A guard tower at the U.S.-Mexico border wall
This week marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Many news outlets are reporting on this historic event, but few are mentioning the walls the United States government continues to build. On our southern border with Mexico, hundreds of miles of fencing and walls have been built in recent years. These walls separate communities, sever wildlife migration routes, and perpetuate the politics of fear and separation that were so prevalent during the cold war.
Dan Mills of the Sierra Club writes:
In Germany, 96 miles of concrete divided a population for 28 years. It cost 136 people their lives, and when it fell, millions cheered the demise of a symbol of repression.
Only five years later, construction would begin on another wall, this one between the United States and Mexico. Since its inception, 5,600 people have perished trying to cross what is now more than 630 miles of steel, concrete, and vast, unforgiving desert.
When President Obama spoke in Berlin last year, he, too, decried these types of walls:
The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand… The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes, natives and immigrants, Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand.
And, yet, we continue to build walls.
Learn more about impacts of the U.S.-Mexico border wall and share what you learn with others in your church and community. Visit the U.S.-Mexico border page.
