Border fencing won't stop immigrant crossing

Aug 10, 2015

Strange things continue to happen that confuses ‘humanitarianism’. Surprises keep coming from site of civil strife around the World. At European borders, refugee hosting countries have decided that they have had enough of asylum seekers.

By Simon J. Mone

Strange things continue to happen that confuses ‘humanitarianism’. Surprises keep coming from site of civil strife around the World. At European borders, refugee hosting countries have decided that they have had enough of asylum seekers.


What initially began with border and coast guarding is beginning to take another dimension. Policing borders has been found less efficient.

More asylum seekers continue seeping through, thanks to porous border make-up. By water and road, more arrivals are being registered. Statistics put arrivals at Greece alone to over 90,000 in 2015. This is a huge inconvenience to some European governments.

What to do? All these are a result of selfishness. Elite nations make guns and sell to poor countries to fuel war. They sit back and watch people fight each other to death. It has left local civilians with little option but to flee their homes. Unfortunately, thousands flee in the direction of Europe, hoping to land at ‘safe haven’, prompting detestation by Europeans.

As a measure of stopping these swelling number of asylum seekers, some governments believe they have found a solution. Hungary’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán has this to say, “Refugees and immigrants are not welcome to Hungary”. The Prime Minister is itching to end it. Hungary has decided to block all new arrivals from entering its borders.

So it has rubber stamped the construction of a perimeter wall along its borders. Try and keep migrants away and leave them hopelessly desperate. How selfish! This show is against the spirit of ‘humanitarianism’. How practical this move is, we can only wait to witness, whether Hungary’s measure will stop migrant arrivals on European soil. Given that construction of barrier walls have failed to stop entry of migrants previously, Hungary’s measure is yet destined to be another waste of money and time. It is not viable and will not change much. Refugees, smugglers and asylum seekers will still find other routes.

They have done it before. Greece and Bulgaria, who have both built barrier walls along their borders so as to stop ‘irregular’ crossings, can testify. Another case of trying to squeeze an inflated balloon and see which shape it will take. More effective measures can be implemented to check irregular border crossings. Immigrant movements will not stop by just building a high-rise border wall with rolls of razor wires on top.

A perimeter wall will only force immigrants to change style accordingly. Border guarding and patrolling don’t provide a sustainable solution as well. Instead, the European Union should do more workable things. Collect the money and send it to fund countries where refugees originate from; mainly Africa and Asia.

Since the money is creating holes in their pockets, they should be seen doing some good things about it. One: They can facilitate peace talks, whether or not, they belief in them. Two: give the money to armies that are struggling to contain insurgencies. It will provide them with ammunition, salary and food so they can go and flush out rebels.

LRA rebels have not been able to cause more havoc since UPDF decided to pursue them from wherever. See! It works better than a block wall. Three: support cooperation and surveillance among transit routes and transit countries. This will disrupt the smuggling cobweb.

Four: provide legal channels to encourage refugee entry in Europe without having to opt for dangerous journeys on sea. It is more viable to spend the money this way than walling them out. In that way, the European Union will be providing a lasting solution to immigrant problems.

The writer is a civil engineer

 

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