The Wall is more than a clump of cement or steel; it more than a poor use of taxpayer dollars; it’s more than Trump’s vanity project. It’s become a symbol of everything that is wrong with the Trump presidency — beginning with the vile racism and xenophobia. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is exactly right when she said that Trump’s wall is immoral; its not who we are as a people or country.

To spend even a penny on this wall to break the impasse over the government shutdown is not a compromise that we should consider for even a moment. It might open up the government, but It also would scar our heart, our soul, and our future.

I find it helpful at moments like this to ask myself: What would Martin Luther King do? And I have to think he would say that our sacred duty is to bridges of understanding, equality, kindness, and solidarity at the border and everywhere else in our society, not walls of hate or division. It is the only road to a “Beloved Community,” to a society that is fully just, decent, and peaceful.