New GoFundMe effort wants to buy ladders for migrants to climb over crowdfunded border wall
by Anna Giaritelli
| December 21, 2018 12:49 PM
Opponents to a crowdfunding campaign for additional border wall have launched a GoFundMe page to buy ladders for people on the Mexico side of the southern border who would be unable to enter the country if more barrier was put up.
"We saw some folks are raising money for a border wall to keep out our migrant siblings and fellow human beings, who are fleeing violence and persecution and whose tragically-underpaid labor is essential to the U.S. economy. Seems like a bad idea on countless levels for everyone involved. Maybe we should focus on human rights and creating a community that reflects our supposed values," wrote the page creator, Charlotte Clymer, who works for LGBT advocacy organization Human Rights Campaign in Washington, D.C.
Clymer writes that the campaign isn't actually going to pay for devices to get people over the wall that would be built with the other campaign's donations.
Instead, if the ladder group is unable to reach its $100 million goal, all donations will go to Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, a Texas-based nonprofit that provides resources for immigrants.
"This GoFundMe isn’t really about ladders at all. It’s about lifting people up," Clymer wrote.
As of Friday morning, nearly $80,000 has been donated to Clymer's project.
Brian Kolfage, a triple amputee veteran who served in Iraq, created the wall fundraiser on Monday. On the page, he states his goal is to raise $1 billion for construction of a barrier at the international boundary. The site does not state where on the 2,000-mile border a wall would be built.
As of Friday morning, more than $12 million in donations have poured in.
Kolfage vowed to return everyone's money if they cannot reach $1 billion.
Clymer said if her group doesn't reach its goal, the money that has been given will still go to RAICES.
"And even though at a rate of $1.7 million daily, it would take their fund about 35 years to raise the $21.7 billion that Trump's own Dept. of Homeland Security says would be needed to build said wall, we wanna make sure ladders are ready to send over to our undocumented friends and help them," she wrote.
President Trump in January asked for $25 billion from Congress to fund a variety of border security projects, including infrastructure, technology, and additional personnel. The White House is currently fighting for $5.7 billion of funding in the Department of Homeland Security's fiscal 2019 appropriations and the bill is in the Senate's hands.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/new-gofundme-effort-wants-to-buy-ladders-for-migrants-to-climb-over-crowdfunded-border-wall
