Trump ordered the government shutdown so he could get the money for a border wall along the Mexican/American border. He was being very racist and insensitive, holding the government hostage for the money which he felt he needed to “keep out” migrants from Central and South America. In shutting down the government, he forced federal workers to go without pay and halted many programs that helped people live. Additionally, in order to “make us safe” he shut down services that protect our environment and protect public health.

The government shutdown caused the removal of forest rangers from our National Parks and allowed vandals to devastate these sacred spaces. It allowed many unempathetic people to vandalize and break park rules. When The Guardian interviewed Ethan Peck, who is the owner of Joshua Tree Adventures, Peck said he saw, “people hiking on trails with their dogs, flying drones, parking anywhere and even bringing speakers on hikes with them – all banned activities that would usually be stopped by a ranger at trailheads.” This should anger us. It is hard to imagine why people would get pleasure out of destroying our parks. If the shutdown had been avoided, the forest rangers could have stopped all of this from happening, but, sadly, Trump ordered the shutdown. Meanwhile, Sabra Purdy, a Joshua Tree resident and park guide, said she saw “people parking up to five cars at campsites that allowed only two cars, and saw evidence of people creating their own campsites, using Joshua trees and other materials to build fires.” While the government shutdown was a factor in this damage, it is not the only reason people were doing this. The people themselves are to blame. The people who broke these park rules are just ignorant and selfish; they did not care that they would be wrecking the park for generations to come.

The government shutdown made Americans unsure about the quality and safety of their food. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that “48 million Americans contract food-borne illnesses each year, 3,000 of whom lose their lives.” The government shutdown could have increased that number by a lot. With proper inspection, many people still die, but without inspection, that number probably increased. According to Teen Vogue, “The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) oversees approximately 80% of America's food supply, but about 40% of its staff is furloughed...As a result, the agency has halted all routine inspections of domestic food-processing facilities, including those that handle seafood, soft cheese, produce, and other foods considered at high risk for contamination.” It is shocking that they halted routine inspections, especially those of seafood, because products like seafood are liable to carry more diseases than other products. Trump claimed that he ordered the shutdown to protect us, but in reality he harmed us and the environment around us; he put our health and our lives at risk.

Trump is delusional if he thinks he can always get his way. It is simply not true. What he was really doing was endangering us when he was claiming he was protecting us. He insists that the wall will protect us from drug dealers and violence, but walls won’t protect us from that. The Government shutdown was a way of trying to get what he wanted, even if it meant hurting us by cutting the funding for people's jobs which resulted in our national parks being vandalized and our food being unsafe.