Britain Building Border Wall To Curb Illegal Immigration

If Republican nominee Donald Trump and Britain’s Brexit leadership have been compared in the past, a new project in Britain is only heightening the parallel. The British government has announced it will be building a 13-foot wall to protect motorists through the Channel Tunnel from migrants.

The wall will be erected in Calais, France. It will be about 2/3 mile long, and it will be paid for by Britain, according to NBC News.

“It reminds me of the wall they built around the Warsaw Ghetto in World War II,” said Nathalie Goulet, a French senator and vice-chair of the country’s senate foreign affairs committee. “Putting up walls has happened throughout history but eventually people find a way around them or they fail. Look at the Great Wall of China — now tourists walk on it and take pictures.”

A sprawling refugee camp has popped up around the Chunnel entrance in Calais. Several thousand migrants live in what is become known as “The Jungle.” From there, migrants attempt to board trucks heading into Britain to seek asylum. A migrant is discovered entering the country illegally once every six minutes.

“People are still getting through,” said Robert Goodwill, Britain’s immigration minister. “We have done the fences. Now we are doing the wall.”

“This wall, and Mr. Trump’s wall, will not work because they do not stop the problems that lead to immigration,” Goulet said. “If people are persecuted or fear for their lives or cannot survive because they are too poor then they will continue to [migrate].”

“It is particularly surprising that some Americans seem to want a wall given that America was created as an open country for open-minded people,” Goulet added. “If all the money that was spent on the election campaign was spent on reducing poverty and insecurity around the world then there wouldn’t need to be a wall at all.”

Kate Gibbs, of the Road Haulage Association, agrees.

“Money would be much better spent on boosting security along the approach roads,” Gibbs told the Mirror. “What good is this going to do? We are telling our drivers not to stop within 150 miles of Calais so they are not targeted by migrants. This will be a tiny concrete alleyway that will serve very little purpose and not provide any security.”

Sources: NBC News, Mirror / Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons