If you want a job done right, do it yourself. This old saying came to mind when I was perusing lifezette.com and read about a job some Americans are doing on a stretch of the El Paso, Texas sector of the U.S.-Mexico border.
What job are they doing? Building the border wall. Well, an important part of it, anyway.
Why are they doing it? Because the U.S. Congress won’t. For all the efforts made by President Trump and his allies to build the wall, congressional demagogues —I mean Democrats— and their establishment Republican allies have made funding border wall construction nearly impossible.
Who are they? They are a group called We Build The Wall, Inc. (WBTW), a privately funded construction enterprise whose mission is to, well, build the wall. Or at least fill in the gaps where they can.
A gap in the El Paso sector wall, which is on private property, was one place where the WBTW construction crews can and are building the wall—with millions of dollars they’ve raised from individual contributions. Former Kansas secretary of state and current legal counsel for WBTW, Kris Kobach encapsulated the problem. He said human traffickers were sneaking people across at the flat portion of the gap, and drug-runners were smuggling narcotics over at the other mountainous end.
The gap in the El Paso border wall has served as an inviting gateway for Mexican cartels to come on in—and bring illegal stuff with you. Kobach says the gap exists because government engineers said it would be impossible to build a wall in this section. I guess various people have different definitions for impossible.
Jeff Allen is a WBTW co-owner and owns the property where they are building the wall. According to usatoday.com Allen said, “Why wouldn’t we allow it?” He emphasized the crisis from the viewpoint of someone living with the problems on the border where the wall is incomplete.
Allen said. “We have been attacked by illegals coming across. We have been burglarized by illegals. We have drug traffickers coming through here…” He’s adamant a wall is necessary to stop the crime.
I have to wonder about the motivations of anyone who won’t even consider what Border Patrol agents themselves say they need: a wall as a part of a total border security strategy. Kobach spoke about how fitting it was that they were working to give the gift to America over the Memorial Day weekend.
About what would happen after they complete the construction, aside from less border crime, Kobach said, “We built the wall and then hand the keys to the Border Patrol and say: ‘Here. Happy Memorial Day.’”
