Another brick in the Wall

Charles Krauthammer has just come out with an op-ed in favor of building a wall on the Mexican border, while favoring blanket legalization for illegal immigrants already here.

So the insanity continues. Once again, Mexico is not even an afterthought. Krauthammer says the following:

Forget employer sanctions. Build a barrier. It is simply ridiculous to say it cannot be done. If one fence won't do it, then build a second 100 yards behind it. And then build a road for patrols in between. Put in cameras. Put in sensors. Put out lots of patrols.

Can't be done? Israel's border fence has been extraordinarily successful in keeping out potential infiltrators who are far more determined than mere immigrants. Nor have very many North Koreans crossed into South Korea in the past 50 years.

Of course it will be ugly. So are the concrete barriers to keep truck bombs from driving into the White House. But sometimes necessity trumps aesthetics. And don't tell me that this is our Berlin Wall. When you build a wall to keep people in, that's a prison. When you build a wall to keep people out, that's an expression of sovereignty. The fence around your house is a perfectly legitimate expression of your desire to control who comes into your house to eat, sleep and use the facilities. It imprisons no one.

Of course, no barrier will be foolproof. But it doesn't have to be. It simply has to reduce the river of illegals to a manageable trickle. Once we can do that, everything becomes possible -- most especially, humanizing the situation of our 11 million illegals.

Yes, the U.S. can do this as a sovereign act and, yes, it's different from the Berlin Wall. But it won't be seen that way by the rest of the world, not least Mexico and the rest of Latin America.

But leave aside the symbolism. What about practicalities? How will you do this without seriously disrupting life on the border? What about family reunification? What about the cost?

It horrifies me that the immigration debate is being reduced to either accepting the Wall or letting hordes of immigrants come at will. I can't repeat enough times that there are other, much better options. They have to recognize that this is a multilateral issue that requires the involvment of, and negotiations with, Mexico and Central America.