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Chris Burgard and Larry Elder
With the engaging film, "BORDER," Chris Burgard emerges as one of America's most watchable and compelling new documentary filmmakers. The film effortlessly mixes laughs, outrage, and compassion, as it presents what for most viewers will be revelations about the state of our southern border.
It's a border where American ranchers are afraid to leave their homes unattended, or to take walks on their own property, because of the armed "coyotes" (guides of illegal immigrants) who frequently come through, and who frequently raid unattended ranch homes.
It's a border where many American ranchers, on a nightly basis, see bands of 20 - 30 men and women illegally cross into the U.S., often backpacking in drugs worth up $90 million -- just in the backpacks of those 30 individuals.
It's a border where there have been hundreds of documented armed paramilitary incursions into our territory.
It's a border where many American ranchers commonly find dead bodies of the illegals who were betrayed and abandoned by their "coyotes" within a few hundred yards of their property.
It's a border that is permitting people to enter this country with dreaded diseases that have been unheard of here - like the mass killer of men, tuberculosis, and the ancient horror, leprosy.
How much more dangerous does a situation have to get before our government will act to protect us?
As Larry Elder said afterwards, our government isn't composed of leaders, but of followers, and it's up to us to lead them. As Burgard said, we don't get the government we deserve - we get the government we put up with.
Why does our government permit such a clear and present danger to the citizens of this country? The film includes footage of George W. Bush stating to Congress - to great applause - that the American economy cannot survive without immigrants. Fine. Let them be legal immigrants, who follow our laws, are disease free, don't traffic in drugs, pay taxes, don't treat our hospital emergency rooms like an HMO (causing the closings of dozens of overburdened hospitals), and who regularly return home to their families.
"BORDER" makes the case that the right way to do legal immigration is in just that way. Each migrant would make a deposit in a bank account. A percentage of each paycheck goes into the same account. At the end of his legal stay, he must leave the country to collect those moneys. With, for example, $10,000 at stake, the migrants will leave. They can see their families. And they can return here, safely and conveniently, to work again.
This would work.
In the Q&A, Burgard said (from my handwritten notes - not expected to be verbatim):
The "coyotes" are all part of the drug cartels now. The cartels have killed or driven out all the mom and pops. They run the migrants around for 7-8 days until they're just about dead. Then they say, you want water? That'll be $300. You want some MRE's [meals ready-to-eat - a military term]? It's $300. Afterwards, they say, now you owe me $5000. You have to make payments every week. If you don't, I know where your family lives, and I'll kill them.
In the Q&A Burgard also made a surprising statement: he's opposed to building a fence on the border. He said that the fence:
He said that the right way to do it is to station 40,000 U.S. National Guardsmen or troops on the border. He believes that this number would be sufficient. He has footage from a month in which troops with tanks were stationed along part of the border -- and he personally saw it work. It stopped the "coyotes." Then someone in Washington forced the troops to leave.
It could be done in two weeks: in two weeks, the troops could be in place, and our border would be secure -- as opposed to the many years it would take to build a porous fence. The incremental costs are zero, since we already maintain the troops. Looked at in absolute dollars, the costs would be far less than the $12 billion required to build the fence.
We must make sure that the next president of this country understands the terrible - and completely unnecessary - danger of the current situation, both to citizens of the U.S., and to those of Mexico. We have to take control of our southern border back from the drug cartels, for the safety and security and financial success of all.
Burgard has been screening "BORDER" to full houses, and is planning a 30-city tour, to be followed up with a DVD release. If you care about this issue, make sure to see this film. Click here for more information.
