Border walls will not resolve complicated dynamics in an economically integrated community

This spot on echo perspective opinion letter was published in the Nogales International newspaper.  When I visited Nogales, about 20 years ago, I was quickly educated about the issue described in this letter.  Frankly, I don't think very many Americans are aware that the Nogales community is international. No border wall will ever change the reality of that interconnectedness.  

The Donald Trump concentration wall!

"A wall will never change the dynamic of living in a border community and this dynamic also works both ways," Ricky Wascher.

Back in the 1990s, while working in a Nogales, Arizona social services agency, the border was hit hard by a very sharp devaluation of the Mexican peso. The exchange rate at the time was three pesos to the dollar and plummeted to about nine pesos to the dollar. (On July 13, 2021, the value of the Mexican Peso is $0.50 or two pesos for one dollar.)

When my organization – Juntos Unidos, a field office of the now defunct Arizona-Mexico Border Health Foundation – conducted an economic impact study, we found hundreds of small businesses had subsequently gone under as a result. The devaluation really decimated our economy on the Arizona side and it had a lasting impact that probably resonates to this day.

A wall will never change the dynamic of living in a border community and this dynamic also works both ways. People come to the United States to shop and those living north of the border go to Mexico to purchase goods, seek medical products and care, and so on. Our economies have always been reliant on one another. So much so, that I remember back in the day when Nogales' population was just under 20,000 there was a daytime “floating population” from south of the border that put the figure closer to 100,000.

Granted, I haven't worked in Nogales or on border issues since 2005, but I can bet all my chips that Nogales, Arizona remains equally reliant on folks from Mexico, and that anything that "interrupts" cross-border interaction continues to have heavy economic and consequently, social impacts on both sides of the border.

It is also important to remember that public health and other issues do not exist in a vacuum. I think we all have learned this the hard way as the pandemic persists in affecting our way of life.

Is there an easy solution to all the complexities adversely impacting the border? Probably not. But we can never ignore the fact that our primary lifeline on the U.S. side is shoppers from Mexico. Moreover, every major crisis I lived through, growing up in Nogales, including 9/11, has proven this to be 100-percent fact.

I still have family down there, and I really hope and pray that the economy can recover.

From Ricky Wascher, Tucson Arizona