Building barriers to halt cross-border migration can cause serious reputational damage.
The example that most readily comes to mind is the former US President’s contentious promise to build a wall along much of the 2,000-mile US-Mexico border. Others include the Berlin Wall which divided the east and western parts of the city to stop East Germans from fleeing a morally bankrupt state, the much more recent Hungarian ‘border barrier’ which aims to halt migrants travelling northwards, overland, mainly from Middle East conflict zones, and the West Bank wall or ‘separation fence’ constructed by Israel, it says to halt terrorism, but which many Palestinians see as a means of segregation.