The United Kingdom has just recently announced its plan to construct a wall, with help from the French government, in Calais, France. Calais is a popular crossing point across the English Channel for migrants and refugees. The French town houses a refugee camp known as "The Jungle" and infamous for its poor living conditions. The U.K. is constructing the wall in order to reduce the influx of refugees into Britain. The wall will replace a fence already constructed in Calais and is estimated to cost the equivalent of $23 million.
Walls seem to be a recurring theme in this year's political topics, ranging from the Calais wall to the United States' and Mexican border. Donald Trumps' vehement insistence that, if he wins the U.S. presidency, he will construct a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, with Mexico footing the bill. However, the Mexican president recently made it clear that Mexico would not be paying for the wall. Both the Calais wall and U.S.-Mexico wall center around on keeping immigrants out of the country; however, the Calais wall is no where near as ambitious a project as Trump's plan. France and the U.K. are also working in conjunction with one another, while Trump's plan will force a heavy financial burden on an already struggling third-world country.
The real question, however, is how effective will these walls be? Assuming the point the walls are to prevent immigrants from crossing into the respective countries, the walls will ultimately fail to do so. Those crossing into the country will only find new methods and ways around the wall. The walls, in reality, can only do more harm than good by making crossing more dangerous. On the U.S.-Mexico border, immigrants attempting to cross the border often resort to using coyotes to help them. These coyotes, or smugglers in a sense, have little qualms with abandoning these immigrants to die of exposure if threatened. From a humane perspective the walls would be a disaster, specifically targeting and limiting the third-world poor's ability to better their lives. Ironic in the U.S.'s case, considering its foundation and the "American Dream". The walls being discussed in today's world fail to entirely limit immigrants' ability to traverse the border, instead, they merely symbolize the first-world's inability to truly empathize or sympathize with the third world's plights. The first world, instead, chooses to shut them out.
