Mexico border. Anthropoly Today, 33(3), 13-16. The Border Wall: Immigration, Security, and U.S.-Mexico Relations. (2017). Congressional Digest, 96(8), 2. Taub, A. (2016, November 09). Trump's Victory and the Rise of White Populism. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com
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