Central American migrants, mostly Hondurans, run along the Tijuana River near the El Chaparral border crossing near the U.S.-Mexico border, after the U.S. Border Patrol threw tear gas from the distance to disperse them after an alleged verbal dispute, on November 25, 2018. (Photo by GUILLERMO ARIAS/AFP/Getty Images)
Designed to cut
Aimed to kill
Wires and guns
Like borders and walls
Are man made
Political and economic constructions
They contain and constrain
Opportunities and the fundamental right of mobility
For displaced communities
On the other end
An interlocking network of power and privilege
Transcending the wall
Having free reign
Intervening in it all
Hidden from view these corporate entities
Using working class bodies
to police communities
Armed guards
Buffers of the state
Put there by the president
Equating stones to rifles
Told to fight back
Against unarmed asylees
Trump and his secretary
of so called Homeland Security
Spewing lies and policies
Backed by white supremacy
Fanning hate and racist ideologies
Dividing communities
Ignoring the realities of why people are migrating
Masking legacies
of U.S. land grabbing
Massive displacing
Military and political intervening
All bolstering U.S. economic agencies
At the cost of
humanity
***
Gilda L. Ochoa teaches Chicana/o-Latina/o Studies at Pomona College. Her latest book is Academic Profiling: Latinos, Asian Americans and the Achievement Gap.
