Five days after taking office, President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 13767, which authorized the building of a wall on our Southern border and other measures to increase the number of immigration officers to defend our borders against illegal...
August 30, 2017
The Wall Is the Centerpiece for Asserting American Sovereignty
Five
days after taking office, President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 13767,
which authorized the building of a wall on our Southern border and other
measures to increase the number of immigration officers to defend our borders
against illegal crossings. This authorization for a physical wall has a cost,
estimated by the Department of Homeland Security, of over $20 billion. However,
Congress has not yet taken action to fund this project or the envisioned
increase in immigration enforcement personnel. To say that Trump’s commitment
and authorization to build a wall has ignited extreme controversy would be an
understatement. Some pundits are claiming that we are on the brink of civil war, and that
polarization is in no small measure because of the wall which was the
centerpiece of Trump’s campaign and his legislative initiatives.
This
authorization follows earlier legislation passed as a bipartisan measure, theSecure Fence Act, in October
2006. That legislation, depicted by Harry Reid and other Democratic Party
leaders, as the brainchild of the extreme right wing of the Republican Party,
nevertheless received 26 Democrat votes in the Senate
with only 17 opposed. Obviously, opposition to the act was more
“extreme” than the act itself. The need for restraining the flow across our
porous borders was and is an undeniable reality, and commitment to a high cost
project covering about 700 miles was properly deemed necessary.
Further,
we had a two-tiered fence rather than a wall, augmented with some hi-tech
surveillance equipment. Even this commitment was considered by many to be an
economic albatross and Republican Sen. Fay Hutchison (R-KA), in 2007 at the
urging of the Department of Homeland Security, offered an amendment to
the Secure Fence Act giving DHS wider latitude in deciding the extent of
fencing versus electronic surveillance would be appropriate. The amendment
passed.
This controversy over a wall is not unique in the
annals of history. Israel has built a wall longer
than 700 km to keep out Palestinian Arabs now living in Judea and Samaria
(often called the West Bank). To supporters of Israel, this wall is deemed an
essential defense against terrorism. But for the manic opposition, the wall is
portrayed in a bogus way as Israeli apartheid. Further, anunderground wall to protect
Israel from Gazan terrorists coming through tunnels is also being erected. And a third wall to prevent
overwhelming Syrian migration is also in the works. Hungary has also erected a razor wire wall to
protect itself from being overwhelmed by refugees, and, in 2008, Poland re-erected a wall on
beaches shared with Germans in order to prevent German nudists from flooding
the more modest Polish beaches. (Walls do not always pertain to matters of life
and death.)
Throughout
history, many notable walls have been erected. Hadrian’s Wall was constructed
by the Roman emperor between the North Sea and the Irish Sea and was about 80
miles long. It protected Britain from the barbarians who lived to the north.
The Great Wall of China, built in
the 14th century, runs about 4500 miles and is 15-30 feet high.
In
addition, there is fencing or a wall between India and
Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, Bangladesh, and India, part of the
Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea, part of the China-Hong Kong
border, and the Hungary-Serbia border.
However,
Trump’s projected wall has generated controversy not only because of practical
questions about the effectiveness of the wall, the cost of the wall, the length
of the wall, and the relative merits of a wall vs. a fence vs. technological
surveillance vs. barriers. Rather, the wall is controversial because it has
become symbolic of deep ideological and social rifts between rival politicians,
commentators, and so-called activists (i.e., underminers of law and order) and
our newly elected President.
This
practical and symbolic controversy has its best parallel in history in the
rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem by Nehemiah. That wall had
originally been destroyed, along with Solomon’s Temple (“the First Temple”) by
the Babylonians in the early 6th century BC. Babylonia in turn was conquered by
Persia, and the Persian king Artaxerxes gave Nehemiah permission to return to
Jerusalem with a group of men to rebuild the wall.
