Mexico Drug War Disturbs on American Soil

While looking around my hometown newspaper’s website, I stumbled across an article that mentioned a stray bullet was found on our community college campus. Our community college, University of Texas at Brownsville, is literally on the US/Mexico border. In fact, if you take a wrong turn trying to get to class, you’ll end up in a different country.

This bullet could have come from anywhere, really. The article says officials aren’t sure whether or not this is related to the drug wars in Mexico, but the suspicion and fear still remains.

When you’re trying to sit through an exam or grab lunch in between classes, the last thing you should have to worry about is a stray bullet from a drug cartel war ending your life. Students shouldn’t have to be warned to stay in their dorm rooms in case a bullet comes whizzing by their heads.

But many people don’t seem to feel that way.

Sure, let’s open our borders. Forget the border fence. Let people without papers come into our country illegally. It’s not safe in Mexico. What about human rights?

What about our rights as Americans? Should we not have the right to walk around our own hometown without being scared of being kidnapped by a cartel member or being hit by a misguided bullet?

Situations like the ones happening in my hometown are the reason we need to protect our borders and implement sensible immigration reform. People can argue that opening our borders is a human rights issue over and over again, but what happens when we open our borders? People might come to America for safety, but how do we know who needs a safe haven and who wants to wreak havoc?

Having to watch drug wars from a very short distance is frightening enough as it is, but I will not let our country let down her defenses and watch these wars from outside my bedroom window.

People have centered border security and immigration reform debates on economics and humanitarianism, but often forget the importance of our individual well being as Americans.

We may want to aid refuges from other countries and offer them secure shelter from the warfare in their own nations, but we must be certain that those who remain in our country will respect her and her people.

It is vital America defends and secures her borders. The safety and well being of her people depend on it.