2016 Migratory Report by Matias Cavoti: Part 6 Border Walls and Fences

Conclusion:

18 years ago when I started to study international relations, you couldn't stop reading about globalization, international comers and integration would progressively erode the necessity of borders, people and goods should and must move freely. What a stark contrast with the world we have today that has governments of many State fixated on building fences, walls and barricades, around 70 countries around the world have built some kind of physical barriers to stop the movement of migrants or refugees, be it from their neighbors or for people from third countries. In the past three years, there has been an explosion of announcements and construction of border barriers and the temporary  reintroduction of border controls in the Schengen area which I have summarized in this reference chart.

Country	Barrier/Fence/Wall and Reintroduction of Border Control in Schengen Area.	Reasons
Algeria	Announced the creation of a barrier on its border with Libya and Morocco in 2015.	Immigration, Trafficking and Security.
Austria	Announced the creation of a barrier on its border with Slovenia 2015 and Italy 2016. Temporarily lifted Schengen and reestablished passport border control during 2016 and during early 2017.	Immigration.
Bulgaria	Completed its barrier with Turkey in 2015. And has it military patrolling its Sothern border.	Immigration.
Demark	Temporarily lifted Schengen and reestablished passport border control during 2016 and during early 2017.	Immigration
Estonia	Announced the creation of a barrier on its border with Russia in 2015.	Security and Territory.
France	Reintroduction temporarily of border control in Schengen area from 13/11/15 to 26/01/17.	Security.
Great Britain	Complete a border fence in Calais and Coquille France in 2015.	Immigration.
Germany	Temporarily lifted Schengen and reestablished passport border control during 2016 and during early 2017.	Immigration
Hungry	Completed a border fence Serbia, begun a barrier with Croatia and announced with Romania all in 2015.  Country plans for a second fence for 2017 to have high-tech aspects like electro shocks, load speakers, cameras and heat sensors.	Immigration.
India	Announced the creation of a barrier on its border with Bhutan 2015.	Security. One must note that this country is already completely fenced off Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Iran	Complete barrier with Iraq in 2015 and previously announced creating a fence on its border with Turkey in 2015.	Immigration and Security.
Israel	Completed a barrier with Egypt in 2013, begun another the same year with Syria and announced another with Jordan in 2015	Immigration and Security.
Kenya	Announced the creation of a barrier on its border with Somalia in 2015	Terrorism and Immigration. One must note that this border is completely militarized.
Latvia	Announced the creation of a barrier on its border with Russia in 2015.	Security and Territory.
Lithuania	Announced the creation of a barrier on its border with Russian exclave Kaliningrad in 2015	Security and Territory.
Malaysia	Announced the creation of a barrier on its border with Brunei, Indonesia and Thailand in 2015.	Trafficking and Smuggling.
Mexico	Announced the creation of a barrier on its border with Guatemala in 2015.	Other.
Morocco	Announced the creation of a new barrier on its border with Algeria in 2015.	Territorial disputes, since 1994 the border between the two countries has been closed.
Myanmar	Has begun building a barrier with Bangladesh in 2015.	Trafficking, Smuggling and Immigration.
Namibia	Announced the creation of a barrier with Angola in 2015.	Other.
Norway	Announced the creation of a border fence on its border with Russia in 2016. Temporarily lifted Schengen and reestablished passport border control with Denmark during 2016 and during early 2017.	Immigration
Oman	Begun building a barrier with Yemen in 2014	Security.
Saudi Arabia	Completed a barrier on the Syrian border in 2014 and announced another the same year on the border with Qatar.	Immigration, Security and Smuggling.
Slovenia	Started building a barrier on its border with Croatia in 2015. The military controls the border and enforces migratory control.	Immigration.
Sweden	Completed barrier in 2015 and Temporarily lifted Schengen and reestablished passport border control with Denmark during 2016 and during early 2017.	Immigration.
Turkey	Begun a barrier with Syria in 2015.	Immigration and Security.
Ukraine	Announced the creation of a new barrier on its border with Russia.	Territorial.
Tunisia	Has begun building a barrier Libya in 2015.	Immigration and Security.
The United State of America.	Announced in 2016 the establishment of a new and more complete wall.	Security, Smuggling, Illegal migrants, and terrorism.

