Jorge Ramos: Border Wall ‘Symbol of Hate and Racism’ for ‘Those Who Want to Make America White Again’

Univision anchor Jorge Ramos thinks President Donald Trump’s border wall would be nothing more than a “symbol of hate and racism” for “those who want make America white again.”

In a Wednesday New York Times op-ed, Ramos notes that Trump “is not the first president to ask for money for a wall.” He points out that former Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush “built fences and walls along the southern border” while former President Barack Obama “maintained the resulting system of roughly 700 miles of physical barriers.”

“So why don’t we want Mr. Trump to build his wall? What is different?” Ramos asks. “The difference is that Mr. Trump’s wall is a symbol of hate and racism, it would be completely useless, and it does not address any national emergency.”

Ramos, who said the United States has a responsibility to “absorb” caravan migrants, says the fight against the border wall “is about more than just a wall.”

“The wall has become a metaphor to Mr. Trump and his millions of supporters,” he writes. “It represents a divide between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ a physical demarcation for those who refuse to accept that in just a few decades, a majority of the country will be people of color.”

Ramos accuses Trump of trying to “exploit the anxiety and resentment of voters in an increasingly multicultural, multiethnic society” with his promise of a border wall, which Ramos says is nothing more than “a symbol for those who want to make America white again.”

“The chant ‘Build that wall, build that wall’ became his hymn — and an insult not just to Latinos but also to all people who do not share his xenophobic ideals,” Ramos continues. “The wall went from a campaign promise to a monument built on bigoted ideas. That is why most Americans cannot say yes to it. Every country has a right to protect its borders. But not to a wall that represents hate, discrimination and fear.”

He concludes by arguing that Trump “is the wall” because “the concept of America as an unwelcoming country to immigrants and uncomfortable for minorities is already here.”