President Donald Trump has adopted the idea of building a separation wall between the United States and Mexico to curb illegal immigration. During his recent visit to Spain, he called for the construction of a wall in the Sahara desert to prevent illegal immigration to Spain.
Some criticized President Trump and accused him of being ignorant of geography because the Sahara extends across many African countries that share no borders with Spain.
The US president proposed building a separation wall on Spanish “borders” with the Sahara in Africa, kind of like the proposed wall between the United States and Mexico, unaware that those territories span over multiple countries that share no borders with Spain.
The media quoted Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell as saying he had responded to Trump’s proposal by saying: “Do you know how big the Sahara is?” Trump’s replied “the Sahara border can’t be bigger than our border with Mexico.”
The idea of separation walls may seem the most effective option to prevent illegal immigration, but it is not the best strategic alternative. Walling may actually prevent illegal immigrants, but it does not prevent having “timed bombs” on the borders of countries that attract illegal immigrants and do not provide long-term security for such countries.
Building walls is in my opinion, at odd with globalization and the idea of a global village—where the cultural and resource exchange benefit the world at large—not to mention that this idea seems idealistic. It disregards development challenges in many countries that feed conflict, violence, and terrorism and the absence of the State in many of the world’s densely populated areas..
The Sahara desert, for example, extends for about five thousand kilometers in the African continent and includes about 12 African countries. How would it be possible to build a wall separating all this human mass from the rest of the world? Does it make sense, culturally speaking? Rather, it will lead to more division and constitute an official declaration of the collapse of all the charters, principles and laws on which the United Nations has been founded since 1945 to establish world peace and contribute to sustainable development.
Nonetheless, indirect migration is the strategic challenge for the countries targeted by illegal immigrants in Western Europe and elsewhere, especially as some of them suffer from severe economic crises such as Italy and Spain, and they have the right to search for mechanisms to stop illegal immigration.
It’s also challenging transit countries. Besides, the issue is tied to human rights with all the sensitivities, disagreements and differences in views between countries..
The point, though, is that dealing with the illegal immigration crisis needs innovative international solutions. Ideas such as refugee reception centers may be temporary solutions but they are not very effective in ending the phenomenon of death boats crossing the sea carrying illegal immigrants.
Due to the failure of the international system to end many conflicts, chaos and the absence of the State felt in many regions, climate change, economic deterioration and scarcity of employment opportunities, illegal immigration is expected to increase in the coming years unless more effective mechanisms are reached to ensure that the real causes of the phenomenon are addressed at the root level rather than dealing with the crises experienced by countries and regions exporting illegal immigration.
