Nat Stone recently published a short documentary detailing Representative Grijalva’s visit to Eloisa Tamez, one of the many private landowners in the line of the proposed border wall. While Grijalva’s visit is meaningful and important, it is sad that it should be unique and noteworthy. The majority of those who voted for the Secure Fence Act of 2006 which called for a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico and then for the REAL ID Act which undoes our nation’s checks and balances by allowing the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security the authority to waive any and all laws obstructing immediate construction of a border wall – sadly, few of those lawmakers ever made the trip to the border region to see the impact it would have on these communities and, since we are all “tied up in an inescapable network of mutuality,” our entire nation.
Please research this pressing issue. Please contact those in the position to immediately change this sad comment on our nation.
Tags: border wall, Eloisa Tamez, frontera, grijalva, Kevin Sieff, Nat Stone, Rio Grande Valley, Rock House Project, U.S. Representative
August 22, 2008 at 12:14 pm |
As a counterpoint to the relatively recent hysteria surrounding “secure borders”, see the recent article about first lady Pat Nixon’s visit to the border to inaugurate Freindship Park:
http://borderwallinthenews.blogspot.com/2008/08/pat-nixon-at-us-mexico-border.html
At the time there was nothing more than a couple of strands of barbed wire, and Mrs. Nixon said, “I hope there won’t be a fence here too long.”
A member of her security detail then cut the wire so that she could greet those on the Mexican side.
Now a steel mesh wall has replaced the barbed wire. This is still an important meeting place for families who are divided by the border, but those meetings will soon come to an end. DHS is planning to put a second wall up, paralleling the first, so that families can no longer press their fingertips through the fence to maintain some slight contact.
Father John Fanestil of the Foundation for Change will be holding mass at Friendship Park every Sunday from now until the second wall is erected, passing communion through the fence for as long as that is possible. For information see:
http://noborderwall-take-action.blogspot.com/2008/08/communion-served-through-border-fence.html