EDITORIAL - A line they shouldn’t cross

If the reports of a Texas state trooper are to be believed Texan authorities are resorting to extreme measures to stop migrants from crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico into the US.

These include setting up razor wire in strategic parts of the river including under the water, denying people water in the extreme heat, and pushing them back into the river itself if they make it to US soil.

The White House said they will investigate the trooper’s claims.

“We are talking about the bedrock values of who we are as a country and the human indecency that we are seeing... If this is true, it is just completely, completely wrong,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.

The US was built by immigrants and it was the influx of people from other nations and all walks of life in the early twentieth century that made America what it is today. It was the confluence of people from different backgrounds, who had different ideas, skills, and abilities that made it a superpower.

But the US has also become a victim of that success and now everyone wants in, leading to their current immigration problem.

The US immigration issue isn’t a simple problem to solve. There are legitimate issues against opening their doors to just everyone. In fact, this goes for all countries.

Not everyone who asks to enter the US is destined become someone who contributes to society. In fact, they might even become a burden to it. And those who cannot adjust to life there usually turn to crime to make ends meet.

People have a right to protect their country from those whom they deem as undesirable. But there are also lines they must not cross for the sake of human decency, like causing immigrants to inadvertently injure themselves, or deliberately not helping when they are in a position to do so.

Planting razor wire under the water where people can injure themselves, allowing them to dehydrate, and pushing them into the river if the state trooper’s claims are indeed true are acts that cross that line.

By all means detain them and repatriate them if you find them unworthy, but there is really no need to treat them even worse than animals.

Texan authorities should have better ways to keep people out, or get them back over the border, without losing their decency as human beings.