In the 14th century, Ming Dynasty decided to build a wall over a thousand miles in length on the northern border of China to defend the country from being invaded by Russia. Today, it’s regarded as the Great Wall of China.

In 2019, President Donald Trump made up his mind to build another Great Wall on our nation’s southern border. Democrats have fought fiercely against the decision and many others took a rebel stand. But it might just be the necessary evil to rebuild the broken immigration system.

Protecting our communities from negative influence of illegal immigrants is necessary. As was said by President Trump on the State of the Union address last month, some illegal aliens broke into a number of local communities and killed dozens of American citizens. Gerald Bissell and Sharon Bissell, for example, were burglarized and shot to death in their Reno, Nevada, home by an illegal alien.

From 2016 to 2018, ICE officers made 266,000 arrests of criminal aliens, including those charged or convicted of nearly 100,000 assaults, 30,000 sex crimes and 4,000 killings.

It might be the most terrible and shocking fact that we’ve recently seen.

To protect thousands of communities from being harassed or destroyed by a small amount of bad illegal aliens, we need a more professional and effective border security system. As the first step, a wall should be built on the border.

To be clear, except basic humanitarian aid, our country has no obligation of accepting illegal immigrants into where we live. Let’s be brutally honest, here: Are you better off financially to accept dozens of homeless people into your backyard everyday and feed them as you should? If you are rich and able, you might hang on with the humanitarian needs for a few weeks. But what if they have children and count on your help for another several years?

There is a difference between helping others and putting your own life in jeopardy. We need to help those in trouble, but not through sacrificing our communities.

When such issue comes to public areas, like neighborhoods and suburbs, it seems easy to provide this humanitarian aid. But once this reaches a personal level, though, the sentiment changes. Some might build walls along the backyard or walk away from the homeless. Regardless, the main concern becomes our own welfare.

When the topic of immigration comes up, left-wing supporters call for open borders and to welcome all immigrants including illegal ones. It is a typical double standard. Those who do care about public life will not take that stand.

If you care about public life, take it as your personal life. That means building a wall on the nation’s border to protect citizens just as you would protect your own family in any crisis.

Since the 1980s, China has lifted millions of people out of poverty. Unlike some regions in South America, the country did not open borders between urban and rural areas. Poverty, slums and crimes became serious issues in Brazil and some other countries when local government made the decision to open borders. Instead, China took a different path to help those in need. Local governments encouraged investment of private sectors to locate in poor areas and to help provide trainings for people. It is better to offer them with tools of building wealth rather than cash itself.

China gave us a lesson – deal with the illegal immigration problem with wisdom. We could do better on illegal immigration dilemma as long as we provide education and professional training for those illegal immigrants so that they could help themselves.

Meanwhile, it is totally unfair to those who come into our country legally and want to get permanent status. The application process for an H-1B visa will take an international student up to five years to complete, on average. In these five years, he/she has to stay in our country and will have to work harder than any illegal immigrant who will gets permanent status in no more than two years on average. As the base of American values, immigrants should be respected, and more importantly, admission should be merit-based.

Only when illegal immigration is under control will more bright legal immigrants come to the United States. We need those who respect American values to bring new thoughts and inspirations to our land, instead of those who bring the opposite.

Daniel is a graduate student in LAS.

[email protected]