It appears there’s a new buzzword in the ongoing debate over the border wall.
Sunday, when asked how he felt about former congressman, and potential 202o presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke’s proposal to destroy all existing barriers on the Mexico-US border, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown refused to concur with his potential 2020 opponent, citing the need for border security, just not a “long wall.”
The term “long wall” seems to be the latest pivot for Democrats who have vehemently opposed President Donald Trump’s planned border wall, yet concede that border security needs to exist. This could be the beginning of the latest divide from within Democratic ranks.
While no “long wall” currently extends over the entire length of the 2,000-mile border between Mexico and the U.S., there are almost 600 miles of fences, walls, and other barriers that are currently standing. Some of these barriers go back to the Clinton Administration. The majority of these walls were built specifically in areas with high concentrations of drug trafficking, human trafficking, and illegal entry and assist the understaffed border security agents.
Former congressman O’Rourke has asserted that walls kill more people than they save, noting;
We know that walls do not save lives. Walls end lives,…In the last ten years, more 4,000 children, women, and men have died trying to come to this country, to work jobs no one will take, to be with a family member, to flee horrific brutality and violence and death in their home countries.
In contrast to this, Senator Brown stated;
I take a back seat to nobody in border security and it’s clear we’ve learned over time that we have the technology, helicopters, border agents to make our country safe and to keep the — keep illegal crossings at a minimum without building a long wall.
In a 2020 primary that has already been defined by Democratic litmus tests that push further and further to the left, advocating for any form of barrier or even the notion that any form of immigration should be ruled as “illegal” could be the new standard of the party.
A recent poll found that thirty-four percent of Americans absolutely supported a border wall while thirty-one percent absolutely opposed it.
– – –
Andrew Shirley is a reporter at Battleground State News and The Ohio Star. Send tips to [email protected].
