Grave issues threaten the lives of ordinary Americans - and they will not be solved by a border wall. Photo / AP
Grave issues threaten the lives of ordinary Americans - and they will not be solved by a border wall. Photo / AP
The United States is consumed with the border wall crisis and disruptive government shutdown, but the country's biggest nightmares are entirely different.
With Presindent Donald Trump and his Democratic rivals focused on trying to reach a funding agreement, reopen vital departments and start paying 800,000 federal workers, the greatest problems in the United States are going unheeded.
The shutdown is now guaranteed to be the longest in history at 22 days, after Congress adjourned on Friday afternoon. Friday, the 21st day of shutdown, was the first day in the saga that pay cheques failed to appear for workers as varied as FBI agents, air traffic controllers and museum staff around the country.
Government workers and supporters hold signs during a protest in Boston yesterday. The workers rallied to urge President Trump to put an end to the shutdown so they can get back to work. Photo / AP
The US President has threatened to declare a national emergency to get his US$5.7 billion (A$8 billion) wall built, but there are already 31 active declared national emergencies in the US.
Three were issued by Trump. The most significant of these is a declaration of sanctions on any foreign parties who try to interfere in US elections, following Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential race.
Another was declared to sanction human rights abusers around the globe and the third is a crackdown on corrupt members of the Nicaraguan government.
Many of the greatest threats to humanity right now are global, including the risk of climate change, which Trump has dismissed as he pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement to curb emissions.
But others lie right on America's doorstep, and are causing hundreds of deaths every single day.
The President has repeatedly emphasised that the lack of a wall on the US-Mexico border is leading to fatalities, with murderers illegally entering the US and drug-traffickers bringing in narcotics responsible for the nation's high number of overdose deaths.
But fact-checkers showed the link between illegal border crossings from Mexico and American deaths was tenuous at best. Drugs are more likely to enter the US stashed in vehicles that enter through legal checkpoints. Trump recently said China was the biggest factor in bringing illegal drugs to the US — with narcotics mailed to directly to the country or to Canada.
There are roughly 67,000 drug overdose deaths in the US every year, according to Center for Disease Control, meaning around 16,000 Americans have died in this way since October, when the President began regularly tweeting about the border crisis, migrant caravan and his wall.
US President Donald Trump walks on the South Lawn of the White House after returning from a trip to the southern border. Photo / AP
And the US is battling many more pressing issues at home, which directly impact huge numbers of citizens and lead to large numbers of deaths every day.
Forest fires in California are another major crisis, with 86 people killed in the Camp Fire in Paradise, which broke out on November 8 last year. But Trump this week blamed the state for inadequate forest management and ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency to withhold funding for the recovery effort.
Shootings are one of the greatest problems for the US. Since on October 16, 547 people have been shot and 111 people killed in Chicago alone, according to Chicago Tribune data cited by Axios.
An average of three men per day are killed by US police officers, according to an estimate in the American Journal of Public Health, adding up to around 255 since October 16.
Overseas, seven US military officers were killed in Afghanistan since October 16, and at least 191 civilians in Syria were killed by the US-led coalition between September 10 and November 17, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Suicide rates continue to rise.
Yet none of these endemic issues for America has been declared a national emergency.
Democrats say building a wall should not be the President's priority — or even on his to-do list — and will not agree to more than US$1.3 billion for border security including a fence and surveillance.
"I think he loves the distraction that this is from his other problems," House speaker Nancy Pelosi said of Trump on Thursday.
With government workers missing pay cheques and important services stalled, this is fast becoming everyone's biggest problem.
