Forget about the wall

By Editorial

The United States desperately needs comprehensive immigration reform. But a concept so broad and complex often demands something concrete to make it more relatable.

That symbol in the immigration debate is the border wall between the United States and Mexico. And in the context of immigration reform, that border wall is fatally flawed.

For starters, it's ineffective.

At least that's what America's top security official believes. "Show me a 15 foot wall and I'll show you a 16 foot ladder," said Janet Napolitano when she spoke at Santa Clara last week. Napolitano is the Secretary of Homeland Security and President Obama's point-woman on immigration reform efforts.

It's also expensive.

The 661-mile fence stretching through the southwestern desert will cost $6.5 billion to maintain in the next 20 years. It costs about $1,300 to repair the barrier every time someone punctures a hole in it.

Most importantly, it has very little to do with immigration reform.

The discussion of immigration reform should include economics, security, social justice, and an overall universal understanding of why our country is struggling with such a serious immigration dilemma.

Perhaps the best place to start is not in the U.S., but across the border.

For years, immigrants from all over Mexico and Central and South America have been crossing the border illegally, in hopes of a better life.

According to the Pew Hispanic Center, Hispanics make up 76 percent of illegal immigrants in the U.S. An incredible 59 percent have emigrated illegally from Mexico.

With statistics as shocking as these, we should question the economic reasons behind these alarmingly high percentages.

Perhaps it has to do with the ongoing drug war that is slowly destroying Mexico and cost the lives of 6,000 Mexicans last year.

Perhaps they are due to the heavy trafficking of narcotics into the U.S. that has consumed the country of Columbia.

Or maybe these numbers are a reflection of La Mara Salvatrucha, one of the most powerful and dangerous gangs in the world, which has slowly taken over Central America.

These numbers tell us the story of thousands of desperate individuals who look to the U.S. as their safe haven because they have no other alternative. Coming to the U.S. is their last hope, and it's safe to say that if economic conditions back home were not deteriorating, they would not be coming to this country in the first place.

But illegal immigration is met with frustration, ignorance, and failure to look at the bigger picture.

Empathy has been lost in the debate of whether or not illegal immigrants belong in this country.

It is a debate that is most always kept on a simplistic level, but one that requires much in-depth discussion, evaluation and reflection.

Senior Jose Arreola, Director of the Multicultural Center on campus, feels that, "the immigration debate is increasingly polarized and simplified."

As students who attend a Jesuit university, we encourage you to not only educate yourself about this issue, but to approach it with an attitude reflective of the competence, conscience and compassion we are taught to incorporate into all aspects of our education. Though at times this debate gets lost in its logistics and technicalities, as Americans and as Santa Clara students, we need to take a step back and address the oppression that underlies this highly controversial topic and acknowledge the fact that illegal immigrants are often kept on the margins of society.

America needs both short-term and long-terms goals to address the highly complex issue of illegal immigration. We need a better understanding of what's really going on across the border, and more knowledge of historical events that have led to this problem. We need a greater sense of compassion and tolerance.

But most of all, we need to spread our horizons in understanding illegal immigration, so that as Americans who are greatly impacted by this issue, we have a grasp of the bigger picture, one that doesn't stop at a border wall, but that extends to the security and economic state of this country and those across the border, and the well-being of the illegal immigrants attempting to climb this wall.