There's a column in USA Today which compares the border barrier between the USA and Mexico to the Berlin Wall. USA Today should be ashamed to print such nonsense. According to the author, since the USA is installing barbed wire at points to stop "migrants" from "seeking asylum", this is the same as the construction by the Soviet Union of a wall that sealed the border between West and East Berlin in the early 1960s. Really? Does the author even know what the Berlin Wall was? I doubt it.
In Berlin, there had been the ability for city residents to pass between the eastern (Communist) and western (free) sections after World War II. It wasn't simple, but it was still doable. The East German government, however, faced a crisis because so many of its citizens were going to West Berlin and fleeing from the Communist East. As a result, the Berlin Wall was built. It sealed the border between the two sectors. From the day the Wall went up, it was impossible for citizens of East Germany to cross into West Berlin.
On the US-Mexico border, there is free passage for literally millions of people each year. Every day hundreds of thousands of people commute across the border to jobs in the other country. Anyone wishing to enter the US legally can cross at the border provided they follow the required process. The border is not sealed. The border is, in fact, wide open for legal transit. All that the barbed wire does is limit the ability of drug smugglers and illegal aliens to sneak ILLEGALLY into the USA.
Maybe it's best to use an analogy. The events at the USA/Mexico border are roughly the equivalent of closing the windows in winter to keep the heat inside the house. The Berlin wall was the equivalent of putting the people of East Berlin in prison.
In Berlin, there had been the ability for city residents to pass between the eastern (Communist) and western (free) sections after World War II. It wasn't simple, but it was still doable. The East German government, however, faced a crisis because so many of its citizens were going to West Berlin and fleeing from the Communist East. As a result, the Berlin Wall was built. It sealed the border between the two sectors. From the day the Wall went up, it was impossible for citizens of East Germany to cross into West Berlin.
On the US-Mexico border, there is free passage for literally millions of people each year. Every day hundreds of thousands of people commute across the border to jobs in the other country. Anyone wishing to enter the US legally can cross at the border provided they follow the required process. The border is not sealed. The border is, in fact, wide open for legal transit. All that the barbed wire does is limit the ability of drug smugglers and illegal aliens to sneak ILLEGALLY into the USA.
Maybe it's best to use an analogy. The events at the USA/Mexico border are roughly the equivalent of closing the windows in winter to keep the heat inside the house. The Berlin wall was the equivalent of putting the people of East Berlin in prison.
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