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In November of 1989, the Socialist Unity Party, the Communist leaders of the East German state, announced that citizens of East Berlin were free to cross the border into the West, and the wall that had divided Berlin came crumbling to the ground. To many observers, this action symbolized the dawn of a new period of globalization, migration, and interconnection of nations-the world could now be united in an era of peace. In reality, more walls have gone up since the event than ever before.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the number of border walls between nations has more than quadrupled. According to Elisabeth Valet, a researcher at the University of Quebec, there are more than 65 walls currently standing or under construction. Unlike the Berlin Wall, which was meant to keep people in, most of these walls were built to keep people out by deterring illegal immigration, stopping the flow of contraband, or protecting citizens from crimes. While many were shocked by US President Donald Trump's plans to build a border wall, a wall is by no means uncommon among both developing and developed nations. Countries such as Hungary, Britain, Bulgaria, Norway, Turkey, and Myanmar have all built walls on their borders, raising the question: would a wall along the US-Mexico border be successful?
According to Trump, such a border wall would be instrumental in stopping illegal immigration and thwarting drug cartels-a claim that has proven contentious among many experts. This article will examine three border walls in Israel, Egypt, and Spain that were erected for those same purposes; it will then show that a US-Mexico border wall could be effective, but not at the cost of its high price tag.
Israel's Southern Immigration Border
While Israel's border wall along the Gaza Strip often receives much media attention, its southern border wall, which was constructed to stop the flow of African immigrants from places like Eritrea and Sudan, has been relatively ignored by the media. Construction on the wall began in 2010 and finished in 2013, costing US$400 million for the relatively small 150-mile wall (the US-Mexico border wall, for comparison, would be at least 1300 miles long). The wall-which is more of a fence-is made of steel and barbed wire, and...