Whom Do Border Fences Keep Out?
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Border barriers work as powerful political symbols but fail to fulfil their intended purpose. The Great Wall of China did little to halt Genghis Khan and his Mongolian army from conquering 13th century China. Constantinople’s ring of fortifications could not stop the Ottomans from taking over what is modern-day Istanbul. Persian soldiers breached the fortified walls of Babylon in 539 B.C. Yet the building of border structures persists. Around 40 nations in the world have built barriers on their borders with 65 other countries since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Justifications for building border barriers range from protecting a territory to the threat of terror, which forced Turkey last August to reinforce pre-existing wire-fencing while adding concrete walls to parts of its border with Syria.
The threats prompting these walls to be built have changed with time, and today an increasing number of walls are built to control the movements of people rather than armies. What politicians see as a threat toay is not a mob coming to take the country by storm, plundering everything in it, but unarmed refugees looking for safety and economical opportunity. Border walls have shown some temporary successes. According to the Department of Homeland Security, there has been a plunge in the number of apprehensions of illegal migrants on the U.S. southern border—where over 700 of the border’s 2,000 miles are now fenced off— from over 1.6 million in 2000 to around 400,000 in 2014. Building the fence, putting in drones and of the smart border technology, like cameras and sensors, has made it much harder to cross the border. Yet it is not at all certain that enforcement in the border led to a decline in apprehensions. Some would suggest that the decline we are seeing with people emigrating across the border was more related with the changing economic conditions that were pushing and pulling people to migrate, while others might say that immigrants are simply taking an alternative route, one without fences, even if it costs them their lives.
We can all admit, however, that a border or even a simple fence makes us feel safer psychologically, even if it has no real affect. Meanwhile, continued war, poverty and climate change will lead more migrants to spend their savings and risk their lives for a better future. The choice governments will have to make is to either build more walls costing millions of dollars or rather to look for other doable solutions with that money.
