OPINION : ‘Let’s Open Our Borders.’ - By Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

(Contributor Fallis Gunnington has ceded this column to guest contributor Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez)

When my parents first came to this country, they did it the hard way - covered by false-topped crates in the back of a pickle truck delivering wedges and slices of the beloved vegetable to millions of hearty consumers across the United States.  Once here, they learned English from television and “Flash” comic books in order to assimilate, quickly finding work together in a turpentine factory in Yonkers, New York.  Set aside for the fact that my father consistently told friends that he was : “The Fastest Man Alive,” it was the American Dream writ large.

Now we have a nightmare trying to import itself over that dream.  And it’s name is Donald Trump.  He treats anyone whose skin is darker than a cotton ball as if they were an inhuman monster, seeking to pillage our country’s riches.  In truth it is the so-called “illegal” worker holding together our economy while living in a police-state of constant fear and loathing.  No person is “illegal.”  It is illegal to bribe a Ukranian official to make up dirt on a political opponent.  That’s illegal.  Trump feeds into the unsubstantiated claim that no one else but he and his semi-demented followers believe, that migrant workers and refugees are harmful to America’s culture.  This is a blatant lie.  American “culture” is a mishmash of fat-assed Kardashians, fat-filled fast food, and fat white men on Fox News trying to date-rape the staff in the coffee room.  You can have that culture.  It can only benefit from a festive Quincinera with music by Mana.

Many more of the President’s Fan Club of the Simple are swayed by the pressing fear of the drug trade, with descriptions of heartless cartels making their way across the border disguised as Mariachi bands or hiding cocaine in innocent-looking baby carraiges.  Here’s an idea : Maybe hire border agents that are eagle-eyed enough to recognize a toddler with a full beard cleaning his nails with a switchblade.  How about helping Mexico out with some aid in combatting these cartels before they can even make it here.  Maybe we should be nice to the country that we import huge amounts of oil from.  Or maybe, just maybe, we should, as a country, grow some brains, buy Prius’s, and stick with regular old weed.  Anyone can grow weed.  My friend Randall has a one-bedroom apartment in the Bronx with a whole hydroponic operation in a hall closet.  And he’s not exactly Albert Einstein.  The guy doesn’t drink coffee because he says beans are alive and grinding them up is genocide.

So I say, lets open the border and let our friends pass back and forth as they please.  Plus, bonus, it’ll make it easier for our own citizens to get medical care they can afford since Trump seems to have destroyed the plan we had that was beginning to work, and hasn’t replaced it with anything since.  Lets be the country that opens it’s arms wide for our brethren, and not the country blindly crawling behind a leader that opens his checkbook for porn stars.