As the longest stretch of a government shutdown in United States history, we need to thoroughly examine the reason behind the shutdown: border security and a backwards contingency plan.
Now I’m not arguing that border security isn’t a problem. It is for any country. But that doesn’t mean that the only way to fix it is to put people out work and take away the paychecks of hard-working americans who work for the federal government. During a government shutdown over 80,000 federal employees are working without pay or furlough, including TSA agents, border security agents and national park employees to name a few.
On Friday, CNN reported that Miami International Airport closed security checkpoints early in terminal G for three days— Saturday, Sunday and Monday— because of the shortage of TSA screeners. This is because TSA workers are not reporting to work since many live paycheck to paycheck and found other work to pay the bills. So flights were relocated to other concourses in the afternoons, which meant congested security lines. If this terminal closing is a sign of what is to come, passengers will begin to miss flights and general security measures will be overlooked due to overcrowding and a lack of screeners to handle the volume of passengers. That in itself is a hitch in border security that has only exacerbated the situation. If screenings are rushed, the chances of missing harmful materials are much greater. All the chaos of rushed screenings and crowd-control means a higher chance of things slipping through the cracks. Drugs, hazardous materials or even dangerous individuals that would be seized during normal operations might go unnoticed.
As airports are overcrowded, national parks are wide-open, meaning that because there are no park employees collecting fees at the gate, the public has free-reign on these lands. At first glance, that would mean more people could experience the park and all its natural beauty. But it has turned out to be a logistical nightmare. National parks across the nation had unsanitary bathroom conditions, squatters and litter on the property as well as graffiti artists taking advantage of the opportunity to tag within the parks. But on Thursday, a picture posted by the National Park Service online went viral on twitter for the destruction inside California’s Joshua Tree National Park. The pictured depicted a Joshua Tree, the parks trademark resource, cut down along with many other similar photos of extensive damage and vandalization within the park. But this park isn’t the only one, there are 60 parks just like this that are struggling with the same problems, if not, worse. People who work in these parks and dedicate their lives to these valuable resources, are not able to help the very thing that they are sworn to protect from the extensive damage that this government shutdown has caused.
There is a multitude of other trickle down effects from this government shutdown that I haven’t mentioned. In fact, there is an updated list on CNN tracking and investigating the direct effects this shutdown has caused. Now I understand I might be just a college student with my head in the clouds that has no idea how the government works. But I know this, if the plan is to help protect our borders by building a wall, this isn’t the way to do it. If anything, more security problems are being created. Let alone the discussion of if a border wall is even an adequate solution to the problem. Nothing good ever comes out of disagreements and government shutdowns are a prime example. But in the end, it hurts the “little guy” or the average hard-working American. So here we sit, weeks into a government shutdown with no end in sight but feeling the weight of the destruction it has caused with nothing left to do but wait for the end and pick up the pieces.
