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This is such a profoundly arrogant statement for anyone who actually believes it. I’m really glad that liberals like Jay Wacker and Ian McCullough answered, providing good, nuanced viewpoints from the liberal side. It’s been important to see good examples such as theirs for displacing the anger many people living in this situation may experience when liberal outlets and individuals speak from such a profoundly wrong and disrespectful point of view. The only thing wrong with their answers is that they don’t address the question specifically from our viewpoints. So with thanks to those gentlemen, I’ll offer that.I remember the first time I heard “you’re voting against your interests”, immediately after the election by yet another person who was just so sure that he knew the conditions of my life better than me. Yet this same person was shocked, shocked I tell you, that Clinton didn’t win with the New York Time’s predicted 90% chance of victory a few weeks before. What does that tell you? It told me that a bunch of people who had absolutely no understanding of me and my life days ago suddenly became experts on my condition, as well as suddenly being able to view every policy proposal on the books from my perspective — better than me!I want to be honest, every single time I have seen this levied in earnest, it has been by someone bitter about the election wanting to mock us and not from genuine concern. If it had been a concern, they would understand that mostly, they are wrong. They rationalize policies they wanted and then argue how that would have been better for us than what we wanted. This is positively asinine since, right up until about a year ago, our needs, concerns, wishes, and grievances were being mocked by the people making these plans, so to say that they in any way would solve our problems is laughable. I’m sorry, but no one who calls me and people like me part of a “basket of deplorables” has my best interests at heart.Okay, at this point, it just sounds like I’m angry. I am, but let’s look at some real arguments to give substance to the outrage.I really love that my good friend Ian McCullough brought up the What's the Matter with Kansas? book. I’m a conservative, he’s a liberal, and we have a lot of respect for each other so I would recommend him to anyone. But here, I’ll offer the other side of the story.Much of the ideas behind What’s the Matter with Kansas stems around the fact that Kansas, like many red states, takes up more in government aid and welfare than they contribute, specifically when compared to wealthy blue states like California and New York. This phenomenon of people who soak up government aid in spite of their conservative voting patterns appear in places with namely two things in common:They once were solid Democrat and are now solid RepublicanTheir main source of income was from agriculture or some other displaced industry.Those points are important because you need to understand how amazingly rich my community used to be. I live in a small town in Oklahoma. For all intents and purposes, they could have written that book about us, but they chose Kansas. First of all, there is a reason that we want to “Make America Great Again.”We look to the 1950’s with nostalgia because of how truly wonderful it was for us. First of all, if you look out to the open fields, everything was farmland. People were working and providing well for their families making cotton that made American clothing as well food for Americans. Fortunes were made as small towns like mine were looked at as great places to raise a family with lots of opportunity and wealth to go around for those willing to work and live peacefully.Then it all went away. Price controls on labor and government subsidies for some made it impossible for agriculture to be profitable for the average farmer. My grandfather actually ran the last cotton gin in the 1970’s before it went under because there were no more growers. Furthermore, the jobs around cotton disappeared, such as the pants factory, one of only two factories in my town, that is not just a cement slab, as it has been… also, since the 70’s. After that, a few mega-growers overtook all industries and the region was gutted. Many of these mega-growers, now maintain their prices through illegal immigrant labor, but that is a whole other story. You don’t hear much from this because both the Republicans and Democrats are guilty of supporting the subsidies and supporting the mega-growers, so neither are ever going to say a word about. The collapse of the labor market for agriculture was much of the same as the story of the Rust Belt, but instead of seeing withered factories, I sit surrounded by some of the most fertile farmland in the country that hasn’t seen a plow for more than 40 years.But then the government came to save us.After the collapse of agriculture from the viewpoint of farm labor in the 1960s, millions developed a dependence on government aid to save themselves from the decline which was ironically brought on by government intervention into the market. This was actually the second time they did this.I want you to understand what the world is like for us as a unique culture in the US. Long after slavery had ended, most of us, as in my very white, very poor ancestors were still picking cotton in the fields. Both mine and my wife’s grandmothers told stories in visceral detail about what picking bolls of cotton, the weight of hauling that heavy bag through the fields, and the scorching summer heat of a West Texas farm in the 1920’s and 30’s. For perspective, this image is one taken about 30 miles from my home at about the time people when people were desperate for “someone to do something”.After that, the New Deal did those things. It brought out huge government works programs and told people it would take care of them. Work hard and Social Security would be there for you. What actually brought us out of poverty were millions of men returning from World War II with saved up money, a massive industrial base that built up from the war, and the relaxing of war-era rationing. All this combined was an explosion in economic growth the likes of which that generation had never known. However, many believed that the promises of the New Deal would be enough to get them through retirement. There was no need to save because Social Security would be enough for them. While the region was growing immensely wealthy, my grandparent’s generation was making choices they had no idea would straddle their children’s generation with hardships they never foresaw because they thought the good times would continue on forever.As the crops disappeared in the 1960’s and 70’s, however, they had a horrific wake-up call… right about the time of the War on Poverty and the Great Society began to take effect. These programs gave out exceedingly more benefits based on need, particularly to those who weren’t working or who had children born outside of marriage, not to mention numerous housing decisions that were terrible for the neighborhoods they were affected.Following that, what we saw wasn’t a world where the government helped us or where people were mostly lifting themselves out of poverty. Quite the opposite. Funds were distributed, but here, there are people who live in poverty as a career. They are able to maintain a minimum lifestyle off government funding. Since that point, what we are seeing nationally is that the poverty line has mostly flatlined, while handouts continue to rise. This is most prominent in the areas like mine, where welfare is already normalized and where the tax base is having a harder and harder time keeping up with its rise.I’m not talking about some distant statistical scarecrow. I am talking about real people I see daily. I mean the parents of many of the students at the school where my wife and I work and the people who live next door to me. This lifestyle is not conducive toward raising healthy homes or giving their kids a good foundation, let alone a future. It certainly isn’t capable of creating the types of wealth that people can safely retire on, nor does it produce the sorts investment into future growth in their community. Instead, it drives down the tax base while increasing the amounts infrastructure requirements by way of city utilities to schooling. You wonder why education is so low here? It isn’t because no one thought to pay teachers more. It’s because we have too many kids and not enough of a tax base. Multiply that by everything we’d like to give our people. This is what small-town conservatives fear when we talk about the welfare state.If you’d really like to understand how the welfare state has affected the family in culture, as well as what life is like for millions of Americans who absolutely no one is listening to, I would strongly recommend reading Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis: J. D. Vance. It outlines far better than I could how culture has declined in the rural areas most likely to be the topic of this question.Secondly, a very good juxtaposition of What’s the Matter with Kansas? would be something like What’s Going on in Texas?Texas is the best embodiment of what many want to see happening, as far as the white working class. Granted, they didn’t suffer from the destruction of the agricultural labor market, or at least they were able to transfer their economy over into oil, shipping, and finance. But they’ve also made some very good choices and have a particular culture that has made them very wealthy, serving as to disprove much of narratives surrounding what left-leaning advocates believe should happen in states like theirs. They have wealth, they have investment, they have manufacturing and industry. They also have greater protection of property rights, not to mention being the anchor of job recovery during the massive recession over the last decade for the entire nation.This is particularly true against far more left-leaning states like California. I couldn’t find a more current one, but it is worth noting that this graph ended almost immediately before the graph above started.Furthermore, it has a lower cost of living with higher living standards and even manages to have better income inequality than most other states. Particularly egregious is comparisons to states like California, where Texas’ saw growth for both its wealthiest 1% and the bottom 99% over the period of 2009 to 2012, while California saw similar growth for its top 1% but a -3% decline in income for their 99% over the same period.