Thread: Blaming border fence for deaths makes little sense SDUT

San Diego Union Tribune Editorial

Misplaced anger

Blaming border fence for deaths makes little sense
Tuesday, December 1, 2009 at 12:01 a.m.

Those immigration activists who oppose more border fencing don’t have to convince us of the folly of trying to solve our immigration problem with nothing more than barbed wire and metal barriers. We’re with them. Unlike those Americans who’d like to simply build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and call it a day, we’ve never been convinced that this was a wise strategy.

Here’s just one reason: Whenever we build more fencing, we discourage reverse migration to the south and sever the ties between immigrants and their families and homeland. At that point, the immigrants are orphaned and might as well stay here. So, counterintuitively, every time we build more walls, we wind up with more immigrants.

But, at the same time, nor are we persuaded by one of the more emotional and grotesque arguments offered by fencing opponents – in essence, that fences kill people. That seems to be the message behind the displays of art that have popped up in the last two decades on the barriers themselves as a defiant form of political expression.

According to a recent article in the Union-Tribune, the symbols used by local artists and immigration activists include thousands of wooden crosses, painted coffins and images of skulls. There is even one exhibit of old shoes with toe tags attached. Each display is more outrageous than the last. And they can be found all along the border, on the side of the fence that faces south. A lot of it started with Operation Gatekeeper, a federal enforcement initiative in the mid-1990s that riled local immigration activists and led to concerns about border deaths.

We respect the passion on display here. But still, you have to wonder about the psychology behind these kinds of protests. The argument seems to be that the United States government, because it has the audacity to believe that it has a right to control its border, is responsible for these deaths because it forced countless numbers of illegal immigrants to try to get around these barriers by going through what often turns out to be much more treacherous terrain to the east. What happens after that is hardly the government’s fault.

Fences don’t kill people. Decisions kill people. People make their own decisions – to come to the United States illegally, to try to circumvent long stretches of border fencing by venturing into the desert despite being warned of the dangers, etc. These are real-life stories of human desperation. Sometimes they end tragically. And when that happens, those who perish have only themselves to blame.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2009 ... editorial/

It is like blaming the third rail for electrocuting people and not being able to cross between subway platforms.

These are the best editorial words ever written by the S.D.U.T.

Fences don’t kill people. Decisions kill people. People make their own decisions – to come to the United States illegally, to try to circumvent long stretches of border fencing by venturing into the desert despite being warned of the dangers, etc. These are real-life stories of human desperation. Sometimes they end tragically. And when that happens, those who perish have only themselves to blame.