Unseen—Unheard

Talk about the border: whether it’s in favor of stricter policies or the confusing opinions on keeping our doors open, something is being done about the burden it has left in our country’s pockets, preservation, and our hearts. With a generation fueled by hatred and division, it’s not surprising to know some people would rather leave their front doors open at night for anyone who potentially needs somewhere safe to spend the night—just to go against the opinions of those who say they prefer a locked door to keep them and their families safe from the potential threats that can sneak in with the innocent-hearted ones who are grateful for the hospitality. Although there are hateful people mixed in with the crowd in favor of secure borders, it doesn’t negate the potential threats it leaves on our country and the harm it will cause that will overshadow the good.

Racism and discrimination continue to affect those who haven’t had the same opportunities as previous generations. However, when is it actual hate and when is it following a narrative? In a society where it’s considered “thinly-veiled racism” to talk about the concerns at the border, it’s no surprise the borders become basically ‘welcome’ signs for anyone who approaches it from its surrounding territories. Politicians are scared of losing their seats when addressing border concerns, knowing they will be met with discrimination accusations and ultimately be referred to as a racist. The term is being thrown around so much that it started to be used to fuel a certain narrative: keep the borders open, or you are a racist if you think otherwise.

Racism is an epidemic that many people in our country face. It affects the livelihood and opportunities of those who experience it. In an ACLU video on YouTube, the ACLU sues CBP on behalf of two victims of hate, Ana Suda and Mimi Hernandez. A CBP officer in Havre, Montana, started questioning Suda and Hernandez while waiting behind them in a line at a convenience store after he overheard the women speaking Spanish to one another in 2018. The officer asked them questions like, “Where are you from?” and, “Where were you born?” After Suda and Hernandez answered him in English, he then asked them for their identification. “I asked to see your I.D.s because I came here and I saw that you guys were speaking Spanish—which is very unheard of up here,” the officer explained in the video. In a country where 40 million citizens speak Spanish at home, the officer’s decision to detain Suda and Hernandez was definitely questionable and fueled by something other than the will to serve and protect his community.

In George Magazine’s February/March 1996 issue, Anne S. Lewis talks to Chief of the Border Patrol’s El Paso sector, Silvestre Reyes. Reyes was the patrol’s first Hispanic sector chief from 1993 to 1996. Alumni to University of Texas at Austin, veteran of the Vietnam War, and being a born and raised U.S. citizen, Reyes shared, “one fellow told me that the border patrol was going to the dogs because they were hiring Mexicans—but you just roll with the punches—we’ve rolled with the punches for years.”

At the time, El Paso Times conducted a poll showing that 52 percent of El Paso Latinos said they would favor the passage of a law in Texas that denied public benefits to illegal aliens and their children. 48 percent also declared English the official language in Texas. Reyes, coming from a family of immigrants from Mexico in 1913, values the work of people who want to come into this country and sympathizes with the plight of illegal aliens; he also believes in following the law. “But nowhere does it influence me in terms of applying the law, because the law is very clear; the law is to be respected and followed—I was brought up that way.”

In George Magazine’s latest article, A Visit to the Border Reveals Imminent Threats to the Survival in America, in issue 14, the result of lackluster border control has shaped the country into what it is today. The Biden Administration granted illegal aliens with benefits, leaving the doors to our country open for any opportunity (good or bad) that comes in. According to DHS secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, “The border is not secure—it’s wide open.” With the cartels controlling the borders, rapists, thieves, murderers, and drug and sex traffickers slip through the crowd of peaceful asylees. Almost all border patrol officers have been reassigned from border protection to human processing in the Department of Homeland Security tents that warehouse asylum seekers.

In a video posted by NewsNation on YouTube titled, “Human Traffickers Drugging Kids Crossing Southern Border,” Jorge Ventura stated, “Traffickers make sure that the children are seen but not heard by border authorities.” This means that children are getting drugged not to draw attention to themselves while crossing the border, leading the officers to believe this is a child with their real family and not a threat. A child rescued in California was heavily sedated while the trafficker was also carrying birth certificates that didn’t belong to the child they were with.

In Arizona, officers arrested a woman attempting to smuggle two children across the border. They were ages eight and eleven. Both were heavily sedated. The woman accompanying the children, a woman that is a U.S. citizen, presented birth certificates that belonged to neither of the children she was with. The children were actually citizens of Mexico, and the woman was arrested while the children went with the local authorities.

In Laredo, Texas, a twenty-three-year-old woman was arrested for smuggling a toddler over the border. She was heavily sedated using melatonin gummies and was also using a fraudulent birth certificate for the child. The woman smuggling the child turned out to be part of a child smuggling operation that pretends to be related to the children when crossing the border and targets victims that are under the age of five.

Tragedies like these are what’s blanketed under the lack of support for stricter border laws. A secure border means safety for our citizens, and more importantly, our children. The will for stricter borders has become a hateful ideology because of racism. That is not to say that systemic racism doesn’t exist. In May of 2018 in Havre, Montana, a CBP agent detained Ana Suda and Mimi Hernandez at a convenience store for speaking Spanish. His response: “The reason I asked to see your I.D. is because I came here (to the convenience store), and I saw that you guys were speaking Spanish, which is very unheard of up here.” Although forty million U.S. citizens speak Spanish at home, this officer still found that hearing two fluent Spanish-speakers in his local town to be odd and unusual.

Instances like the incident in Montana, although they happen quite often, are what is projected when talk of the border comes up. We need to remind ourselves of the danger and harm that many lives will be at stake for if our borders practically became a ‘Welcome’ sign. Hatred exists all over the world, and in some places more than others. Bill Maher stated in NumberUSA’s YouTube video, “We don’t want to be called a racist, so we will NOT make a move on immigration…it’s going to get them fucked on Election Day.”

Issues on the border have been popular since there is such a big debate on its current and changing policies since the election. Creators took action on TikTok, asking local citizens if they support migrants seeking refuge in our country. Those who said yes were then presented with a school bus filled with “migrants” [actors] asking them if they would be kind enough to let them stay with them in their homes for a while until they got on their feet. All of them said different variations of, “No.”