“Mexican Laborers Needed for Border Project: $12/HR,” and “Let’s Make America Safer & Better Together: $12/HR.” These flyers advertising for border wall workers have popped up around the Big Bend over the past couple of months, including our first spotting of them on Big Bend Sentinel’s door handle on April 26.
We immediately knew this was some kind of prank levied at the company and its phone numbers posted on the flyer—Barnard Construction, one of the construction companies contracted for border wall construction. But that didn’t stop scores of people—an overwhelming majority, actually—thinking they were real when posted on social media.
One commenter called it “the ultimate irony” in asking for Mexican laborers––to be paid a pitiful hourly wage––to build a wall that is intended to keep their people out of the United States. Of course, since it’s not real, irony would only apply if you knew in your mind that this was satire.
We’ll leave it up to readers on whether this is a good way to fight the border wall, with the idea that Barnard’s phone lines (yes, they are real on the flyer) would light up with people asking for jobs. We called Barnard, and a company spokesperson said it had nothing to do with the flyers and that many people had called inquiring about them—mostly people asking if they are real, although with a few real job seekers.
The spokesperson said it was absurd to think that Barnard would pay people such a low wage, that all wages they pay are much higher, and anyone working on projects would need to be documented. Recruiters and the company’s website are the methods they use to find laborers and workers at all levels, they said. Several other people also had called the company and received the same response.
The flyers are a good lesson on stopping and taking a moment to think about what you’re seeing on social media and treating everything with some level of suspicion, with fact checking hopefully providing certainty.