Arizona sheriff: US-Mexico border wall ‘a medieval solution to a modern problem’
Apr 27, 2017, 4:52 PM | Updated: Apr 28, 2017, 11:20 am
FILE - In this March 30, 2017 file photo, a portion of the new steel border fence stretches along the US-Mexico border in Sunland Park, New Mexico. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd, File)
(AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd, File)
PHOENIX — The sheriff of an Arizona county that sits on the U.S.-Mexico border said President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall is “a medieval solution to a modern problem.”
In an interview with New York Times podcast “The Daily,” Pima County Sheriff Mark Napier said lawmakers would be better off giving a fraction of the estimated billions it would take to build the wall to law enforcement.
“You’d have to argue that it’s a feasible proposition to begin with, and I’m not sure that I subscribe to that,” he said.
“I think it’s kind of a medieval solution to a modern problem. I mean, 10,000 years ago we were building walls around things, and here we are in 2017, and this is the best idea we can come up with?”
Napier said Trump’s policies are already deterring people from entering the country — both legally and illegally — because they are unsure of how they will be treated in the United States.
However, he said he understands why the people who enter illegally would take the risk to sneak into the country.
“I would ask my Republican brotherhood that decry [undocumented immigration], ‘If your family were impoverished, if your family were endangered, if your family were in need, what would you not do to protect them?'”
Napier’s county includes 125 miles of the border and Tucson, the second-largest city in Arizona.
