Grijalva: New Berlin Wall won’t solve border problems

Editor’s note: This column is the second in a four-part series on the debate surrounding Sen. Steve Smith’s successful sponsorship of a senate bill to create a website to raise money with private donations to build a fence along the Arizona-Mexico border. Smith’s column is already online and the next two, by Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu and local Democratic Party organizer Henry Wade, will be published in the upcoming days.

We need a safe and prosperous border region, which is why I have often urged Congress and the president to make sure more U.S. Border Patrol units are stationed along our actual border. In a June 14 letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, I called for more funding and manpower at border ports of entry.

Why? Mexico is the second largest export market for U.S. businesses, and some states — including Arizona — depend on Mexico as their largest or second largest export market. Last year, U.S.-Mexico trade totaled $397 billion.

Building a new Berlin Wall across our entire border is not a rational or cost-effective response to anything. The debate on border security and immigration is necessary; however, in Arizona it has muted many of the state’s pressing needs. Today, one in five Arizonans live in poverty. Arizona is the second poorest state in the nation, ahead of only Mississippi.

How does the state respond? By asking for donations to build a border fence on state land. The money received will not educate Arizona children or make them healthier. It will go to whatever contractor we can find willing to build an inefficient border wall on the small amount of state land that actually touches the border and isn’t already covered with hills.

 The politicking in Phoenix has obscured the realities in the border region. Today, more than 80 percent of Arizona’s shared border with Mexico has some type of fencing. The remaining unfenced areas include land such as the Tumacacori Highlands, where the rugged terrain along the border is itself a nearly impassable natural barrier.