U. Of A. Immigration Week Connects Arizona To Palestine Through Largest Mock Border Wall In U.S.

Students at the University of Arizona constructed the largest mock border wall in U.S. history, as a part of the school's immigration week. Lucha has displayed a similar spectacle during Columbia's immigration week in semesters past (though much smaller in scale and funding while no less in heart!) in an attempt to engage the student bodies of both institutions with the ongoing struggles of the undocumented and their communities. As a visceral monument of authoritarian oppression and hyper-militarization, the controversial border wall enclosing the U.S./Mexico border is a modern testament to the systemic oppression faced by impoverished communities of color in the Global South. Beyond being a literal deterrent to the free movement of people into the United States by those unable, typically for class reasons, to legally enter via the bureaucratic nightmare and intentionally obtuse U.S. immigration system, it also serves the very practical function of killing immigrants. In 2010 alone, the wall has been largely responsible for the known deaths of 253 people, and those are just the ones recovered in a vast expanse of desert that is impossible for search teams to fully navigate.

Coverage of the events at U of A. can be found here

Photos of the event can be found here

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