JE #3B

While reading the article “War on the Border” by Todd Miller, I found myself rereading some sections because I could not believe that Border Patrol has the authority to such violating power. The fact that over a billion dollars will go towards constructing additional watch towers along the border and about forty billion dollars will be going towards employing unneeded patrol agents and building a fence 700 miles across the U.S border is unbelievable. So much money is going towards keeping people out than is going to protecting and aiding those who live in the U.S. The light manner in which money is being spent on Border security makes me feel like the government is caging us in, telling us that it is for the better of the country but the reality is that several people are still migrating into the U.S illegally.

With all the anti-immigrant laws that have been passed within the past 10 years, the Latino community has been targeted and condemned as “illegal” due to racial profiling; leading a lot of the officers to go on power trips. In the article it mentions how a lot of the people hired for Border patrol are ex-military, I don’t want to stereotype but a lot of people coming back from Iraq or Afghanistan have PTSD and are probably not the most suitable to be guarding the border. The Border Patrol agents then embodies the “danger” they are protecting us from, if there is no one policing them then that gives them the ability to wrongfully target whomever they please. Therefore I believe the solution to this problem would lie in the passing of an immigration reform so that the people who have been residing in the U.S illegally and the people migrating for work and asylum can find justice in the U.S; and not be faced with criminalization.