Donald Trump has made a wall between the US and Mexico the centerpiece of his Presidential campaign. Will a wall across North America actually stop illegal immigration, or even slow it down? It’s highly doubtful. Most illegal crossings already occur at legal points of entry. There’s no reason to believe a two thousand mile wall will change that.
Those who are stopped by the wall may simply go around it. The contiguous US has five thousand miles of coast, plus a four thousand mile land border with Canada. Including the Mexican border, that's eleven thousand miles of border and coast to defend, MORE THAN FIVE TIMES the length of Mr. Trump’s wall. Will it end illegal immigration? Not a chance.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." (George Santayana) Here are a baker's dozen of famous walls in history that didn't work:
The Great Wall of China (didn't stop the Mongol invaders)
Troy (didn't stop the Greeks)
Jericho (didn't stop Joshua)
Jerusalem (conquered five times despite its walls)
The Alps (didn't stop Hannibal's elephants)
Hadrian's Wall (didn't keep the barbarians out of Britain)
The Servian Wall (didn't keep the barbarians out of Rome)
Sacsayhuamán (didn't keep the Spanish out of Cuzco, Peru)
The Maginot Line (didn't keep Hitler out of France)
Hitler's Fortress Europe (didn't stop the D-Day invasion)
The Iron Curtain (didn't stop the fall of Communism)
The Berlin Wall (didn't keep Germany divided)
The Vietnam DMZ (didn't stop the Vietcong).
WALLS DON'T WORK.
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