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Don't Tell Leftists, But Here's a Massive Border Barrier the EU Spent Millions on

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The key sticking point in the ongoing partial government shutdown is the simple fact that Democrats have refused to provide any level of funding to President Donald Trump for construction of his oft-promised border wall.

Though Trump has stood firm on his requests, he has patiently waited for Democrats to negotiate a deal with him — and even offered up several sweeteners to coax some cooperation — but the Democrats led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have remained intransigent thus far.

In opposing the proposed border wall — in reality, just strategically placed steel slat barriers in areas where barriers are necessary — leftists have decried such barriers as “immoral,” “racist” and ineffective at stopping illegal immigration.

However, those absurd excuses to avoid providing funding for border security — which includes far more than just barriers — place American Democrats even further to the ideological left than their progressive comrades in the European Union, who actually have spent millions — perhaps even billions — of EU taxpayer money on border security in Turkey.

Yes, you read that right.

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The EU has helped fund strong border barriers and other security measures on the border separating Turkey from war-torn Syria, as was revealed in an article in German media outlet Der Spiegal in March of 2018.

That article began with an accounting of a Syrian individual and his mother who managed to avoid machine gun fire and patrols as they snuck across the border into Turkey in late 2017, a border that was reinforced with financial aid from the EU.

The article noted that, in an effort to stem the tide of the refugee flood flowing into Europe through Turkey at that time, the EU provided 3 billion euros in 2016 to the Turkish government in exchange for them stopping the flood of refugees.

Supposedly intended to help Syrians in Syria, the money instead went to fortifying the border between Turkey and Syria, including some 80 million euros that went toward security and surveillance technology.

Are you tired of the Democrat intransigence on border security?

Roughly 35.6 million euros went to a Turkish company that produced armored border patrol vehicles known as the Cobra II.

Another 30 million euros went to another Turkish arms manufacturer for the purchase of additional armored and non-armored patrol vehicles assigned to guard the border between Turkey and Greece.

Some 18 million euros were used to purchase six patrol boats from a Dutch company for the Turkish coast guard.

Meanwhile, an unspecified amount of the EU funds went toward the construction of a border wall by Turkey, one that stands 10 feet high, runs for hundreds of miles in length, is equipped with heat-detection technology and is also guarded by the aforementioned machine gun crews and patrol vehicles.

There is little question that many leftists and Democrats in the U.S. look to the EU for both inspiration and as a model of how a quasi-socialist conglomeration of a government should work. Yet, even the socialists in Europe realized that unconstrained migration into EU member nations was proving detrimental to their economy and security, resulting in a growing backlash from their own people.

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Hence, the deal with Turkey to secure the Turkish border.

Yet, for all of the love U.S. leftists show to their EU comrades, they have refused to learn the same lesson and continue to refuse to secure our own nation’s border from the same sort of unconstrained migration that is causing harm to the economy and the American people, not to mention our national security.

There is a lesson to be learned here, if only the leftists would open their eyes and minds to receive it from their friends in Europe.

Border security is one and the same with national security.

Yet, Democrats continue to resist Trump’s efforts to secure this nation’s border, refusing to provide the meager sum he has requested and ignoring the compromise he has offered up to them, which includes things they have long claimed to want, such as temporary protections for illegal immigrants facing deportation orders while their cases are adjudicated and enrollees in the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

In doing so, they have shown that they are actually further to the ideological left than their socialist brethren in Europe, and that is as disappointing as it is frightening.

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Ben Marquis is a writer who identifies as a constitutional conservative/libertarian. He has written about current events and politics for The Western Journal since 2014. His focus is on protecting the First and Second Amendments.
Ben Marquis has written on current events and politics for The Western Journal since 2014. He reads voraciously and writes about the news of the day from a conservative-libertarian perspective. He is an advocate for a more constitutional government and a staunch defender of the Second Amendment, which protects the rest of our natural rights. He lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, with the love of his life as well as four dogs and four cats.
Birthplace
Louisiana
Nationality
American
Education
The School of Life
Location
Little Rock, Arkansas
Languages Spoken
English
Topics of Expertise
Politics




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