On the heels of his recent regret for
the drug-war deaths in Peru of a missionary and her baby, President Bush
has now expressed condolences for the deaths of 14 Mexican citizens on
the Arizona desert. The men died of thirst and exposure after crossing into
the United States from Mexico.
U.S. government officials blamed the
deaths on the “coyote” who led the men across the border and
then abandoned them without providing them with sufficient supplies. But
the president, members of Congress, INS, and Border Patrol, cannot escape
their own responsibility for these 14 deaths.
For years, the U.S. government has
spent millions of tax dollars constructing and refortifying a wall along
the Southern border in California. The purpose of the wall? To prevent
Latin American immigrants from illegally entering the United States,
including those who simply want to come here to work.
Everyone knew that as the U.S. wall
became increasingly fortified, immigrants would have to move farther
east to make their crossing. And that meant crossing over the less-
guarded, but more much inhospitable, regions of the Arizona desert.
“People who illegally enter the United States have only themselves
to blame. They should be obeying the law,” some people suggest.
But isn’t that what East
German authorities used to say about people they killed trying to cross the
Berlin Wall? Throughout history, people seeking either freedom or better
economic conditions have never permitted walls to get in their way. It is
the walls that governments construct to impede people’s hopes and
dreams for freedom and economic improvement that are the real crime.
More than a decade ago, Americans
rejoiced at the dismantling of one of the ugliest walls in history.
It’s time to dismantle our own wall and to treat people who wish to
enter the United States as the human beings they are.
Mr. Hornberger is founder and
president of The Future of Freedom Foundation (www.fff.org) in Fairfax,
Va., and the co-editor of The Case for Free Trade and Open Immigration.