[1]Are there problems? Sure. But they are sitting pretty by most people’s standards, particularly the states which have suffered the long-term effects of collectivist policy, such that Democrats are currently suggesting, as well as those who had no major industry to replace agriculture after the state intervened into it. So this is where we are now. People say that states like mine vote against their interests because we wholeheartedly reject modern collectivist measures to “raise us out of poverty”. We, however, are already straddled with the financial and culture burden of exactly these same kinds of measures from generations past.The worst part, when we say these things, we are completely ignored. In the best cases, we are dismissed as not knowing what is best for us because we are just the working class, more commonly known as rednecks, white trash, and hillbillies, and mostly by people who have never set foot in our towns. In the worst cases, we all suddenly became racists for pointing out images like the family of poor whites picking cotton or for mentioning that according to the US census in 2010, the number of poor whites outnumbers the number of poor blacks by about 12:1. If I say that, you hear me saying that “there is no problem with black poverty” instead of hearing what I am actually saying that the problems of poverty are not due to racism, but are rooted in exactly the same kind of bad governance. But mostly, you just don’t hear from us at all. That’s because the same sorts of metrics that gave The New York Times and virtually every other major news media outlet absolute certainty that Clinton was going to win, can only come to such an unfathomably wrong conclusion because they completely and totally don’t reach out to more than a third of the nation who don’t live in easy to reach, mostly urban, mostly rich, liberal cities.Yet these people are the ones who want to tell us what our interests are? Pure arrogance.Thank you for reading. If you liked this answer, please upvote and follow The War Elephant. If you want to help me make more content like this, please visit my Patreon Support Page to learn how. All donations greatly appreciated!

Why is Australia so hostile to China?It’s not. And never has been, and is unlikely to ever be so. We are Chinese.Perhaps I have your attention, so let's keep rolling….Australia is most definitely not hostile towards Chinese people. To say such a thing simply means you have no knowledge of Australia, Chinese-Australian history, and China-Australia relations.Australia is an immigrant country, and a young country that grew and developed on a timeline loosely similar to modern China’s. The two nations have been inexorably interlinked since the early 1800’s.At every step of Australia’s founding as a nation, formation of policy and social development, Chinese-Australians have been there.The contribution of Chinese-Australians to the country is profound. I will argue that the Australian Chinese community is one of this country's national treasures and its greatest assets.Let’s take a quick look at that history1829 – Fifty-five Chinese migrated to Australia.1848 – On 2nd October the ship Nimrod arrived from Xiamen with 120 Chinese followed by another ship, the Phillip Laing with 123 Chinese aboard.1851 – 393 Chinese arrived at Hobart. 225 Chinese arrived at Moreton Bay. A person of note at this time is Louis Ah Mouy who sent a letter to his hometown explaining of the gold that was being found in Victoria. 50000 Chinese arrived in China between 1851–56 to work in the goldfields predominantly in Bendigo and Ballarat. Louis Ah Mouy became a prosperous gold merchant.1855 – with the end of the gold rush came policies that restricted immigration into Victoria, fuelled by locals unhappy that dwindling reserves of gold were going to foreigners, fuelled political by fears of rebellion stemming from the belief that many of the Chinese were of that nature coming from an area of China that had seen riots against the Qing empire and the so on. Post the Eureka Stockade Chinese arriving into Victorian ports were required to pay ten pound entry tax.1855 – Chinese arrived through the port of Adelaide to avoid the restrictions in Victoria, and followed overland routes, in the hope of riches, to the Goldfields of Victoria.1856 to 1889 – Over 61,000 Chinese came to NSW. They also helped build key infrastructure inc the Great Northern Railway (Sydney to Brisbane) and the international telegraph line at Darwin, NT.1877 – there were 20,000 Chinese living at Palmer River who had followed the news of a gold rush in Queensland, outnumbering European settlers. Challenged by native tribes they stayed on mining the region. Post the mining rush many Chinese helped to develop the Banana trade. The Chinese became dominant in the banana trade, wholesale and retail on the eastern seaboard. Interestingly, profits from this trade were sent home to develop department stores (Wing On) in Hong Kong, Guangzhou (Canton), and Shanghai.1880s – end of the gold rush and many Chinese stayed in Australia and took jobs as chefs, working on farms, paddle boats, as cabinet makers and so on. Many becoming highly successful merchants and business owners.1898 – the Tung Wah Newspaper rolls of the printers. Distributed nationally it was apparently a hot platform for the discussion of the future of China, with Chinese Australians being pro-Qing and others being pro Sun Yat Sen.1901 – Introduction of policies barring non-Europeans immigrating to Australia was a hideous time for Chinese Australians. Policy born out of fear, ignorance, and rising nationalism, yet it was perhaps one of the catalysts for Federation. The awkward and ignorant stumbling of the coming together of a new nation that had not yet formed values or beliefs, nor understood that it was to be a nation of nations. These policies were instituted by the states and later federally where subsequently removed from 1949 to 1973. In 1975 the Racial Discrimination Act was passed, as the name implies, making racial discrimination unlawful.1901 – Federation – Australia becomes a nation. The Chinese community paraded two dragons through the streets of Melbourne in joint celebrations.1902 – the Chinese Times rolls off the presses in opposition to the pro-Qing stance of the Tung Wah Newspaper.1911 – the Young China League was formed by Lew Goot-Chee and Wong Yue-Kung and created the National Patriotic Fund which sent money back to China to support Dr Sun Yat-Sen.1912 – There were pro-Qing flag parades held by Chinese conservatives who were dismayed at the demise of the imperial regime and celebrations were held by pro-KMT along with the removal of the dragon flag was replaced with the 12-pointed star flag at the Chinese Australian Consulate.1913 – A thank you letter is sent from the Finance Minister of the Republic to Chinese Australians for their support. That letter is on display at the Golden Dragon Museum in Bendigo Victoria.1914 – 198 Chinese men enlist with the Australian Imperial Force and fight in the Great War. Notable was Billy Sing who became Australian hero for his ability with a rifle.1921 – China World’s News rolls off the presses1937 – Jiang Jieshi sent a letter to the Chinese in Australia, appealing for their support against the Japanese invasion. Fundraisers were held across the country. Immigration numbers of Chinese to Australia increased as refugees escaping invasion from Japanese forces.1939 -1945 – WWII saw many Chinese Australians involved and making vital contributions in the war effort.1943 – Bank of China is issued a banking license and opens its first branch in Sydney.1951 – the Australia China Friendship Society was established in Melbourne and Sydney founded by Arthur Locke Chang. He advocated for peaceful international co-existence in the troubled times of capitalism vs communism.1951 – the Columbo Plan. 300M was donated to aid in the education of Asian students in Australia. It’s important to note this as up until this point immigrants from China had been mostly from southern areas.1956 – Melbourne Olympics. An Australian born Chinese proposed the idea of marching without national flags at the closing ceremony to symbolise international togetherness in what were troubled times internationally, he was later presented a medal even though he did not compete. A Chinese team from Taiwan took part in the Melbourne Olympics.1970 – James Lew, a 101-year-old Chinese elder brought Sun Loong, the longest imperial dragon in the world, to life by dotting his eyes with chicken blood. Sun Loong lives at the Golden Dragon Museum in Bendigo Victoria.1972 – Diplomatic relations were established between Australia and the People’s Republic of China.1973 – the Australian Chinese Community Association (ACCA) was formed1976 – the Australia-China Chamber of Commerce and Industry was formed1978 – The Australian-China Council was formed1982 – William Liu was awarded an OBE his efforts in Sino-Australian relations, and also receiving high praise from then premier of China, Zhao Ziyang.1982 – Sing Tao Daily rolls of the presses1983 – Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang visits Australia1984 – Alec Fong Lim is elected Lord Mayor of Darwin1984 – the Australian Chinese Forum was founded1986 – Australia begins accepting Chinese students for tertiary1988 – Helen Sham won a seat in the Legislative Council of New South Wales.1988 – The Chinese Garden of Friendship is opened at Darling Harbour, Sydney. It was designed by Sydney’s sister city, Guangzhou.1989 – After the events of Tiananmen Square, Australia allowed 42,000 Chinese students to settle in Australia permanently. (note that some claim that figure to be 20,000)1990 – During this decade trade with China begins its first boom1993 – The Pacific Times rolls off the presses1993 – The Queensland Asian Business Weekly rolls off the presses1995 – Chinese Sydney Weekly rolls off the presses1997 – 100,000 Chinese immigrate to Australia post the British handover of Hong Kong.2003 – Chinese President Hu Jintao visits Australia and addresses Australian Parliament - transcript here: Full text: Hu's speech2006 – Wen Jiabao visits Australia2006 – Vision Times rolls off the presses2007 – Chinese President Hu Jintao visits Australia2008 – The University of Sydney Confucius Institute opens. The Chinese Government opens another 9 Confucius Institutes in Australian Universities and also within the NSW Education Department.2009 – Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang visits Australia2009 – China and Australia sign a deal on the Gorgon field which ensures China a steady supply of LPG fuel for the next 20 years2011 – Chinese becomes the second most widely spoken language in Australia overtaking Italian and Greek.2014 – Chinese President Xi Jinping visits Australia and addresses the federal parliament2015 – China-Australia Free Trade Agreement was signed2016 – At the 2016 census, 5.6% of the Australian population have Chinese ancestry. 