to read Ryan Devereaux' article published in The Intercept, January 26, 2017, click on

https://theintercept.com/2017/01/26/a-hostile-act-mexico-braces-for-trumps-border-wall/

“This wall would say that those from outside the United States, especially from Latin America, are to be feared and shunned — and that is just wrong,” Margaret Huang, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said in a statement. “We will fight this dangerous move with everything we’ve got.” Omar Jadwat, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, added, “President Trump’s fantasy of sealing the border with a wall is driven by racial and ethnic bias that disgraces America’s proud tradition of protecting vulnerable migrants.”

Border security experts have long pointed out that a wall alone would not solve the problems of immigration and crime that Trump so often describes. Indeed, Trump’s own director of DHS, the retired Gen. John Kelly, said as much in his Senate confirmation hearing.

“Wasting billions of taxpayer dollars on a border wall Mexico will never pay for, and punishing cities that do not want their local police forces forced to serve as President Trump’s deportation dragnet, does nothing to fix our immigration system or keep Americans safe,” said California Rep. Nancy Pelosi. The criticism was not limited to Democrats. Texas Republican Rep. Will Hurd, a former clandestine CIA officer whose district includes some 800 miles of border territory, said the wall would accomplish little. “The facts have not changed,” Hurd said in statement. “Building a wall is the most expensive and least effective way to secure the border.”

https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/world_report_download/wr2017-web.pdf

The Dangerous Rise of Populism

Global Attacks on Human Rights Values

By Kenneth Roth,

Executive Director

Human rights exist to protect people from government abuse and neglect. Rights limit what a state can do and impose obligations for how a state must act. Yet today a new generation of populists is turning this protection on its head. Claiming to speak for “the people,” they treat rights as an impediment to their conception of the majority will, a needless obstacle to defending the nation from perceived threats and evils. Instead of accepting rights as protecting everyone, they privilege the declared interests of the majority, encouraging people to adopt the dangerous belief that they will never themselves need to assert rights against an overreaching government claiming to act in their name.

The appeal of the populists has grown with mounting public discontent over the status quo. In the West, many people feel left behind by technological change,

the global economy, and growing inequality. Horrific incidents of terrorism generate apprehension and fear. Some are uneasy with societies that have become

more ethnically, religiously and racially diverse. There is an increasing sense that governments and the elite ignore public concerns.

In this cauldron of discontent, certain politicians are flourishing and even gaining power by portraying rights as protecting only the terrorist suspect or the asylum seeker

at the expense of the safety, economic welfare, and cultural preferences of the presumed majority.

They scapegoat refugees, immigrant communities, and minorities. Truth is a frequent casualty.

Nativism, xenophobia, racism, and Islamophobia are on the rise. This dangerous trend threatens to reverse the accomplishments of the modern human rights movement.