Mickey Friedman
February 1, 2019
I get it. Nobody wants to admit we’ve been conned. I’ve been cheated more than once by friends.
So if you know someone who voted for Trump, who stood there chanting “Build The Wall”, giddy with anticipation waiting for the chance to yell “Mexico!” ease up. Look in the mirror. Remember when were you snookered. Fooled by that girlfriend, boyfriend, brother-in-law, your Uncle Ed. Caught in a con. Like the Border Wall.
Fact is, Donald Trump, Mr. Art of The Deal, lost his border wall deal on the day he declared for President in June 2015.
Remember what he told us. Remember what he told he world. And the Mexican people: “When do we beat Mexico at the border? They’re laughing at us, at our stupidity. And now they are beating us economically. They are not our friend, believe me. But they’re killing us economically.
“The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems … When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you … They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.
“But I speak to border guards and they tell us what we’re getting. And it only makes common sense … They’re sending us not the right people.”
Then he declared: “I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great great wall on our southern border and I’ll have Mexico pay for that wall.”
You think he thinks Mexican are dumb? That maybe no one in Mexico noticed how often he bragged about his wall. That his supporters would chant again and again: “Build The Wall! Build The Wall! Build The Wall!” And he’d ask: “Who is going to pay for the Wall?” And the crowd yelled: “Mexico!”
Did Mr. Dealmaker imagine that no one in Mexico had a television? That the undocumented, underpaid Mexican women who were working five times harder than he was at his Bedminster, New Jersey resort as they washed his floors, cleaned his toilets, made his bed and ironed his underwear weren’t offended by his name-calling.
Had he been able to transcend his own penchant for minimizing the skills of those not white, he might have appreciated how loco it was to assume that the Mexicans he vilified night after night would gladly pay for a wall they didn’t want.
Did you ever try to buy one of those gorgeous multi-colored blankets or hammocks in Mexico? Traders are made, not born, and many Mexicans, young and old, male, female are skilled in negotiating. From the kids who artfully steer you to their Mom or Aunt or business partner, to the one who negotiates a price you both can live with. Perhaps our President, had he spent time in a Mexican market might have offered Mexicans a better deal.
And lied less. About a crisis that wasn’t a crisis. According to statistics compiled by U.S. Customs and Border Protection – not Amnesty International – the highest number of arrests for illegal crossings at our southern border came during Bill Clinton’s administration, from 1995 – 2001. That figure reached 1,643,679 in 2000. And those figures fell sharply since then. From 2010 – 2016 under Obama it was never more than five hundred thousand, averaging 413,377.
As for President Trump’s crisis, Customs and Border Protection apprehended 396,579 undocumented immigrants during fiscal year 2018.
Now here’s a fact that blows the President’s crisis argument to smithereens. Remember all those times he went on and on about rape and murder and machetes and MS13 and the caravan of criminals, child snatchers and sex traffickers, on their way to invade us. The criminals the wall would keep out.
Well, the fact is the Mexicans deserve a wall more than we do. The Cato Institute accumulated these figures, comparing crime statistics in Texas. The Make America Great Again Cruz Texas USA. They compare the numbers of convictions for every 100,000 people in 2015. 899 undocumented immigrants were caught committing crimes. That’s 2.6 homicides. 26.4 sex crimes. 62 larcenies. Those figures were most often higher than for legal immigrants, 611 of whom committed crimes. That’s 1 homicide. 8.9 sex crimes. 74 larcenies. But when it comes to crime, the home team wins. Native born Americans (Texans) committed 1,797 crimes. 3.1 homicides. 28.6 sex crimes. 267 larcenies.
So when it comes to cons, we’ve been conned. Our government is shut down because Mexico won’t pay for the wall and sensible Americans won’t pay for the wall. A better salesman than Donald would have offered the Mexicans a two-way wall. A see-through, Facebook-savvy, smart phone enabled, fingerprint taking, eyeball scanning really smart plastic wall that would access user profiles and bar criminal Americans from invading Mexico.
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“The Two Way Wall” was first published on January 24, 2019 in The Berkshire Record.