596,711 persons declared that they spoke Mandarin at home followed by Cantonese at 280,943. Other popular dialects were Hokkien and Hakka. The most popular city for mainland Chinese was Sydney followed by Melbourne.2017 – Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visits Australia2017 – December 21 the 45th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and AustraliaThis timeline comes from a recent article I wrote for WTC here http://welcometochina.com.au/celebrating-chinese-australian-history-a-timeline-1829-to-2017-5689.htmlWhat I didn’t touch on to a great extent was the political connections which run quite deep since Gough Whitlam, then Prime Minister, and his first visit to China in 3rd July 1971 and the meeting with Zhou Enlai. Interestingly, but unknown to many, he preceded Henry Kissinger's visit.Long before any other nation, Whitlam was one of the first to recognise the People’s Republic of China, and to voice support for its entry into the United Nations, when he stated publicly on the, 12 August 1954, “It is about time that, like the United Kingdom and France, we recognised the communist government of China”.The People’s Republic of China was officially recognised by Australia in December 1972.During the Hawke Government era trade relations boomed. In 1983 Zhou Ziyang visited Australia, and in 1984 Bob Hawke visited China. That relationship led to the integration of China’s and Australia's Steel and Iron Ore industries. It also led to innumerable Joint Working Groups and Memorandums of Understanding on technology transfer, science and technical cooperation, geological sciences and participating in China’s legal reform via exchanges between the two countries legal departments. The CAP (China Action Plan) was initiated which including setting up trade offices in Sydney and Melbourne to facilitate the development of Chinese trade into Australia and Internationally.On the 16 June 1989, Prime Minister Hawke made an emotional and tearful address to the Australian nation post the events of Tiananmen. In his address, without consultation, he offered all Chinese students in Australia extended visas, work rights, and financial assistance. In the end that led to the granting of 42,000 permanent visas.During the Howard Government years, and for the most part continuing through to the present, trade has continued to flourish along with intergovernmental working groups and collaborations.Yet, Chinese Australian relationship it’s an odd relationship in a political sense. We have no common values in this area, we have no historical language or cultural ties, and geographically we are not that close to each other. We are not dependent on each other politically, economically, strategically, nor through any grouping.Australia, even with its deep Chinese heritage, and ever growing Australian Chinese community, and Asian community at large, has shown that it is not going to change philosophically from its alignment with own values and western values.In fact, it’s the Asian community, and lately the Australian Chinese community, that are the most vocal about protecting those values. One example being the Australia Values Alliance.So, whilst Australia is Chinese through the Australian Chinese community as an integral part of the nation and its history, and whilst it embraces Chinese culture into its melting pot of cultures and seeks to expand relations with China, but, simultaneously, remains resolutely independent according to its values and what the nation represents.That is perhaps the most frustrating thing for Beijing. It has had no success in gaining real influence in Australia or to have Australia as some kind or subject, or agreeable vassal state. Regardless of having strong trade and strong investment, it has little sway. This constantly gets played out on the international stage where Australia will state it’s own view, sometimes quite independent from US and in favor of China, at other times very much in line with the shared values of democratic nations.The recent debate surrounding “China’s influence” in AustraliaRecent events surrounding political influence by Beijing within Australia are quite interesting. Interesting in that its the Australian Chinese community that is perhaps driving force behind the rejection of Beijing becoming so ‘active’ within Australia.The tipping point to recent events was perhaps the late 2016 planned performances to celebrate the death of Chairman Mao."As Australian-Chinese, we see this trend happening as Chinese-language media in Australia become largely influenced by Chinese government with all sorts of commercial linkages; pro-China groups emerge in Sydney and Melbourne; the incoming of Confucius Institutes in our universities which have spread to high school and primary schools in the name of teaching Chinese," Embrace Australian Values Alliance spokesman John Hugh said."We are not here to be against certain groups, we are here to protect our Australian values. We choose to live in this country so we need to protect our home."Quoted from http://www.smh.com.au/world/divisive-chairman-mao-concerts-cancelled-20160901-gr6j8a.htmlIt was perhaps the marketing of the concerts in Chinese Australian media that tipped people over the edge“commemorate the great leader,” “illustrate Mao Zedong’s humanitarian ­personality,” and describing the late ruler as “a hero in the eyes of people all over the world.”The concerts were cancelled. But attention to anything pro-Beijing escalated.Chinese Media in AustraliaChinese language media in Australia is quite well established through print media, a recent explosion in the number of website portals, and through traditional Chinese social media such as WeChat.Many claim that Beijing was buying influence in major Australian media through publishing deals.Several leading Australia media outlets (including Fairfax media and Sky News) have signed distribution deals with the Propaganda Department of the ruling Chinese Communist Party. These deals were signed during the little-publicised tour by the country’s Grand Inquisitor, Liu Qibao, who is a member of the politburo and the minister for propaganda.Quoted from https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/beijings-control-over-chinese-language-media-more-pressing-fairfax-china-dailyChinese language media in print form, in Australia, is mostly pro-Beijing, with only one or two independent papers. This at first wouldn’t be overly concerning, expect for when it can be used for a tool of social division and to drive the Chinese Australian community against the greater community to cause social disruption and destroy harmony.That is a point that any nation would want to investigate, China certainly would, and Australia has been far to lax in not doing so.Although probably immune to party propaganda, Chinese Australians didn't come all this way, and go through so much to build a life here, and to then continue enduring such garb.For detailed insight into the Chinese language media landscape in China see the PDF here http://www.australiachinarelations.org/sites/default/files/1609%20Australia-China%20Relations%20Institute%20Publication%20-%20Chinese-language%20media%20in%20Australia%20Developments,%20challenges%20and%20opportunities.pdfFreedom of debate within universities is another hot topic.Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has issued a blunt warning to Chinese university students affiliated with the Communist Party, urging them to respect freedom of speech in Australia.You have to remember Australia’s offer of openness, tolerance, freedom of speech and discovery of truth through open debate. That's why many students come here. These are central to our nation's values.Confucius Institutes housed within Australian Universities, whilst displaying good intention and warmly welcomed, have displayed they are not so altruistic towards core Australian values. This has been concerning policy makers, on the left and right, for some time.Communist Party of China (CPC) speeches and texts openly describe CIs as being designed to influence perceptions of China and its policies abroad. Li Changchun, a Politburo member, says the Institutes are ‘an important part of China’s overseas propaganda set-up’ and Deputy Education Minister Hao Ping has noted that ‘establishing Confucius Institutes is a strategic plan for increasing our soft power’.Quoted from https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/FlagPost/2014/November/Confucius_Institutes_and_Chinese_soft_power_in_AustraliaFurther escalationsThe detaining of the Australian-Chinese professor, Chongyi Feng, in China didn’t help. It deepened suspicions about the CCP and it’s actions that are contrary to Australia's core beliefs, and led to deeper introspection of the extent and purpose of China’s soft power in Australia. Analysis: Beijing sends blunt warning to Chinese AustraliansWhat also came from that was an awareness of the actions of the “United Front’ within Australia and deeper suspicion of civil groups connected to the Chinese Communist Party operating in Australia.Political PaymentsPolitical payments have always been a hot button issue in Australia, and the finances of ministers is highly scrutinised topic and a guaranteed hot button issue with locals.The stream of donations by Huang Xiangmo was a bridge too far for many of the Australian public who were opposed to the idea of donations from anyone. Beyond Dastyari: Chinese businessman's political donation web revealedThe citizens of any country would rightly reject such.The inquiry into foreign political donations is still taking place Foreign donations and it’s mostly accepted that they will be banned at state and federal levels.An ongoing storyChina's Operation Australia: payments, power