In their popular song “Jaula de Oro,” which translates to “Cage of Gold,” the famous Mexican band Los Tigres del Norte tells the story of a migrant who finds himself unable to move across the U.S.-Mexico border. His lack of mobility does not keep him in Mexico, as one would expect, but in the United States. As the migrant explains:
Ten years have passed since I crossed … I'm still an illegal … My wife and my children … have already forgotten about my beloved Mexico, the one that I never forget and I cannot return to … When I remember I even cry that even if the cage is made of gold, it does not stop being a prison.
Donald Trump's executive order to build a wall between Mexico and the United States overlooks how the fences, walls, and border-control measures that already exist between the two countries have come to act as a barrier—or a “cage of gold”—that discourages migrants from leaving the United States, rather than preventing their entrance in the first place.
