The 800-Mile Wall

If you were going to attend the showing of The 800-Mile Wall at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Woodstock, you missed it.

Only ten people showed up last night. Pitiful!

It was a moving documentary of an outrageous decision by the U.S. Government. Have you see pictures of this atrocity? Go to www.800milewall.org and see it for yourself. Watch the trailer. Click on Photos.

I don't agree that the wall is a human rights violation and that anyone is forcing anyone to cross the U.S./Mexico border at "certain" points to force them into harsh desert conditions where many deaths have occurred. Many concerned persons who appear in the film are of that persuasion.

If the U.S. Government had any backbone, it would enforce the requirements that have existed for more than 20 years that you must be legally eligible to work in the U.S., if you are going to work. You must sign an I-9 and provide legal documentation of your right to employment. If you are in the U.S. illegally, you won't be able to do it. In 1989 I taught small-business employers how to complete the I-9 and explained to them that they must complete it, or else. By now, the "or else" is water under the bridge, thanks to Government non-enforcement.

Yes, I'm sorry that men, women and children die in the desert. Yes, I'm sorry they die in the All-American Canal.

At one point in the film the narrative included that, in the desert, the human body requires a quart of water every 15 minutes. Then the movie showed an adult Mexican woman prepared to start her journey north with one bottle of water! What part of "I'm going to die out there" did she not understand?

Do you think the wall has anything to do with the War on Terrorism? I don't, either.

Immigrants are welcome in the U.S. Legal immigrants, that is. I don't think there is another country in the world that tolerates what the U.S. is tolerating.