Donald Trump Jr Compares Border Wall To Zoo Fence On Instagram
Donald Trump Jr. has added a new entry to the list of his controversial social media posts. On Tuesday, the eldest Trump sibling showed support for his father, the president, when he insinuated on Tuesday that the proposed border wall was like a zoo fence.
“You know why you can enjoy a day at the zoo? Because walls work,” Trump Jr. wrote in an Instagram Story.
As USA Today notes, the president’s eldest son created the post shortly after President Donald Trump’s address from the Oval Office on the subject of illegal immigration. During the speech, President Trump declared that unfettered illegal immigration at the US-Mexico border represented a grave threat to national security. The remarks echoed similar statements he’d made on the campaign trail to justify the construction of the wall.
Despite Donald Trump Jr.’s claim that “walls work,” several experts have said that a wall on the border is unnecessary — as it isn’t a feasible solution to any of the problems caused by border security failings.
During his address, President Trump suggested that the wall would help to thwart drug traffickers.
“Our southern border is a pipeline for vast quantities of illegal drugs, including meth, heroin, cocaine, and fentanyl,” he said. “Every week 300 of our citizens are killed by heroin alone, 90 percent of which floods across from our southern border…”
But as Time notes, in a 2018 report, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) stated that most illegal drugs entering the United States from Mexico do so through “a legal port of entry.”
“The majority of the [heroin] flow is through [private vehicles] entering the United States at legal ports of entry, followed by tractor-trailers, where the heroin is co-mingled with legal goods,” the report said.
The president also suggested that illegal immigrants from Mexico commit a large number of crimes in the U.S, citing two recent murders. But several studies –including one published by the Cato Institute in 2018 — indicate that both legal and illegal immigrants are less likely to be convicted of crimes than U.S born citizens.
Donald Trump Jr. says border wall is like a zoo fence protecting you from animals https://t.co/4ot2SqChDd pic.twitter.com/bs6nIaviXC
— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 9, 2019
Donald Trump Jr. has a history of making controversial comparisons when referring to illegal immigrants or undocumented migrants. As CBS News notes, he once tweeted a graphic which suggested that the Syrian refugee crisis was similar to a hypothetical bowl of Skittles — a bowl containing some candies which were poisonous.
“If I had a bowl of skittles and I told you just three would kill you. Would you take a handful?” it read. “That’s our Syrian refugee problem.”
Donald Trump Jr. indicated his stance on the matter with these words, “The image says it all.”