and politicianshttp://www.abc.net.au/news/story-streams/china-power/Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s statement on “Taking a Stand”He had to make that statement for two reasons. In the media flurry that was surrounding a ‘perfect storm’ of issues relating to China’s influence, he had to draw a line. Even if for nothing else but to make people at ease and to dispel festering fears that the nation is becoming a vassal state of China.The second major implication of that statement is that he stood with the Chinese-Australian community, he could of chosen to use diplomatic rhetoric to smooth the important economic relationship, but instead he chose to stand with the local community. You see, The Chinese-Australian community is vital to this country, an integral part of our fabric and history, and they are offered safe harbour here, free from fear of external influence, free to live their life as they feel.Returning to your point, Why is Australia so hostile to China?There isn't hostility, Australia remains as open as ever to Chinese, Whether coming for tourism, for education, for business, to work, or to start a new life and raise a family.But understand the offer. Australia doesn’t offer a one party state, hierarchical culture, or collective. We offer a nation that sits at number 2, sometimes no 1, on the Human Development Index, we offer pristine environment, low density living, high income, world leading health care, world leading social welfare, democracy, freedom of speech, dignity as an individual, equality, egalitarianism, a fair go for all, and compassion for the needy.Probably blowing the trumpet a bit hard, but the core point is perhaps that we are fundamentally different societies, culturally and most certainly philosophically. I am not trying to say one is better than the other, but just to pay respect to the differences.Perhaps Chinese Premier Li Keqiang sums it up well, on his most recent visit, upon arriving"We flew across the clouds. There was lightning but we kept flying and that is the same as China-Australia relations, It will keep moving forward and forward and forward."And I will end with a shout out to some of the Chinese-Australians who have helped make Australia what it is.AcademiaVictor Chang: heart surgeonCindy Pan: celebrity doctor and sexual/women's health expertMabel Lee: linguistHelene Chung Martin: former ABC correspondent, author of Shouting from China and Lazy Man in ChinaTerence Tao: mathematicianCharles Teo: neurosurgeonKaren Tso: finance reporterJohn Yu: paediatrician and 1996 Australian of the YearOuyang Yu: poet, novelist and author of The Eastern Slope ChronicleLiangchi Zhang: scientistYang Hengjun: political blogger, author of "Fatal Weakness" series.Marita Cheng: founder of Robogals and 2012 Young Australian of the YearBusiness and financeKwong Sue Duk: pioneer herbalist and merchantNeale Fong: doctor and sports administratorSir Leslie Joseph Hooker: real estate magnate, founder of L.J. HookerStern Hu: businessmanBing Lee: businessman who started up the Bing Lee franchisesAndrew Leon: businessman in Cairns, Queensland [1][2]Andy Yin: Sydney Inner West Leo's PresidentYew-Kwang Ng: economist at Monash UniversityTrevor O'Hoy: Former CEO of Foster's GroupErn Phang: lawyerTom See Poy: department store owner in Innisfail, QueenslandMei Quong Tart: 19th Century businessman and public figureheadDavid Wang: businessmanXiaokai Yang: economistArts and entertainmentTony Ayres: screenwriter and directorJason Chan: actor and directorQueenie Chan: comic artistClaudia Chan Shaw: fashion designer and television presenterJackie Chan: actor,singer,director and stuntmanJun Chen: painterLee Lin Chin: news readerElizabeth Chong: chef, author and television presenterAnna Choy: actress and presenterLi Cunxin: ballet dancer, author and public speakerJeff Fatt: performer with the WigglesRussell Jack: founder and director of the Golden Dragon MuseumShen Jiawei: painterKylie Kwong: chef, restaurateur and media presenterLawrence Leung: comedianGuang Li: actorRenee Lim: actress and media personalityNina Liu: actressJaymee Ong: actress and modelCindy Pan: physician and media personalityChris Pang: actorSam Pang: writer, actor, director, producer and presenterAlice Pung: authorRose Quong: actor, performer and writerSarah Song: television actress and presenterShaun Tan: artist, author and illustratorLing-Hsueh Tang: actressVico Thai: television and film actorAnnette Shun Wah: media presenterJames Wan: film director, writer, and producer of the Saw film franchiseBin Xie: painterHu Xin: actressPoh Ling Yeow: artist, grand finalist on MasterChef Australia 2009John Zerunge Young: artistPoliticsWilliam Ah Ket: barrister and early 20th century campaigner for Chinese rightsHenry Tsang OAM: former Parliamentary Secretary to the Premier; Deputy Lord Mayor, Sydney, 1991–1999Dio Wang: federal Senator for Western Australia since 2014 (Parliament of Australia)Tsebin Tchen: former federal Senator for Victoria (Parliament of Australia)Helen Sham-Ho OAM: Member of the Legislative Council of New South Wales (State Parliament)Jing Lee MLC: Member of the Legislative Council of South Australiasince 2010 (State Parliament)Peter Wong AM: Member of the Legislative Council of New South Wales (State Parliament), 1999-2007; Founder, Unity Party (Australia), 1998Ernest Wong MLC: Member of the Legislative Council of New South Wales since 2013 (State Parliament)Michael Choi: Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly (State Parliament), 2001-2012Harry Chan: First Chinese mayor of Australia, DarwinAlec Fong Lim AM: former Lord Mayor of DarwinKatrina Fong Lim: Lord Mayor of DarwinJohn So AO: Lord Mayor of Melbourne, 2001-2008Alfred Huang: Lord Mayor, Adelaide, 2000-2003Stanley Chiang: Mayor, DarebinRobert Chong AM:Member of the Order of Australia; Mayor, Whitehorse, 2002-2005. Whitehorse Councillor since 1997Chan Ching Howe: First Chinese councillor of Australia, MelvilleLai Li Hiam: Councillor, Yarra, Victoria, 1996-2004Keith Yong: Councillor, PerthSarah Chong: United Nations Peace Women Project Officer 2007, Asylum Seeker and Refugee Advocate and Community Development PractitionerMilitaryCaleb Shang: World War I soldier, Western FrontJack Wong Sue: World War II special forces soldier, mariner and author (Western Australia)Billy Sing: World War I soldierSportsLes Fong: Australian rules footballerLin Jong: Australian rules footballerCheltzie Lee: Figure skaterAndy Liu: FootballerAnthony Liu: Figure skaterMiao Miao: Table tennis playerRichard Chee Quee: CricketerKenneth To: SwimmerEsther Qin: DiverMelissa Wu: DiverPriscilla Hon:Tennis playerGronya Somerville: BadmintonMixed Chinese/European ancestryAcademicsVanessa Woods: scientist, author, and feature writer for the Discovery ChannelArts and entertainmentCourtney Eaton: actress and modelRichard Clapton: singer and songwriterJimmy Chi: composer, musician and playwrightJessica Gomes: modelLisa Ho: fashion designerJenny Kee: fashion designerAdam Liaw: winner of MasterChef Australia 2010MilitaryBilly Sing: World War I: soldier, Gallipoli and Western FrontCaleb Shang: World War I, Soldier, Royal AirforcePoliticsGai Brodtmann: Member of Parliament, Federal ParliamentMichael Johnson: former Member of Parliament, Federal ParliamentBill O'Chee: former Senator (Queensland), Federal ParliamentPenny Wong: Senator (South Australia), Federal Parliament, Member of Cabinet, Minister for Climate Change and Water 2007-2010, Minister of Finance and Deregulation 2010 - (Incumbent)SportsKevin Gordon: Rugby league playerWally Koochew: Australian rules footballerHunter Poon: first player of Chinese descent to appear in Australian first-class cricketMelissa Wu (diver)Jack Purtell: Jockey, Won 3 Melbourne Cups.This list is quoted from an earlier post here What will be the future between Australia and China relations?updated: added link to transcript of Hu Jintao’s address to the Australian Parliament in 2003, tks Peter Webb. Added Gronya Somerville to the list of notable Chinese-Australians tks Kenzo Variant

I wish that a different term were utilized to define resistance to the wall. So many are available, for the reasons NOT to build the wall surmount those to build it by miles.THE WALLThe real costs of a barrier between the United States and MexicoLeer en EspañolTopic:Price TagSmugglingCrimeU.S. EconomyCommunities & EnvironmentAlong the U.S. Mexico near Nogales, Arizona Getty ImagesVanda Felbab-BrownAugust 2017The cheerful paintings of flowers on the tall metal posts on the Tijuana side of the border fence between the U.S. and Mexico belie the sadness of the Mexican families who have gathered there to exchange whispers, tears, and jokes with relatives on the San Diego side.A woman in Tijuana, Mexico speaks with a U.S. immigration attorney through the border fence. Getty ImagesMany have been separated from their family members for years. Some were deported to Mexico after having lived in the United States for decades without authorization, leaving behind children, spouses, siblings, and parents. Others never left Mexico, but have made their way to the fence to see relatives in the United States. With its prison–like ambience and Orwellian name—Friendship Park—this site is one of the very few places where families separated by immigration rules can have even fleeting contact with their loved ones, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. Elsewhere, the tall metal barrier is heavily patrolled.So is to be the wall that President Donald Trump promises to build along the border. But no matter how tall and thick a wall will be, illicit flows will cross.Undocumented workers and drugs will still find their way across any barrier the administration ends up building. And such a wall will be irrelevant to those people who become undocumented immigrants by overstaying their visas—who for many years have outnumbered those who become undocumented immigrants by crossing the U.S.