Our government’s failure to secure the border has precipitated a political, economic and moral crisis. The fact that we not only permit, but by our dereliction, actively encourage gangsters to traffic in human beings across our border is a disgrace. It must end.

If President Trump is planning to use executive authority to build the wall, he must continue to make the case the way he did in the State of the Union address. He must educate and persuade the American people, and that means he must continue to talk about it. If he does so, he will find that supporters of what the mathematician Eric Weinstein might call “xenophilic border security”—which is to say, well-disposed toward foreigners and foreign cultures, but wanting immigration laws enforced—will help him broaden and deepen the argument, but he must take the lead. The president would do well if he emphasized the degradation of human trafficking and the vast quantities of heroin, fentanyl and other drugs coming across the border that contribute to the more than 60,000 American deaths per year from opioid overdoses. The State of the Union speech was a good start, but he needs to continue the drumbeat . . .

Read the rest at the New York Times.

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