Morality Divided
How the United States struggles to decide what is just at the US-Mexico border
For 1,885 miles, the Rio Grande snakes across the arid Chihuahuan desert, before settling into the Elephant Butte reservoir in southern New Mexico. This stretch of river, until El Paso, Texas, marks the sole division between the United States and Mexico. Across this stretch of desert, there are countless families heartbreaking stories forged in hardship, escape, and desperation. Through the same desert, though veiled in immorality, the Mexican cartels run cocaine, meth, heroin, and people. So, the nation and the desert burn with controversy.
There are those who believe that we must seek to bolster our nation’s security, at the cost of an increased difficulty to immigrants; on the opposite side of the coin, there are those who believe that we should seek to be a place of sanctuary, unrestricted by the immoral impediment of a strict border.
Since its inception, which was also a bit controversial, the United States has been a land of immigrants. Unless a full blooded descendent of Native Americans, you too, are of immigrants. The US had, for many years, entirely encouraged immigration to the nation, through whatever form possible. It stood as a beacon of hope, and prosperity to the rest of the world, a land ripe with jobs, riches, and opportunities, waiting for families to arrive. However, as the world grew colder, larger, and less tame, people seeking to profit off of misfortune, misdeed, and misanthropy inevitably arrived. This is when the government had to step in -though, today, the question remains how much should they?
Is it a more moral cause to separate families, for concern their “children” may be being trafficked? Or is it to keep them together, as stripping any possible family of their child, and the possibility they will not be returned, is simply not worth the risk. Is it more moral of us to strengthen and secure our border walls, in an effort to curb human trafficking, drug trafficking, and criminals from crossing the border undetected? Or perhaps as a nation we should seek to rethink these walls, and become the moral nation with open arms we once could proclaim.
The controversy at the United States Mexico border is far too deep an issue to cover in a single writing, nor is it black and white enough to adhere to a single viewpoint. Much like the Rio Grande, the morality of what to do, where and how, is an ever changing landscape.
