Remember all the “build the wall ” chants at Democratic politicians’ events in recent years? Of course not. Democrats have vehemently opposed building physical barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border for at least the past nine years.
Yet, Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO) wants to pretend otherwise. Polis claimed that Democrats have always supported building more physical barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border, just not a 2,000-mile wall.
Democrats are suddenly pro-border security after Vice President Kamala Harris expressed support for using existing federal funding on physical barriers along the southern border.
“Look, this is another issue that, as it gets into the public discourse, is very misleading,” Polis told ABC News on Sunday. “Democrats in general, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, you know, Barack Obama, have always been supportive of building barriers and walls for certain parts of the border as part of a comprehensive border security strategy.”
“The border wall that Donald Trump has proposed is a huge boondoggle and waste of taxpayer money,” he later added. “He effectively talked about a wall across the entire border rather than using barriers of different kinds effectively in a cost-effective manner including imagery from satellites, including on-the-ground intel to secure and lock down the border.”
This is nonsense. Democrats vehemently opposed building more physical barriers along the U.S-Mexico border, not merely a 2,000-mile wall, when Trump was president.
When Joe Biden ran for president in 2020, he promised to halt the construction of physical barriers along the southern border, contrasting himself with then-President Trump.
“There will not be another foot of wall constructed on my administration, No. 1,” Biden told NPR in August 2020.
“I’m going to make sure that we have border protection, but it’s going to be based on making sure that we use high-tech capacity to deal with it,” Biden added. “And at the ports of entry — that's where all the bad stuff is happening.”
Similarly, Harris said in January 2019 that she would not support any immigration reform bills that included funding for a border wall or physical barriers along the southern border, even if the proposal included a pathway to citizenship for so-called dreamers.
“Let me be very clear,” Harris said at a CNN town hall event . “I’m not going to vote for a wall under any circumstances.”
“I do support border security, and if we want to talk about that, let’s do that, and let’s talk about what really accomplishes border security,” Harris later added. “Yes, I’m all for increased border security where we needed it. I am not for a wall.”
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the speaker of the House at the time, opposed providing even $1 for more physical barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border in 2019. She claimed that putting physical barriers between two countries is immoral.
“We’re not doing a wall,” Pelosi said in January 2019. “Does anybody have any doubt about that? We are not doing a wall. So that’s that. It has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with: The wall is an immorality between countries. It’s an old way of thinking, [and] it isn’t cost-effective.”
Former Democratic Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke was among the most hostile to the border wall. Five years ago, he said, if elected president, he would tear down the border wall between El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, one of the most dangerous cities on earth .
“Yes, absolutely,” O’Rourke told MSNBC when posed that question in February 2019.
And former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro said during his 2020 presidential bid that he was also open to removing existing fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“We have 654 miles of fencing already out of 994 miles of the border,” the former mayor of San Antonio said in February 2019 . “Would it surprise me if there are places where it would make sense to take some of that down? No.”
Notice how none of these politicians supported building physical barriers along specific corridors of the U.S.-Mexico border while letting natural barriers do the rest. They scoffed at the idea of constructing more physical barriers at all, reflexively taking the opposite position of Trump.
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Physical barriers, such as walls and fencing, are one tool among many necessary to help secure the southern border. Other necessary border security measures include more Border Patrol agents, drones , immigration judges , and ending catch-and-release .
It would be great if Democrats really wanted to change their position and start supporting more physical barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border. However, between the Biden administration’s porous southern border and Democratic politicians offering free college and healthcare to illegal immigrants , forgive the skeptics who doubt the Democrats on this one.
Tom Joyce ( @TomJoyceSports ) is a political reporter for the New Boston Post in Massachusetts.
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