Border debates should be grounded in reality
We might be on the brink of a federal government shutdown, thanks to a public clash on Tuesday between President Donald Trump and Democratic leaders in Congress related to border security funding.
We are also “entering a dangerous period,” according to 44 former U.S. senators who signed onto an op-ed published in the Washington Post on Monday noting their concerns about “the rule of law, the Constitution, our governing institutions and our national security.”
As for me, I’ve been reflecting on the afternoon I spent with the mayor of Eagle Pass, Chuck Foster, in 2009.
One of the things that concerned Foster at the time was that there wasn’t a nonstop flight from San Antonio to Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C.
There still isn’t, actually. And that probably doesn’t sound like a big deal in the grand scheme of things. But it does help explain why America might be on the verge of a federal government shutdown as the result of a political debate related to border security funding.
Trump, as we all know, wants to build a border wall. And he’s concluded that Americans should pay for it, after all.
To be more specific, the president wants Congress to appropriate the necessary funds to the Department of Homeland Security. And Congress has to pass some sort of spending measure in this lame-duck session in order to keep the federal government open through the end of the year.
Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leaders in the House and Senate respectively, have offered to make a deal with Republicans on the subject in order to pass a broader government funding bill.
They’ve also offered to kick the can down the road via a continuing resolution, a short-term spending measure.
But on Tuesday, Pelosi and Schumer made it clear that they’re not prepared to give Trump $5 billion, with no strings attached, to build a wall on the southern border. That made the president angry and caused him to weaken his own negotiating position.
“I am proud to shut down the government for border security, Chuck,” Trump said at the meeting, which was held in the Oval Office and broadcast live to the entire nation.
“The people of this country don’t want criminals, and people that have lots of problems, and drugs pouring into our country,” Trump continued.
That’s probably true, in a sense. But it doesn’t necessarily follow that a majority of Americans want a border wall — or that those who do would applaud Trump for shutting down the federal government in an effort to secure funding.
Pelosi and Schumer have caught some flak from the left for agreeing to negotiate with Republicans on border security in the first place.
Democrats picked up 40 seats in this year’s midterm election and will control the House, though not the Senate, when Congress convenes in January.
And Republican leaders in Congress would be hard-pressed to convince the public that Democrats are responsible for a government shutdown.
“I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I’m not going to blame you for it,” said Trump to the Democratic leaders, as Vice President Mike Pence looked on silently.
I’m not sure if any of the four leaders ever crossed paths with Foster, but they may have heard of him during the debate over the Secure Fence Act of 2006.
Foster was an outspoken critic of the act, which authorized the construction of hundreds of miles of additional fencing on the border, among other things.
When I arrived at Foster’s office in 2009, he handed me a T-shirt, screen-printed with an image of a bald eagle soaring over the Rio Grande, with barbed wire in its talons.
“Let the Eagle Pass,” the T-shirt said.
But shortly after we began talking, Foster suggested that we go for a ride. His opposition to the border fence wasn’t ideological, ultimately. He didn’t think a fence made sense — and since I had made my way to Maverick County, he could show me why.
At one point, we pulled up on the banks of the Rio Grande, where several Border Patrol agents were looking at a dense thicket of carrizo cane, which ran right up to the water’s edge.
“There could be an elephant on fire down there,” Foster observed.
The federal government should scrap the fence idea, he continued, and provide for the eradication of carrizo cane.
I could see what Foster meant. Carrizo cane is an invasive species, and its eradication would actually improve our border security. But you never hear much about carrizo cane in congressional debates, even during normal times.
Perhaps that’s because it’s hard to understand the problem with this plant, unless you see it with your own eyes.
And it’s hard to fault members of Congress for that, frankly. Maverick County is a bit out of the way. You can’t even get a nonstop flight to South Texas from Washington, D.C.
It’ll be easy to fault Republicans, though, if Trump shuts down the federal government. He wants a border wall, clearly, and Americans want border security.
But that doesn’t mean we want a shutdown — and we would like our policies to be grounded in reality.