At a virtual town hall, one of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's (D-NY) constituents asked her why she is opposed to a border wall.
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00:00 >> Patricia from Parkchester asks, why are you against building a border wall?
00:06 >> Excellent question. Thank you, Patricia. One of the things that we have seen from the data,
00:13 now, border walls have been built not just under the previous administration, but they have been
00:22 built for decades, frankly. And what we largely see is that our issue with these walls is that
00:32 they are actually not very strong deterrents. What they do do is drive a lot of people into
00:39 the most rural areas who then often pass away or succumb to the elements. This is a humanitarian
00:48 crisis. And moreover, one of the things that we're seeing is that the largest concerns,
00:55 the things that people try to avoid most when it comes to building a wall are things like the
01:01 importation of dangerous substances like fentanyl, for example. But actually, the vast majority of
01:08 fentanyl is going through the existing checkpoints and they're being imported by Americans. And so
01:15 many of the primary issues that people are trying to address with a wall are not actually addressed
01:23 by a wall. It doesn't actually solve our problems. And it doesn't solve the problems that people
01:28 claim that building a wall would solve. Now, what does help are investments in science, technology,
01:39 and what helps the most is an immigration system that does not incentivize people coming by foot.
01:46 One of the reasons why we are having this issue in the first place is because existing US policy
01:54 deeply incentivizes a lot of people to come by land and to come by foot. And a lot of these
02:03 people would prefer to use other modes of transportation and other modes of access.
02:10 And so I think our primary priority is to reform our immigration system, update our visa system,
02:18 and also allow people to apply for asylum and be able to be initially approved. The way our
02:31 current system operates is that it forces people to show up at ports of entry in person on land in
02:40 order to apply. And so we want to be able, of course, to preserve the right to do that. Seeking
02:47 asylum is a human right. But also we want to expand people's ability to do that as well.
02:54 And so for me, I think it's just that we can take those resources and use them much more effectively
03:01 to actually solve the problem. In addition to the fact that there's actually an enormous amount
03:08 of environmental damage done as well, there are migratory species, there are so many other issues,
03:14 as well as US citizens who live on the border. Their homes can be damaged, there can be eminent
03:22 domain issues. People live there, land crosses there, and these are also people's homes too.
03:30 And so even just logistically, financially, it's not a viable solution. It's also extremely
03:39 expensive, requires a huge amount of maintenance, and is often ineffective.