–Mexico border.Nor will the physical wall enhance U.S. security.The border, and more broadly how the United States defines its relations with Mexico, directly affects the 12 million people who live within 100 miles of the border. In multiple and very significant ways that have not been acknowledged or understood it will also affect communities all across the United States as well as Mexico.WHAT THE WALL’S PRICE TAG WOULD BEThe wall comes with many costs, some obvious though hard to estimate, some unforeseen. The most obvious is the large financial outlay required to build it, in whatever form it eventually takes. Although during the election campaign candidate Trump claimed that the wall would cost only $12 billion, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) internal report in February put the cost at $21.6 billion, but that may be a major underestimate.The estimates vary so widely because of the lack of clarity about what the wall will actually consist of beyond the first meager Homeland Security specifications that it be either a solid concrete wall or a see–through structure, “physically imposing in height,” ideally 30 feet high but no less than 18 feet, sunk at least six feet into the ground to prevent tunneling under it; that it should not be scalable with even sophisticated climbing aids; and that it should withstand prolonged attacks with impact tools, cutting tools, and torches. But that description doesn’t begin to cover questions about the details of its physical structure. Then there are the legal fees required to seize land on which to build the wall. The Trump administration can use eminent domain to acquire the land but will still have to negotiate compensation and often face lawsuits. More than 90 such lawsuits in southern Texas alone are still open from the 2008 effort to build a fence there.Mountainous terrain along the U.S.-Mexico border is an obstacle to building a wall. Depicted here: a stretch of border about 100 miles east of San Diego. Google EarthThe Trump administration cannot simply seize remittances to Mexico to pay for the wall; doing so may increase flows of undocumented workers to the United States. Remittances provide many Mexicans with amenities they could never afford otherwise. But for Mexicans living in poverty—some 46.2 percent in 2015 according to the Mexican social research agency CONEVAL—the remittances are a veritable lifeline which can represent as much as 80 percent of their income. These families count on that money for the basics of life—food, clothing, health care, and education for their children.The remittances enable human and economic development throughout the country, and this in turn reduces the incentives for further migration to the United States — precisely what Trump is aiming to do.I met the matron of one of those families in a lush but desperately poor mountain village in Guerrero. Rosa, a forceful woman who was initially suspicious, decided to confide in me. Her son had crossed into the United States eight years ago, she said. The remittances he sent allowed Rosa’s grandchildren to get medical treatment at the nearest clinic, some thirty miles away. Like Rosa, many people in the village had male relatives working illegally in the United States in order to help their families make ends meet. Sierra de Atoyac may be paradise for a birdwatcher (which I am), but Guerrero is one of Mexico’s poorest, most neglected, and crime and violence–ridden states. “Here you have few chances,” Rosa explained to me. “If you’re smart, like my son, you make it across the border to the U.S. If you’re not so smart, you join the narcos. If you’re stupid, but lucky, you join the [municipal] police. Otherwise, you’re stuck here farming or logging and starving.”Construction cost estimates**The above figures show the upper estimate when a range was suggested. Costs do not include annual maintenance.Any attempt to seize the remittances from such families would be devastating. Fluctuating between $20 billion and $25 billion annually during the past decade, remittances from the United States have amounted to about 3 percent of Mexico’s GDP, representing the third–largest source of foreign revenue after oil and tourism. The remittances enable human and economic development throughout the country, and this in turn reduces the incentives for further migration to the United States—precisely what Trump is aiming to do.A tunnel between Tijuana and a warehouse in California featured an elevator. Getty ImagesWHY THE WALL WOULDN’T STOP SMUGGLINGWhy the DHS believes that a 30–foot tall wall cannot be scaled and a tunnel cannot be built deeper than six feet below ground is not clear.Drug smugglers have been using tunnels to get drugs into the United States ever since Mexico’s most famous drug trafficker, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán of the Sinaloa Cartel, pioneered the method in 1989. And the sophistication of these tunnels has only grown over time. In April 2016, U.S. law enforcement officials discovered a drug tunnel that ran more than half a mile from Tijuana to San Diego and was equipped with ventilation vents, rails, and electricity. It is the longest such tunnel to be found so far, but one of 13 of great length and technological expertise discovered since 2006. Altogether, between 1990 and 2016, 224 tunnels have been unearthed at the U.S.–Mexico border.Other smuggling methods increasingly include the use of drones and catapults as well as joint drainage systems between border towns that have wide tunnels or tubes through which people can crawl and drugs can be pulled. But even if the land border were to become much more secure, that would only intensify the trend toward smuggling goods as well as people via boats that sail far to the north, where they land on the California coast.224The number of tunnels unearthed at the U.S.–Mexico border, 1990–2016Another thing to consider is that a barrier in the form of a wall is increasingly irrelevant to the drug trade as it is now practiced because most of the drugs smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico no longer arrive on the backs of those who cross illegally. Instead, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, most of the smuggled marijuana as well as cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines comes through the 52 legal ports of entry on the border. These ports have to process literally millions of people, cars, trucks, and trains every week. Traffickers hide their illicit cargo in secret, state–of–the art compartments designed for cars, or under legal goods in trailer trucks. And they have learned many techniques for fooling the border patrol. Mike, a grizzled U.S. border official whom I interviewed in El Paso in 2013, shrugged: “The narcos sometimes tip us off, letting us find a car full of drugs while they send six other cars elsewhere. Such write–offs are part of their business expense. Other times the tipoffs are false. We search cars and cars, snarl up the traffic for hours on, and find nothing.”A U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer patrols some of the 24 lanes of traffic entering the U.S. from Mexico at San Ysidro. ReutersBeyond the Sinaloa Cartel, 44 other significant criminal groups operate today in Mexico. The infighting within and among them has made Mexico one of the world’s most violent countries. In 2016 alone this violence claimed between 21,000 and 23,000 lives. Between 2007 and 2017, a staggering 177,000 people were murdered in Mexico, a number that could actually be much higher, as many bodies are buried in mass graves that are hidden and never found. Those Mexican border cities that are principal entry points of drugs into the Unites States have been particularly badly affected by the violence.Take Ciudad Juárez, for example. Directly across the border from peaceful El Paso. Ciudad Juárez was likely the world’s most violent city when I was there in 2011 and it epitomizes what can happen during these drug wars. In 2011 the Sinaloa Cartel was battling the local Juárez Cartel, trying to take over the city’s smuggling routes to the United States, and causing a veritable bloodbath. Walking around the contested colonías at the time was like touring a cemetery: Residents would point out places where people were killed the day before, three days before, five weeks ago.Juan, a skinny 19–year–old whom I met there that year, told me that he was trying to get out of a local gang (the name of which he wouldn’t reveal). He had started working for the gang as a halcone (a lookout) when he was 15, he said. But now as the drug war raged in the city and the local gangs were pulled into the infighting between the big cartels, his friends in the gang were being asked to do much more than he wanted to do—to kill. Without any training, they were given assault weapons. Having no shooting skills, they just sprayed bullets in the vicinity of their assigned targets, hoping that at least some of the people they killed would be the ones they were supposed to kill, because if they didn’t succeed, they themselves might be murdered by those who had contracted them to do the job.I met Juan through Valeria, whose NGO was trying to help gang members like Juan get on the straight and narrow. But it was tough going for her and her staff to make the case. As Juan had explained to me, a member who refused to do the bidding of the gangs could be killed for his failure to cooperate.