Sometimes, a wall can be a good thing.
When I was a kid, I had a classic Southern neighbor who would put food in his birdfeeder, sit and watch it awhile, and then shoot the squirrels who tried to eat it.
Neighborhood rumor has it that he would then skin the animals and eat them.
He built a fence to keep his dog from running around the neighborhood and killing things.
It worked.
In ancient China, around 200 B.C., the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty decided to build a wall to protect Chinese land from nomadic herds of barbarians.
It was later expanded to be almost 4,000 miles long, becoming the Great Wall of China.
I am not an expert on Asian history, but from everything I've heard, it seems to have worked - a huge wall is a pretty good deterrent to stop riders on horseback.
Now, the U.S will attempt the same deterrence method by building a 700-mile long wall along the border between Mexico and the United States, costing taxpayers $2.2 billion.
I'm afraid it might not work.
Immigration reform is a subject with many gray areas, with credible, emotional arguments available on both sides.
Some solutions, full of holes, may seem suddenly credible to the desperate patrons on either side. But common sense may lead to a different conclusion.
The wall will primarily "protect" the most easily accessible urban areas, according to proponents of the bill.
The proposal is based mostly on the success of a similar wall near San Diego, which has by all accounts, stemmed the number of illegal immigrants who make the voyage into that part of California. They boast that the wall has been a great success.
One has to wonder: can research exist to back such a claim?
Estimates on the number of illegal immigrant workers in the United States fall between such disparate reports of millions that they become essentially meaningless.
While focusing on such a small area may make it seem as though the wall has been a success, who can honestly say whether the immigrants just decided to come to the U.S. via a different route?
Or, that as recently reported by the San Diego Union-Tribune, they built a 35-foot long underground tunnel, electricity and all, that traveled from Tijuana, Mexico, to San Diego.
Given the resourcefulness of immigrants in past years, sneaking under border patrols' noses, one would think that they could merely ditch San Diego for somewhere a little less crowded. California is overrated anyway.
Supporters of the wall also cry out in protest over the security threat posed by our border with Mexico. They speak of terrorists possibly crossing the border everyday.
Concerns for national security are certainly rational, and should not be taken lightly.
However, is building a wall really going to help?
Consider the fact that an astonishing number of the hijackers on Sept. 11 were already on the government watch list.
Consider our borders with the oceans, open to many more nations than Mexico; and consider a news media team that once snuck in deactivated plutonium rods with relatively little effort.
Reputable security consultants have recommended shoring up our port defense ever since the infamous day in 2001.
Not surprisingly, citizens in many Latin-American countries have taken to the streets. Anti-American sentiments are already pretty popular with most of our neighbors to the south; after years of United States-supported strongmen and unfulfilled economic promises, many of them probably wish they could've erected a wall between us around the time of the Monroe Doctrine.
The way to make amends is not to shut ourselves off completely, but to actually address the underlying issues behind the hostile emotions.
The U.S. shares approximately 7,477 miles of border with our neighbors to the north and south. We have 19,924 miles of coast open to the great oceans to our east and west. Pretending that walling off 700 miles is anything more than a paltry Band-Aid is wishful thinking at its worst.
Ben is a political science and journalism junior. Reach him at Benjamin.horowitz@asu.edu.
