Building border walls

The Democrats in the USA have two main aims for their majority in the House. They want to damage Mr Trump as much as possible, even hoping for an impeachment. They want to stop him carrying out one of his most advertised campaign pledges, to extend the border wall with Mexico.

I say extend to remind readers that a part of the US/Mexican border already has some wall, thanks to former President Clinton, himself a famous Democrat. Parties can change their views, but this is quite a change with a lot of passion behind it. The Democrats have plenty of supporters this side of the Atlantic from liberal minded people who also dislike the idea of Mr Trump keeping people out through physical barriers designed to prevent illegal migration.

The moral and historical basis of this is not a strong one for many advocating no wall. The Roman empire defended itself with walls, including a long and famous one across the England/Scotland border. China built the longest wall of all which remains a major tourist attraction. More recently a substantial number of countries have built border fences and walls to control illegal migration, keep out drugs and weapons and impede the spread of terrorism. Whilst the USA has been rowing about whether to build any more Mexican border wall, member states in the EU have constructed at least 1000 km of high fence and wall as border protection.Ukraine is currently embarked on the major task of fortifying its whole long frontier with Russia.

In the south Spain has aggressive fences at Ceuta and Melilla, to try to keep out illegal migrants from Africa. Greece has defences against Macedonia and Turkey. The French assisted by the UK use a high fence at Calais. Estonia and Latvia have some protection on parts of their Russian borders. I do not hear many protests about any of these. More contentious has been the long and high fences used by Hungary along her frontiers with Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia, presumably because the EU and many of its member states do not like the government of Mr Oban.

So I am asking readers today do you think walls and fences are necessary to control crime across frontiers, or are they damaging to legitimate migrants? How does Mr Trump’s Mexican proposal differ from many of the walls and fences the EU has already allowed to go up around it borders as member states have decided they need to take action?