SICK OF IT ALL frontman Lou Koller says that President Donald Trump‘s proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border is “not the solution” to illegal immigration in his country.
In his prime-time address earlier this week, Trump said a wall along the southern border is key to national security, as he called for lawmakers to fund it and end a partial government shutdown that has now become the longest in U.S. history. Democrats called the idea of a physical barrier across the entire border expensive and ineffective, and said the solution involves more personnel and detection technology.
In a brand new interview with Elliott Fullam of Little Punk People, Koller confirmed that the SICK OF IT ALL song “Bad Hombres”, from the band’s latest album, “Wake The Sleeping Dragon!”, is a critical take on Trump‘s border-wall idea.
“The President’s solution, I don’t believe it’s the biggest problem in the United States right now,” Lou said (see video below). “Like, building a wall, I don’t see what the importance of it is. I understand the immigration problem. I’m not an idiot. I know we don’t have unlimited resources. I know people don’t wanna give up their taxes for other people or what some people call illegal people. But our song is mainly about [our belief that the wall] is not the solution to the problem. There’s better ways. There’s gotta be better ways.”
Asked what he thinks needs the most fixing in our country right now, Koller said: “You can start with the health-care problem. I’m not saying Obamacare was perfect. It wasn’t. They have to figure that out. They have to figure out fair wages. The infrastructure. We can keep going. There’s so much to be dealt with. And it’s gonna take a lot of bipartisanship. They can’t keep dividing like they are.”
On Thursday, Trump, whose central campaign promise was that Mexico would pay for a wall stretching across the roughly 2,000-mile border, admitted that Mexico would not directly cover the cost of the wall’s construction, claiming that it will instead be paid for by revenue gained from a new trade deal pending in Congress.
Public polling continues to indicate a majority of Americans oppose the construction of a border wall. Meanwhile, Trump has continued to argue the wall is needed to resolve a security and humanitarian “crisis,” blaming illegal immigration for what he said was a scourge of drugs and violence in the U.S.
According to The New York Times, illegal border crossings have been declining for nearly two decades. In 2017, border-crossing apprehensions were at their lowest point since 1971.