“And America does nothing to stop the weapons coming here!” Valeria exclaimed to me.Weapons seized from alleged drug traffickers in Mexico City. ReutersWhile President Trump accuses Mexico of exporting violent crime and drugs to the United States, many Mexican officials as well as people like Valeria, who are on the ground in the fight against the drug wars, complain of a tide of violence and corruption that flows in the opposite direction. Some 70 percent of the firearms seized in Mexico between 2009 and 2014 originated in the United States. Although amounting to over 73,000 guns, these seizures still likely represented only a fraction of the weapons smuggled from the United States. Moreover, billions of dollars per year are made in the illegal retail drug market in the United States and smuggled back to Mexico, where the cartels depend on this money for their basic operations. Sometimes, sophisticated money–laundering schemes, such as trade–based deals, are used; but large parts of the proceeds are smuggled as bulk cash hidden in secret compartments and among goods in the cars and trains daily crossing the border south to Mexico.Some 70 percent of the firearms seized in Mexico between 2009 and 2014 originated in the United States.And of course it is the U.S. demand for drugs that fuels Mexican drug smuggling in the first place. Take, for example, the current heroin epidemic in the United States. It originated in the over–prescription of medical opiates to treat pain. The subsequent efforts to reduce the over–prescription of painkillers led those Americans who became dependent on them to resort to illegal heroin. That in turn stimulated a vast expansion of poppy cultivation in Mexico, particularly in Guerrero. In 2015, Mexico’s opium poppy cultivation reached perhaps 28,000 hectares, enough to distill about 70 tons of heroin (which is even more than the 24–50 tons estimated to be necessary to meet the U.S. demand).Heroin brand name stamps. DEAMexico’s large drug cartels, including El Chapo’s Sinaloa Cartel, which is estimated to supply between 40 and 60 percent of the cocaine and heroin sold on the streets in the United States, are the dominant wholesale suppliers of illegal drugs in the United States. For the retail trade, however, they usually recruit business partners among U.S. crime gangs. And thanks to the deterrence capacity of U.S. law enforcement, insofar as Mexican drug–trafficking groups do have in–country operations in the U.S., such as in wholesale supply, they have behaved strikingly peacefully and have not resorted to the vicious aggression and infighting that characterizes their business in Mexico. So the U.S. has been spared the drug–traffic–related explosions of violence that have ravaged so many of the drug–producing or smuggling areas of Mexico.Both the George W. Bush administration and the Obama administration recognized the joint responsibility for drug trafficking between the United States and Mexico, an attitude that allowed for unprecedented collaborative efforts to fight crime and secure borders. This collaboration allowed U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agents to operate in Mexico and help their Mexican counterparts in intelligence development, training, vetting, establishment of police procedures and protocols, and interdiction operations. The collaboration also led to Mexico being far more willing than it ever had been before to patrol both its northern border with the United States and its southern border with Central America, as part of the effort to help apprehend undocumented workers trying to cross into the United States.A U.S. Border Patrol officer looks through bullet-proof glass at the border near El Paso. Getty ImagesThe Trump administration’s hostility to Mexico could jeopardize this progress. In retaliation for building the wall, for any efforts the U.S. might make to force Mexico to pay for the wall, or for the collapse of NAFTA, the Mexican government could, for example, give up on its efforts to secure its southern border or stop sharing counterterrorism intelligence with the United States. Yet Mexico’s cooperation is far more important for U.S. security than any wall.Chicago police at the scene of a shooting in the Englewood neighborhood. Getty ImagesWHAT THE WALL WOULD MEAN FOR CRIME IN THE U.S.Although President Trump has railed against the “carnage” of crime in the United States, the crime statistics, with few exceptions, tell a very different story.From 1991 to 2015, U.S. homicides fell 36%In 2014, 14,249 people were murdered, the lowest homicide rate since 1991 when there were 24,703, and part of a pattern of steady decline in violent crime over that entire period. In 2015, however, murders in the U.S. did shoot up to 15,696. This increase was largely driven by three cities—Baltimore, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. Baltimore and Chicago have decreasing populations, and all three have higher poverty and unemployment than the national average, high income and racial inequality, and troubled relations between residents and police—conditions conducive to a rise in violent crime. In 2016, homicides fell in Washington and Baltimore, but continued rising in Chicago.There is no evidence, however, that undocumented residents accounted for either the rise in crime or even for a substantial number of the crimes, in Chicago or elsewhere. The vast majority of violent crimes, including murders, are committed by native–born Americans. Multiple criminological studies show that foreign–born individuals commit much lower levels of crime than do the native–born. In California, for example, where there is a large immigrant population, including of undocumented migrants, U.S.–born men were incarcerated at a rate 2.5 times higher than foreign–born men.A Mexican man is fingerprinted while in custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ReutersUnfortunately, the Trump administration is promoting a policing approach that insists on prioritizing hunting down undocumented workers, including by using regular police forces, and this kind of misguided law enforcement policy is spreading: In Texas, which has an estimated 1.5 million undocumented immigrants, Republican Governor Greg Abbott recently signed a law to punish sanctuary cities. Among the punishments are draconian measures (such as removal from office, fines, and up to one–year imprisonment) to be enacted against local police officials who do not embrace immigration enforcement. Abbott signed the law despite the fact that police chiefs from all five of Texas’s largest cities—Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Austin, and Fort Worth—published a statement condemning it: “This legislation is bad for Texas and will make our communities more dangerous for all,” they wrote in their Dallas Morning News op–ed. They argued that immigration enforcement is a federal, not a state responsibility, and that the new law would widen a gap between police and immigrant communities, discouraging cooperation with police on serious crimes, and resulting in widespread underreporting of crimes perpetrated against immigrants. There is powerful and consistent evidence that if people begin to question the fairness, equity, and legitimacy of law enforcement and government institutions, then they stop reporting crime, and homicides increase.Police chiefs in other parts of the country, from Los Angeles to Denver, have expressed similar concerns and also their dismay at having to devote their already overstrained resources to hunting down undocumented workers.The Trump administration has broadened the Obama–era criteria for “expedited removal.” Under Obama any immigrant arrested within 100 miles of the border who had been in the country for less than 14 days—i.e., before he or she could establish roots in the United States—could be deported without due process. The result: In fiscal year 2016, 85 percent of all removals (forced) and returns (voluntary) were of noncitizens who met those criteria. Almost all (more than 90 percent) of the remaining 15 percent had been convicted of serious crimes.Children touch hands with family members through a border fence at Ciudad Juárez and El Paso. ReutersNow, however, any undocumented person anywhere in the country who has been here for as long as two years can be removed. And although it claims it will focus on deporting immigrants who commit serious crimes, the Trump administration is gearing up for mass deportations of many of the 11.1 million undocumented residents in the U.S., by far the largest number of whom come from Mexico (6.2 million), Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador, and Colombia. To that end, it is vastly expanding the definition of what constitutes deportable crime, including fraud in any official matter, such as abuse of “any program related to the receipt of public benefits” or even using a fake Social Security number to pay U.S. taxes. The Trump administration is also reviving the highly controversial 287(g) program under which local law enforcement officials can be deputized to perform immigration duties and can inquire about a person’s immigration status during routine policing of matters as insignificant as jaywalking.Many of the people being targeted have for decades lived lawful, safe, and productive lives here. About 60 percent of the undocumented have lived in the United States for at least a decade. A third of undocumented immigrants aged 15 and older have at least one child who is a U.S. citizen by birth. The ripping apart of such families has tragic consequences for those involved, as I have seen first–hand.“Many of the people being targeted [for deportation] have for decades lived lawful, safe, and productive lives here.”60%of the undocumented have lived in the U.S. for at least a decadeAntonio, whom I interviewed in Tijuana in 2013, had lived for many years in Las Vegas, where he worked in construction and his wife cleaned hotels. Having had no encounters with U.S. law enforcement, he risked going back to Mexico to visit his ailing mother in Sinaloa. But he got nabbed trying to sneak back into the U.S. After a legal ordeal, which included being handcuffed and shackled and a degrading stay in a U.S. detention facility, he was dumped in Tijuana, where I met him shortly after his arrival there. He dreaded being forever separated from his wife and their two little boys, who had been born seven and five years before. But Sinaloa is a poor, tough place to live, strongly under the sway of the narcos, and Antonio did not want his loved ones to sacrifice themselves in order to rejoin him. As Antonio choked back tears talking about how much he missed his family, I asked him whether they might travel to San Diego to speak with him across the bars of Friendship Park. But Antonio wasn’t sure how long he could stay in Tijuana. He was afraid he would be arrested again, this time in Mexico, because in order to please U.S. law enforcement officials by appearing diligent in combating crime, Tijuana’s police force had gotten into the habit of arresting, for the most minor of infractions, Mexicans and Central Americans deported from the United States. Sweeping homeless poor migrants and deportees off the streets made Tijuana’s city center appear peaceful, bustling, and clean again, after years of a cartel bloodbath. Mexican businesses were pleased by the orderly look of the city center, the U.S. was gratified by Mexico’s cooperation, and tourists were returning, with U.S. college students again partying and getting drunk in Tijuana’s cantinas and clubs. If harmless victims of U.S. deportation policies like Antonio had to pay the price for these benefits, so be it.Immigrant farm workers harvest spinach near Coachella, California. Getty ImagesHOW THE WALL WOULD HURT THE U.S. ECONOMYIf immigrants are not responsible for any significant amount of crime in the United States and in fact are