President Obama, Tear Down This Wall!

A long time ago, the U.S. demanded that the Berlin Wall be demolished. There should now be equal demands from Felipe Calderón in his meeting with U.S. President elect Barack Obama, this Monday, the 12th of January, in Washington, in order to destroy the unfortunate double wall that the U.S. built on 1,126 kilometers of the 3,174 kilometer-long border with Mexico, that since October of 2006 has poisoned relations between the two countries.

As I wrote in these pages two years ago, that wall, “has no justification between two friendly nations, defenders of liberty, who respect one another, who are opposed to terrorism in all of its forms and who believe in constructive solutions rather than force.”

Besides the double steel wall several meters high, the barrier is also composed of a high-tech “invisible wall,” un-manned aerial vehicles, helicopters, motor boats, trained dogs, barriers, high intensity lights, infrared communication equipment, and bullet-proof uniforms, as well as authorization for state and local police to apprehend undocumented immigrants. On top of that, the outgoing Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security is threatening to send military forces to the border to protect it from the criminal violence of Mexican drug dealers.

Unfortunately, the border is also violent for the immigrants of our country on the other side. As José Luis Soberanes, president of the National Human Rights Commission, pointed out this past December in Arivaca, Arizona: “Taking into account only the most conservative estimates on the number of immigrant deaths, the results are devastating: in 5,110 days, 5,000 people have died… however, according to figures from diverse humanitarian organizations, the number exceeds 10,000 victims.”

Calderón himself, then President-elect, described the border wall as a “grave error,” comparable to the Berlin Wall. For now, the topic has not specifically been mentioned in the statements from the President nor Mexican officials prior to the interview between Claderón and Obama, perhaps due to political prudence. Nonetheless, among the triad of themes that the meeting agenda will deal with, security, migration and prosperity, it would undoubtedly be the perfect opportunity for the Mexican President to list as one of his main demands knocking down the shameful border wall.

President Calderón could simply remind President Obama that the highest authorities in Mexico and the U.S. have committed themselves for more than a decade, with various accords such as the “Spirit of Houston,” the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), to the constructive redefinition of relations between both countries, in particular with respect to the border. Even when the President who ordered the construction of the wall, George W. Bush, had his first official interview with Calderón in March of 2007, both leaders agreed in their joint press release that: “Managing the border between Mexico and the U.S. is a shared responsibility. Our common fight against organized crime must be coupled with cooperative measures in other areas that equally promote security, prosperity and the well-being of the border communities.”

The press release went on to mention: “Both presidents recognized that immigration along their shared border intimately links the two countries, implies a mutual responsibility and represents one of the most critical issues for the future well-being of our citizens. In this regard, they highlighted the need to bring about productive investments that are geared towards the creation in Mexico of more and better-paying jobs as an essential component in any comprehensive strategy to tackle this issue, and they agreed upon the need to continue pushing a thorough focus for immigration reform.”

The wall seriously compromises the environment and the preservation of animal and plant species since it has thrown away many environmental and land conservation laws in the U.S. Well, in Mérida, Calderón and Bush agreed that “upon recognizing that the border region holds a great diversity of natural environments and endemic species, the Presidents stressed the need to continue the efforts to protect through binational cooperation the natural resources that both nations share, including air and water.”

Accordingly, in Calderon’s meeting with President elect Obama the scope given to the relationship between Mexico and the U.S. couldn’t be greater. Some who have shown a kind of unnecessary reverence towards the powerful U.S. leader contend that his meeting with Calderon would be an “honor,” a “recognition” (not without the high expectations of Calderon’s interpretation that “our Mexican community abroad was key in the election of President Obama”).

Actually, Mexico and the U.S., who are strategic allies albeit in an unbalanced partnership, and who share important values like liberty, democracy and respect for human rights, are simply deciding to have a cooperative and constructive relationship in order to find a solution to the challenges they currently face, in particular the dire economic situation.

That said, the disgraceful wall between their common border is totally incompatible with this vision.