Building border fences or walls should be the last option on the table, but States are using it as their first choice. Literally the concept of border/separation and us/them logic is back with a vengeance and here to stay, especial in Europe and the United States. The stigmatization of the concept of border barrier that had that taken hold after the fall of the Berlin wall, has writhed away. Ever since 9-11 and the war on terror, finding fertile ground in societies that have lost sensitivity towards needs of migrants or are feeling the burden of over saturation or just will not tolerate migrants, in general, entering their territories.   

But with all of this talk of walls and barriers, people tend to forget, paraphrasing border expert Marcello Di Cintio:  History has already shown us how one of the most heavily fortified borders in history with trigger happy guards, the Berlin Wall, could not stop thousand of East Germans from crossing (Di Cintio/DailyMail 2016). I find that the lack of historical perspective not only in migratory issues troubling, this inclination towards right winged nationalistic policies that push this agenda of securitization of migratory movements and border fences, as quick and magical fixes. But these people are completing ignoring that  border barriers conceived like they have imagined tend to be a burden more than a blessing and have questionable effectively. But these political promises of security and safety from those politicians gain a quick political capital in the short term until public spend becomes an issue.    

The walls and fences tend to divides communities and generates a strong a negative  psychological effect feeding into tensions, distrust and even a slow build animosity. For example working in a border town[1] locals from both sides could cross with minimum control with special IDs because they lived there lives on both sides. Now when it was established that they had to do the same ID controls as everyone else crossing having to wait in line things heated up very quickly, so imagine what a wall can do. Reece Jones, another known authority in border barriers, explains these obstacles always tend to affect the poorest and the most desperate affected, while drug cartels and terrorist group have resources to enter by safer methods, for example, getting their hands on more favorable fake travel documents (Jones/Daily Mail 2016). One must not forget that the Hamburg Cell led by Mohamed Atta that made the attack on the World Trade Center all entered the United State with legal visas, not hopping the border. Another example of how ineffective any kind of physical wall can be against the modern terrorism States face in the present day group like ISIS do not even need to move operatives they can just use the internet to inspire lone wolf attacks in their name, no border need to be cross. Now in my point view drug trafficking can be hindered up to a certain point, but as long as there is demand for those products trafficker will find a way to cross their goods.  

These border barriers affect migratory movement in two ways, funneling migrants to other areas where they can possibly cross or put themselves in danger, like as mention in the chapter about United State and its segmented enforcement the provoking that migrants used services of traffickers to cross the dessert or provoking a build of migrants at the border escalating the tension between State especially when these people are from third State.

In my personal opinion barriers can be very effective but must be defined differently and be only part of a complete migratory policy, not a quick fix and center of a States action because the problem will not go away because of the push and pull factors on the migrants are still at work. If thing are done right, a wall can be used a lesser evil, and instead of funneling people to other areas it should funnel them to places where people can get the proper control. If you have ordinary people, not hardened criminal trying to enter illegally to establish themselves, means that your migratory policy has failed, especially if the barrier the was conceived for dissuasion.

An effective migratory policy and a proper control is a product of exhaustive cooperation on both sides, building ties and sharing information. There is a need to create   clear and unequivocal rules for migrants to obtain legal residencies, no double standards referring to irregular migrants, if you do not want a large amount of undocumented competing unfairly in the domestic labor market generating a possible future social conflict. Border security is fundamental, but addressing the push factors in the countries where migrants come from, sometimes directly investing in these place to generate work is much cheaper than maintaining a small army to watch over a wall, for political this can be a hard sell to their constituency but it is the most cost effective.          

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[1] which I can't mention