considerably less likely than native–born citizens to commit crime, then what about the other justification for President Trump’s vilification of immigrants, legal and illegal, and his determination to wall them out: Do immigrants steal U.S. jobs and suppress U.S. wages?Life of a typical migrant farm workerProfile75% born in Mexico53% undocumentedSchedule14 hours a day6 days a weekPay$11k per yearNo overtime payNo benefitsRisksHeat stress, infections, poison, respiratory illnessThere is little evidence to support such claims. According to a comprehensive National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine analysis, immigration does not significantly impact the overall employment levels of most native–born workers. The impact of immigrant labor on the wages of native–born workers is also low. Immigrant labor does have some negative effects on the employment and wages of native–born high school dropouts, however, and also on prior immigrants, because all three groups compete for low–skilled jobs and the newest immigrants are often willing to work for less than their competition. To a large extent, however, undocumented workers often work the unpleasant, back–breaking jobs that native–born workers are not willing to do. Sectors with large numbers of undocumented workers include agriculture, construction, manufacturing, hospitality services, and seafood processing. The fish–cutting industry, for example, is unable to recruit a sufficient number of legal workers and therefore is overwhelmingly dependent on an undocumented workforce. Skinning, deboning, and cutting fish is a smelly, slimy, grimy, chilly, monotonous, and exacting job. Many workers rapidly develop carpal tunnel syndrome. It can be a dangerous job, with machinery for cutting off fish heads and deboning knives everywhere frequently leading to amputated fingers. The risk of infections from cuts and the bloody water used to wash fish is also substantial. Over the past ten years, multiple exposés have revealed that both in the United States and abroad, workers in the fishing and seafood processing industries, often undocumented in other countries also, are subjected to forced labor conditions, and sometimes treated like slaves.Typical housing for migrant farmworkers in a work camp in Sampson County, in central North Carolina. Getty ImagesWhile paying more than jobs she could obtain in Honduras, the fish cutting job was hard for 38–year–old Marta Escoto, profiled by Robin Shulman in a 2007 article in The Washington Post. But she put up with it for the sake of her two young children, one of them a four–year–old daughter who couldn’t walk and suffered from a gastrointestinal illness that prevented her from absorbing enough nutrition. Yet the fear of raids to which the Massachusetts fish–cutting industry was subjected a decade ago, in an earlier wave of anti–immigrant fervor, drove her to seek a job as a seamstress in a Massachusetts factory producing uniforms for U.S. soldiers. But misfortune struck there, too. Like the seafood processing plants, the New Bedford factory was raided by U.S. immigration officers; and although Marta had no criminal record, she was arrested and rapidly flown to a detention facility in Texas while her children were left alone in a day care center. Unlike many other immigrants swept up in those raids, Marta was ultimately lucky: She had a sister living in Massachusetts who could retrieve her children. And as a result of large political outcry in Massachusetts following those raids, with Senators John F. Kerry and Edward M. Kennedy strongly speaking out against them, Marta was released and could reunite with her two small children. But she remained without documents authorizing her to work and stay in the United States and would again be subject to deportation in the future.Estimated undocumented immigrant populationby state, 201410,000 or less25,000 – 95,000100,000 – 130,000180,000 – 450,000500,000 – 2,350,000Source: Pew Research CenterImmigrant workers are actually having a net positive effect on the economy. Because of a native–born population that is both declining in numbers and increasing in age, the U.S. needs its immigrant workers. The portion of foreign–born now accounts for about 16 percent of the labor force, with immigrants and their children accounting for the vast majority of current and future workforce growth in the United States, If the number of immigrants to the United States was reduced—by deportation or barriers to further immigration—so that foreign–born represented only about 10 percent of the population, the number of working–age Americans in the coming decades would remain essentially static at the current number of 175 million. If, however, the proportion of foreign–born remains at the current level, then the number of working–age residents in the U.S. will increase by about 30 million in the next 50 years. We need these workers not just to fill jobs but to increase productivity, which has diminished sharply. We also need them because the number of the elderly drawing expensive benefits like Medicare and Social Security—the costs of which are paid for by workers’ taxes—is growing substantially. Nearly 44 million people aged 65 or older currently draw Social Security; in 2050 that number is estimated to rise to 86 million. Even undocumented workers support Social Security: Since at least 1.8 million were working with fake Social Security cards in 2010 in order to get employment but were mostly unable to draw the benefits, they contributed $13 billion that year into the retirement trust fund, and took out only $1 billion.Counterfeit Social Security cards confiscated by ICE agents. ReutersIf immigrants are not stealing U.S. jobs and suppressing wages to any significant extent, is NAFTA doing so? Sal Moceri, a 61–year–old Ford worker in Michigan, fervently believes so. He has not lost his job himself, but he saw his co–workers and neighbors lose jobs and sees new workers accepting lower wages for which he would not settle. Although he calls himself a “lifelong Democrat,” he voted for Trump in 2016 because of Trump’s promise to renegotiate or end NAFTA. In a CNNMoney interview with Heather Long, he blamed NAFTA for the job losses and decreases in wages around him, disbelieving the claims of economists that automation, not NAFTA, is the source of the job losses in U.S. manufacturing. He loves automation and hates NAFTA.But contrary to Trump’s claim and Moceri’s passionate belief, NAFTA has not siphoned off a large number of U.S. jobs. It did force some U.S. workers to find other kinds of work, but the net number of jobs that was lost is relatively small, with estimates varying between 116,400 and 851,700, out of 146,135,000 jobs in the U.S. economy. Countering these losses is the fact that the bilateral trade fostered by NAFTA has had far–reaching positive effects on the economy.The trade agreement eliminated tariffs on half of the industrial goods exported to Mexico from the United States (tariffs which before NAFTA averaged 10 percent), and eliminated other Mexican protectionist measures as well, allowing, for example, the export of corn from the United States to Mexico.2016 U.S.-Mexico goods & services trade:$580 bnNAFTA has enabled the development of joint production lines between the United States and Mexico and allows the U.S. to more cheaply import components used for manufacturing in the United States. Without this kind of co–operation, many jobs would be lost, including jobs provided by cars imported from Mexico. In 2016, for example, the United States imported 1.6 million cars from Mexico—but about 40 percent of the value of their components was produced in the United States. Leaving NAFTA could jeopardize 31,000 jobs in the automotive industry in the United States alone. But now that it is threatened with the collapse or renegotiation of NAFTA, Mexico has already begun actively exploring new trade partnerships with Europe and China.The big picture: Mexico is the third largest U.S. trade partner after China and Canada, and the third–largest supplier of U.S. imports. Some 79 percent of Mexico’s total exports in 2013 went to the United States. Yes, the United States had a $64.3 billion deficit with Mexico in 2016, but trade with Mexico is a two–way street. The United States exports more to Mexico than to any other country except Canada, its other NAFTA partner. Moreover, the half trillion dollars in goods and services traded between Mexico and the United States each year since NAFTA was enacted over 23 years ago has resulted in millions of jobs for workers in both countries. According to a Woodrow Wilson Center study, nearly five million U.S. jobs now depend on trade with Mexico.Trade, investment, joint production, and travel across the U.S.–Mexico border remain a way of life for border communities, including those in the United States. Disrupting them will create substantial economic costs for both countries. And a significantly weakened Mexican economy will also exacerbate Mexico’s severe criminal violence and encourage violence–driven immigration to the United States.The U.S.