California to ‘fight’ border wall: Brown
‘It is ominous’
WASHINGTON, March 27, (Agencies): California Gov Jerry Brown likened President Donald Trump to a strongman whose goal of walling off the US-Mexico border conjures other infamous barriers from the past.
“The wall, to me, is ominous. It reminds me too much of the Berlin Wall,” Brown said during an interview broadcast Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
The pointed reference suggested that the president was, like the leaders of communist East Germany several decades ago, trying to restrict the movements of people on both sides, despite all they have in common. “There’s a lot of odor here of kind of a strongman,” Brown told host Chuck Todd. “I think Americans ought to be very careful when we make radical changes like a 30-foot (9-meter) wall keeping some in and some out.”
Trump made extending the walls that line parts of the nearly 2,000-mile (3,219-km) border a central campaign pledge. Companies seeking to build the wall must soon submit concept papers for sloped barriers that are aesthetically pleasing on the US side. It’s still not clear how the administration would pay for the wall.
Brown said that although California would fight “very hard” against the wall, people should not expect a series of knee-jerk lawsuits.
“We’ll be strategic. And we’ll do the right human, and I would even say Christian, thing from my point of view,” Brown said. “You don’t treat human beings like that.”
The governor disputed Trump’s suggestion that immigration was a threat, casting it instead as an asset.
“Look around at many of our industries,” he said, citing the state’s multibillion-dollar agricultural sector and the technological hotbed of Silicon Valley. “Twenty-five percent of the people in California were foreign-born. This is our dynamism.”
Brown, who visited the nation’s capital last week to meet with federal officials, said he’s willing to work with Trump and other Republicans on issues including immigration, health care and, especially, infrastructure.
Project
He called a proposed rail project aimed at relieving traffic congestion between San Francisco and Silicon Valley “a real test” for the president. The plan is opposed by Republicans in California, the governor said.
“Here’s a chance for President Trump to be above the political game. This is about infrastructure,” Brown said. “Does he believe in a shovelready construction project that will create American jobs ... (and) ... is ready to go within a couple of months, or not?”
Asked what Trump could learn from Brown’s predecessor, former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, he said the president could be better at picking his battles.
“Don’t fight everybody,” Brown advised Trump. “And you have to make more allies than enemies. It’s simple. Politics is about addition, not subtraction.”
Brown, who is in his fourth non-consecutive gubernatorial term and will turn 79 next month, said the role of national Democratic Party leader was open for the taking. But it won’t be him, the governor said, because “I’ve run for every office and there’s no more left.”
Meanwhile, Mexicans who help build Trump’s planned border wall would be acting immorally and should be deemed traitors, the Catholic Archdiocese of Mexico said on Sunday, turning up the heat on a simmering dispute over the project.
In a provocative editorial, the country’s biggest Archdiocese sought to increase pressure on the government to take a tougher line on companies aiming to profit from the wall, which has strained relations between Trump and the Mexican government.
“Any company intending to invest in the wall of the fanatic Trump would be immoral, but above all, its shareholders and owners should be considered traitors to the homeland,” said the editorial in Desde la fe, the Archdiocese’s weekly publication.
On Tuesday, Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo warned firms it would not be in their “interests” to participate in the wall. But the editorial accused the government of responding “tepidly” to those eyeing the project for business.
Views
A spokesman for the Archdiocese, which centers on Mexico City and is presided over by the country’s foremost Roman Catholic cleric, Cardinal Norberto Rivera, said the editorial represented the views of the diocese.
Trump says he wants to build the wall to stop illegal immigrants from crossing the US southern border. He has pledged Mexico will pay for the wall, which the Mexican government adamantly says it will not do.
The Desde la fe editorial, which was published online, said the barrier would only feed prejudice and discrimination.
“In practice, signing up for a project that is a serious affront to dignity is shooting yourself in the foot,” it wrote.
Mexican cement maker Cemex has said it is open to providing quotes to supply raw materials for the wall but will not take part in the bidding process to build it.
Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua, another company specializing in construction materials, has also signaled readiness to work on the project.
Trump has now laid out exactly what he wants in the “big, beautiful wall” that he’s promised to build on the US-Mexico border. But his effort to build a huge barrier to those attempting to enter the US illegally faces impediments of its own.
It’s still not clear how Trump will pay for the wall that, as described in contracting notices, would be 30 feet (9 meters) high and easy on the eye for those looking at it from the north. The Trump administration will also have to contend with unfavorable geography and many legal battles.