This talking point needs to die: 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday that putting up walls will not solve problems caused by immigration, challenging one of U.S. President Donald Trump’s core principles, during her visit to Mexico.

Speaking in Mexico City, Merkel, who grew up in Communist East Germany behind the Iron Curtain, said that history showed that only when empires have got on well with their neighbours have migration pressures been resolved successfully.

“Obviously the main reason for people leaving must be addressed on site first, which means putting up walls and cutting oneself off will not solve the problem,” said Merkel, who has come under political pressure at home for opening German borders to more than one million refugees since 2015.

“It’s an issue you can study well in the history of China with the (Great) Wall of China, you can study it in the history of the Roman Empire. Essentially, only when great empires have managed to forge sensible relationships with their neighbours and to manage migration has it been a success,” she added. (?????????????????)

“I don’t think that by simply improving the border facilities you can solve the problem,” she told a panel discussion alongside Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.
Here we go again with the dumbest argument that the open-borders crowd has: Walls do not work. I, being whom I am, can and will not allow this premise to stand.

Let me caveat this a bit. This is NOT an argument that less immigration is better than more immigration, or that immigration depresses wages or not, or any other argument. To be sure, those are all valuable arguments that nations can and do have. That is a discussion for another article, or, if you like, go listen to the podcast as I patiently go through pertinent facts and details that take a while to get through. For this argument, we are just examining the most basic premise of all, which is whether border barriers are effective or not.