-Mexico border fence through the Sonoran Desert, in the Tohono O’odham Reservation, Arizona. Getty ImagesWHAT THE WALL WOULD DO TO COMMUNITIES AND THE ENVIRONMENTIf erected, Trump’s wall will not be the first significant barrier to be built on the border. That distinction goes to the 700–mile fence the U.S. began to put up—over protests from those on both sides of the border—some years ago.These people include 26 federally–recognized Native American Nations in the U.S. and eight Indigenous Peoples in Mexico. The border on which the wall is to be built cuts through their tribal homelands and separates tribal members from their relatives and their sacred sites, while also sundering them from the natural environment which is crucial not just to their livelihoods but to their cultural and religious identity. In recognition of this problem, the U.S. Congress passed an act in 1983 allowing free travel across the borders within their homelands to one of the Native American Nations tribes. But when the fence was built, by waiving statutes like the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990, and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1994, Congress compromised that freedom of travel and made it hard for indigenous people to visit their family members and sacred sites.Indigenous people from the Tohono O’odham Reservation protest against a border wall. Getty ImagesTrump’s wall will, of course, exacerbate the damage to these Native American communities, causing great pain and anger among the inhabitants. “If someone came into your house and built a wall in your living room, tell me, how would you feel about that?” asked Verlon Jose, vice chairman of the Tohono O’odham Nation, in an interview by The New York Times’ Fernanda Santos in February 2017. Stretching out his arms to embrace the saguaro desert around him, he said, “This is our home.” Many in his tribe want to resist the construction of the wall. Others fear that if the border barrier is weaker on the tribal land, drug smuggling will be funneled there as happened before with the fence, harming and ensnarling the community.As Native American communities, conservation biologists, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service all have highlighted, the wall will also have significant environmental costs in areas that host some of the greatest biodiversity in North America. Deriving its name from the isolated mountain ranges whose 10,000–foot peaks thrust into the skies, the “Sky Islands” region spanning southeastern Arizona, southwestern New Mexico, and northwestern Mexico, for example, features a staggering array of flora and fauna. Its precious, but fragile, biodiversity is due to the unusual convergence of four major ecoregions: the southern terminus of the temperate Rocky Mountains; the eastern extent of the low–elevation Sonoran Desert; the northern edge of the subtropical Sierra Madre Occidental; and the western terminus of the higher–elevation Chihuahuan Desert. Among the endangered species that will be affected by the wall are the jaguar, Sonoran pronghorn, Chiricahua leopard frog, lesser long–nose bat, Cactus ferruginous pygmy–owl, Mexican gray wolf, black–tailed prairie dog, jaguarondi, ocelot, and American bison. Other negatively–affected species will include desert tortoise, black bear, desert mule deer, and a variety of snakes. Even species that can fly, such as Rufous hummingbirds and Swainson and Gray hawks could be harmed, and vital insect pollinators that migrate across the border could be burnt up by the lights necessary to illuminate the wall.Bison on the grasslands of Rancho “El Uno” in northern Mexico. ReutersAltogether, more than 100 species of animals that occur along the U.S.–Mexico border, in the Sky Islands area as well as in the Big Bend National Park in Texas and in the Rio Grande Valley, are endangered or threatened. But just as the DHS waived numerous cultural protection statutes to build the fence, it also overrode many crucial environmental laws—including the Endangered Species Act of 1973, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970, the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972, and the Clean Water Act of 1972. The Trump administration wants to bulldoze through any remaining environmental considerations.The administration’s approach threatens years of binational environmental border cooperation that has protected not only many wild species, but also agriculture on both sides of the border. Take the boll weevil, a beetle that flies between Mexico and the United States and devastates cotton crops. In the late 1890s, the boll weevil nearly wiped out the U.S. cotton industry. Since then, the United States and Mexico have spent decades trying to eradicate the pest and almost succeeded. But the wall may so sour U.S.–Mexico environmental and security cooperation that Mexico may simply give up on eradication efforts. This will cause little damage to those in Mexico, since there is little cotton cultivation along that part of the Mexican border, but it will result in significant damage to U.S. farmers.A poisoned U.S.–Mexican relationship could also prevent the renegotiation of water sharing agreements that are critical to the environment as well as to water and food security, and to farming. For example, the 1970 Boundary Treaty between the United States and Mexico specifies that officials from both the U.S. and Mexico must agree if either side wants to build any structure that could affect the flow of the Rio Grande or its flood waters, water that is vital to livestock and agriculture along the border. The fence was built despite Mexico’s objections to it, and because its steel slats become clogged with debris during the rainy season, it has caused floods affecting cities and previously protected areas on both sides of the border, resulting in millions of dollars in damages.The Rio Grande curving through Big Bend Ranch State Park, Texas. Getty ImagesIt wasn’t just Mexico that didn’t want that fence. U.S. farmers and businessmen along the Texas border in the Rio Grande valley opposed it, too, since it blocks their access to the river water and also augments the severity of floods. Now the wall is to be brought to flood plain areas in Texas where water issues precisely like these had prevented the construction of the fence before.Meanwhile, manufacturing, agriculture, hydraulic fracking, energy production, and ecosystems on both sides of the border depend on equitable and effective water sharing from the Rio Grande and the Colorado River, with both sides vulnerable to water scarcities. Over the decades there have been many challenges to the joint agreements governing water usage, and both Mexico and the U.S. have at times considered themselves the aggrieved parties. But in general, U.S.–Mexico cooperation over both the Rio Grande and Colorado rivers has been exceptional by international standards and has been hugely beneficial to both partners to the various treaties. That kind of co–operation is now at risk.U.S.–Mexico cooperation over both the Rio Grande and Colorado rivers has been exceptional by international standards and has been hugely beneficial to both partnersIf in retaliation for the Trump administration’s vitriolic, anti–Mexican language and policies, Mexico decided not live up to its side of the water bargain, U.S. farmers and others along the Rio Grande would be under severe threat of losing their livelihoods. One of them is Dale Murden in Monte Alto, who on his 20,000–acre farm cultivates sugarcane, grapefruit, cotton, citrus, and grain. Named in January 2017 the Citrus King of Texas, the former Texas Farm Bureau state director has dedicated his life to agriculture in southern Texas, relying on a Latino workforce. Yet he has memories of devastating water shortages in 2011 and 2013, when because of a severe drought Mexico could not send its allocation of the Rio Conches to the United States and 30 percent of his land became unproductive, with many crops dying. At that time he hoped that the U.S. State Department could persuade Mexico to release some water, even as Mexican farmers were also facing immense water shortages and devastation. U.S. diplomacy did work, no doubt helped by the rain that replenished Mexico’s tributaries of the Rio Grande. Without the rain, Mexico would not have been able to pay back its accumulated water debt. But without collaborative U.S.–Mexico diplomacy and an atmosphere of a closer–than–ever U.S.–Mexico cooperation, Mexico still could have failed to deliver the water despite the rain. That positive spirit of cooperation also produced one of the world’s most enlightened, environmentally–sensitive, and water–use–savvy version of a water treaty, the so–called Minute 319 of the 1944 Colorado River U.S.–Mexico water agreement. Unique in its recognition of the Colorado River delta as a water user, the update committed the United States to sending a so–called “pulse flow” to that ecosystem, thus helping to restore those unique wetlands. The United States also agreed to pay $18 million for water conservation in Mexico. In turn, Mexico delivered 124,000 acre–feet of Mexican water to Lake Mead. It was a win–win–win: for U.S. farmers, Mexican farmers, and ecosystems. But those were the good days of the U.S.–Mexico relationship, before the Trump administration. A new update to the treaty is under negotiation—once again a vital agreement and a lifeline for some 40 million people on both sides of the border that could fall prey to the Trump administration’s approach to Mexico.Yet this is a moment when maintaining cooperation is crucial because climate–change–increased evaporation rates, invasive plant infestation, and greater demands for water around the border and deep into U.S. and Mexican territories will only put further pressure on water use and increase the likelihood of severe scarcity.Rather than a line of separation, the border should be conceived of as a membrane, connecting the tissues of communities on both sides, enabling mutually beneficial trade, manufacturing, ecosystem improvements, and security, while enhancing inter–cultural exchanges.In 1971, When First Lady Pat Nixon attended the inauguration of Friendship Park—that tragic place that allows separated families only the most limited amount of contact—she said, “I hope there won’t be a fence here too long.” She supported two–way positive exchanges between the United States and Mexico, not barriers. In fact, for her visit, she had the fence in Friendship Park torn down. Unfortunately, it’s still there, bigger, taller, and harder than when she visited, and with the wall about to get much worse yet.Vanda Felbab-Brown is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. She is an expert on international and internal conflicts and nontraditional security threats, including insurgency, organized crime, urban violence, and illicit economies. Her fieldwork and research have covered, among others, Afghanistan, South Asia, Burma, Indonesia, the Andean region, Mexico, Morocco, Somalia, and eastern Africa. Her books include The Extinction Market: Wildlife Trafficking and How to Counter It (Hurst, 2017) and Shooting Up: Counterinsurgency and the War on Drugs (Brookings Institution Press, 2010). She received her doctorate in political science from MIT and her bachelor’s from Harvard University.REFERENCESACKNOWLEDGEMENTSManaging Editor: Strobe TalbottEditorial: Jessica Brandt, Fred Dews, and Beth RashbaumGraphics and design: Cameron Zotter and Jessica PavoneWeb development: Yohann ParisPromotion: Emily Rabadi, Brennan Hoban, and Ashley SchellingLike other products of the Institution, The Brookings Essay is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are solely those of the author.SOCIAL#BrookingsEssay