All opinions expressed in this article are solely the opinions of the contributors.
The United States is fortunate to share its borders with amicable North American neighbors. It boasts the longest undefended border globally with Canada and a 2,000-mile border with Mexico. The U.S. government recognizes Canada as a “neighbor, friend and ally” while referring to Mexico as a “strategic partner.”
Straight Arrow News contributor Ruben Navarrette reminds Americans to recognize how good they have it, with peaceful neighbors to the north and hard-working southern neighbors. He cautions against divisive rhetoric, citing recent comments by GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who proposes the construction of a wall along the U.S.-Canada border.
Like a good neighbor, Mexico is there. And so is Canada. Our two “border bros” protect their own national interests by helping protect the international borders of the United States. They do this by sharing intelligence, cooperating with U.S. law enforcement agencies, and flagging would-be border crossers who raised suspicions.
We Americans don’t realize or appreciate how good we have it, or how lucky we are when it comes to the countries that border us. In the same way that some of us take for granted things like freedom or U.S. citizenship, many of us also take for granted the concept of border security. For instance, Republican politicians loosely and irresponsibly throw around terms like “invasion” to describe a phenomenon that’s been happening for more than 150 years — the movement of people across the U.S.-Mexico border in search of a better life. These people aren’t coming to do us harm. More often, they’re coming to do work that Americans won’t do.
By the way, in light of current events, you would think that Republicans would be more careful with a word like “invasion,” seeing how we’ve recently witnessed a couple of real ones. First when the Russians attacked Ukraine in February 2022. And again, when Hamas attacked Israel several weeks ago on October 7.
