The “Symposium at the Wall” continued Friday in Sunland Park, New Mexico with a number of panelists and speakers exploring the “burdens illegal immigration places on our country.”
The symposium, the first of its kind, was hosted on the site of a newly-erected segment of the wall that was built entirely from private funds raised by We Build the Wall, Inc., which co-sponsored the symposium.
“We’ve brought together the best and the brightest on this complicated issue of immigration, of asylum, of cartels. Over the next few days you’re going to see really the crème de la crème of thinkers. In addition, we’ve got all these young influencers, millennials, that really understand new technology and how you actually get the word out there,” Steve Bannon, chairman of We Build the Wall, Inc., said in kicking of Friday’s events.
Bannon said that if more people visited the border they would understand that “every town in our country is a border town and that we need a wall as the beginning of a solution.”
He said that We Build the Wall, Inc. is working on building portions of the wall in niches along the border where the government has decided it’s not going to build any barriers.
As was previously reported, the three-day symposium brought together dozens of big names in conservative politics, including Bannon, Corey Lewandowski, Candace Owens, Mike Cernovich, several Republican congressmen, and more.
Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle both made appearances Friday and spoke to the crowd in attendance.
“This is what capitalism is all about. This is private enterprise at its finest. Doing it better, faster, cheaper than anything else,” Trump Jr. said of the effort.
“We need a border. We need to be able to protect ourselves, our citizens, from the drug trade. We can’t have a system that essentially encourages mass migration,” he added.
“We also have to take care of America first,” he continued. “What you finally have now is a president who’s willing to fight for Americans. That was his mandate and that’s what he’s been doing. He’s the first politicians, maybe in history, who’s taken hell for actually doing all of the things that he said he would do.”
Friday’s events were live-streamed on YouTube and more than four hours of footage is available to watch online.
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Anthony Gockowski is managing editor of Battleground State News, The Ohio Star, and The Minnesota Sun. Follow Anthony on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Donald Trump Jr.” by We Build the Wall.