When
Nehemiah arrived, he met incredible opposition by the non-Jewish locals -- the
Ashdodites, the Ammonites, the Arabs, and the Horonites -- led by Tobiah and
Sanballat. Not only that but he was even opposed by Jews living in the land who
had managed to remain despite the earlier Babylonian invasion. The poorer
Judeans living in the area near Jerusalem were suffering debt and economic
exploitation by certain wealthier Jews, as well as being beleaguered by a
hostile non-Jewish population (groups named above). The building of the wall,
and heightened opposition to the wall by the locals only added to their
socioeconomic burdens.
They
were being crushed from above by their own rulers, and horizontally by local
Jew-hating tribes. The poor Jews cried out a list of oppressions to Nehemiah as
they complained about his “wall controversy” which only added to their burdens.
Even today, about 2600 years later, reading their list of oppressions should
tear at the heart of any reader of the book of Nehemiah (chapter 5). Nehemiah
listened to their pleas and insisted that the debt burden and tax burden of the
Jewish people be reduced or eliminated altogether by their rulers. And Nehemiah
prevailed. He was a leader’s leader, and carried the prophetic imprimatur of a
holy God to support his mission.
Nehemiah’s
enemies did everything they could to prevent the building of the wall. They
relentlessly mocked his workers. In today’s climate we see endless mockery of
Trump by Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, and even, though in a less vitriolic
way, Jimmy Fallon. They belittled his work by depicting the work as inadequate
and superficial. They were in a constant rage at the work. The opposition to
Nehemiah invited him to meet with them and work with them; yet in reality they
meant him harm, and Nehemiah wisely saw through their strategies.
The
opposition hired prophets of doom who were predicting terrible outcomes for
Nehemiah and his rebuilding project. Are not the so-called reporters of the
mainstream media -- Don Lemon, Wolf Blitzer, Jim Acosta, Joe Scarborough,
Shepard Smith, etc. -- and mouthpieces of the Democratic Party establishment
modern counterparts of the prophets of doom hired to predict failure and to
utter vicious curses upon Trump’s projects, ideas, and ideals?
High level
peer pressure was put on Nehemiah. Many of the Jewish nobles in the area were
related to the oppositon by intermarriage into the family of Tobiah, one of the
leaders of the Ammonite opposition. Thus, even the Jews in the locality were
connected with the non-Jewish elite. Today, the deeply entrenched elite, fondly
called “the swamp” or “the sewer” by the so-called deplorables and Trumptards,
led by John McCain, Mitch McConnell, and Lindsey Graham in the Senate and Paul
Ryan in the House, are examples of those committed to denying Trump his agenda.
Despite
the relentless opposition to Nehemiah, we
read “So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of the
month Elul, in fifty-two days. When all our enemies heard of it, and all the
nations surrounding us saw it, they lost their confidence; for they recognized
that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God.” Yet, the
Scripture, filled with holy realism, also
states, “Tobiah [leader of the opposition] sent letters to frighten
me.” The enemy will never publicly admit that it has been overshadowed, let
alone defeated.
May it
please God, the readers of this article, and the American electorate, the wall
on our Southern border will be built, the opposition will lose confidence, and
their never-ending fearmongering will continue to be mocked and spurned.
ILLEGALS
& WELFARE
70% OF
ILLEGALS GET WELFARE!
“According
to the Centers for Immigration Studies, April '11, at least 70% of Mexican
illegal alien families receive some type of welfare in the US!!! cis.org”
CIS
So when cities across the country declare that they will NOT be
sanctuary, guess where ALL the illegals, criminals, gang members fleeing ICE
will go???? straight to your welcoming city. So ironically the people fighting
for sanctuary city status, may have an unprecedented crime wave to deal with
along with the additional expense.
$17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the
American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.
$12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary
school
education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of
English.
education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of
English.
$22 billion is spent on (AFDC) welfare to illegal aliens each
year.
$2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs
such as
(SNAP) food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.
(SNAP) food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.
$3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.
30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal
aliens.Does not include local jails and State Prisons.
2012 illegal aliens sent home $62 BILLION in remittances back to
their
countries of origin. This is why Mexico is getting involved in our
politics.
countries of origin. This is why Mexico is getting involved in our
politics.
$200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are
caused by the illegal aliens.
Nearly One Million Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In
The United States.
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