Border Wall Enables Daring Rescue in ‘Sound of Freedom’
Daring Rescue Depicted in ‘Sound of Freedom’ Was All Thanks to the Border Wall
As the credits role at the end of every “Sound of Freedom” screening, audiences are given a special message from the film’s star, Jim Caviezel. During this address, Caviezel makes a point to emphasize who the real hero of the story is.
The actor explains it isn’t Tim Ballard, the real-life character he plays. Rather, the true heroes are Miguel and Rocío, the brother and sister depicted throughout the film fighting to find freedom and each other after being sold into sex slavery.
Toward the film’s beginning, Ballard’s rescue of Miguel is depicted exactly as it happened in real life.
One of the boy’s traffickers attempted to drive him north across the U.S.-Mexico border at a port of entry but was caught during a routine check.
As it turns out, if not for the border wall, Miguel might never have been saved.
Ballard himself made this point clear while speaking to Congress four years ago.
People Don’t Realize that Tim Ballard Appeared in Front of Congress Multiple Times in 2019 and offered Powerful Testimony about the Horrors of Trafficking.
Stopping Trafficking should be a Subject that Unites American’s.
God’s Children aren’t for Sale. pic.twitter.com/eNtdlYWXLL
— Jason Robertson (@JRobFromMN) July 11, 2023
In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 6, 2019, the founder of Operation Underground Railroad derided politicians opposed to the idea of a border wall.
According to Ballard, the very same people often point to drug seizures and rescues of trafficking victims at ports of entry in order to say, “See, we don’t need walls or barriers … the bad guys come through ports of entry.”
“In fact, we don’t have ports of entry without walls,” he said.
Ballard then talked about the arrest of Earl Buchanan at a border port of entry, aka Miguel’s rescue.
“The walls are the thing that compelled Buchanan to take that child into the port of entry in the first place. From his vantage point on the night of July 3, 2006, with this poor slave child captive in his van, he only had one choice: the port of entry,” Ballard said.
“And that was thanks to the border wall that existed where he happened to be working his evil works. … In the end, the boy was liberated and Buchanan was locked up.”
Ballard juxtaposed the story of Miguel’s rescue with the story of another sex trafficking victim, a girl he referred to as “Lily.”
Originally trafficked into sex slavery south of the border, Lily was brought up north into the United States through a part of the border without any barrier.
“Lily’s traffickers easily transported her to New York City, where she was raped between 30 and 40 times a day. … She believes that she alone was raped over 20,000 times between the age of 13 and 17 right here in our country,” Ballard said.
