(Please welcome Blue America candidate Rick Noriega, who is running against John Cornyn for his US Senate seat in Texas, in the comments. You can donate to his campaign here — jh)

Last night we completed a three-day barnstorming tour of 16 Rio Grande Valley and South Texas communities. We started Monday morning in Corpus Christi , and over the next 72 hours, drove more than 700 miles across 22 counties.

It is an area I am familiar with – in 2006, I commanded the Laredo border sector, leading 300 National Guardsmen as we assisted in the seizure of thousands of pounds of drugs, working jointly with federal, state, and local law enforcement officials to secure our border. Having also served in Afghanistan, I have direct experience with border security and with the threat posed by terrorism. After this visit, I am increasingly convinced that building a wall along the South Texas border – as the administration is doing with the backing of my Republican opponent, Senator Cornyn – is the wrong solution that will not make us safer.

This is not the answer to fixing our broken immigration system. It appears to be a cynical ploy to create the illusion of action, while preserving the status quo that the Republican leadership, including Mr. Cornyn, sees as in their political interest.

The leadership in Washington, D/C. has lost their way. For years they have let problems fester, doing nothing. As the pressure to act mounts, they rush to impose inappropriate solutions that cause more harm than good.

Building a wall will accomplish some things–for one, it rides roughshod over the property rights of those whose land is being taken by the federal government without due process. It insults the local jurisdictions that have been on the front lines of dealing with our serious border issues.

Make no mistake – we need to take action now to control our borders and stem the flow of illegal immigration. If I thought a wall would accomplish that, I would support it. But it won’t, and I don’t.

As I met some many of the folks of South Texas, I spoke to local elected officials, campaign supporters and the great citizens of small towns like Del Rio and Falfurrias and of larger cities like McAllen and Brownsville. Over and over I heard powerful opposition to the divisive policies of the Bush-Cornyn agenda.

People in South Texas understand that we need a change of direction and new leadership in Washington. If we are going to resolve the skyrocketing cost of health care, or getting our slipping economy back on the right track, or making college tuition more affordable for working families, we must have a change.

Along the border, nothing generates as much passion – and opposition – as the misguided and destructive plan to build a wall along the border. For years now, the Bush and administration and its Republican Party lieutenants like John Cornyn have routinely used fear and intolerance to try to divide people for political gain. Nothing symbolizes these reprehensible tactics more than the proposed wall.

The wall is bad policy. It is political gamesmanship pretending to be a solution. Walling ourselves off is not who we are as Texans – or as Americans.

People with expertise in these issues – especially those who have lived and worked along the border their whole lives – know how bad the wall is. On my tour, I stopped in Eagle Pass , Texas, where the federal government is trying to appropriate an important slice of city land to build their wall. Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster, a true Texas patriot, leads a group of border mayors opposing this misguided policy. He is being targeted by the feds for his efforts.

Mayor Foster took me down to where the wall is supposed to be built and showed me how it would cut off an existing municipal park (among other lands) from the rest of the city. It was clear that the wall will be a disaster for Eagle Pass. I told the mayor that I was proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with him and the other mayors who are resisting this federal government land grab.

I also stopped in Granjeno, Texas, where local activists took me out to show me where local residents are going to lose their land because of the wall. They briefed me on the devastating ecological impact of the wall.

I told them I was proud to stand with them, and that when I join the U.S. Senate, I will fight for the funds to fix the critically important local levee system, not to waste billions on a wall that won’t work.

Everything I saw confirmed what I knew – this federal effort to impose a wall on South Texas needs to be stopped. If not, it will literally split border communities in two. It will destroy the local economy and seriously damage sensitive habitat areas along the Rio Grande. It will make a mockery of private property rights, something that people all across this great state feel strongly about. And when it comes to solving our serious immigration and homeland security problems, it just plain won’t work.

We need to do more to enhance border security, but there are smarter ways to do that. We should use technology to create a virtual wall along the border. We can add more border patrol personnel. And we need to encourage economic and recreational activity right along the border, because the more legal activity that is going on, the less illegal activity there will be.

Even John Cornyn knows the wall – I call it the Cornyn Curtain – is a bad idea. He has admitted it is a 18th century solution for a 21st century problem, but then he voted for it anyway, more than once. That is not leadership, it is cynicism. That is not standing up for the working families of Texas. That is playing at the same old politics of division and fear.

We need to look forward for our solutions, not backwards. We need to come together as a people, not tear our communities apart. This will happen when we have new leadership in Washington. I pledged to the people of South Texas, and I pledge to you across the country, that when I am in the U.S. Senate, I will fight–I will fight to do what is right, not what is expedient.

Until then, I’ll use a phrase I’m sure the current senator is familiar with: Mr. Cornyn, tear down this wall!