U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to build a wall along the Mexican border is far from unique as more barriers are going up worldwide than ever before.
The era of “globalization” kept borders open for a while, but the 9/11 terror attacks in the U.S. dramatically turned the trend around.
The Washington Post counts 63 active border barriers across four continents. In fact, more constructions began in 2015 than any other year in history.
The walls are no longer just built in war-torn, third-world countries either. A majority of the new barriers went up in the European Union, where countries try to stem the influx of refugees.
Walls and razor-wired fences also have a proven record to work.
When the daily illegal border crossings were at 7,000 per day in Hungary last year, Prime Minister Viktor Orban decided to erect a fence along the border to Serbia and Croatia.
When the fence went up Oct. 17, the influx went down to 870 from 6,353 only a day earlier. Illegal border crossing were steadily below 40 per day throughout the rest of the month.
Illegal border crossings in Hungary in October, 2015. (Hungarian Police/The Daily Caller News Foundation)
Orban is so satisfied with the results that he continues to spend millions of dollars on boosting the fence to make it “unbreakable.” (RELATED: Hungary Plans To Make Border Fence ‘Unbreakable’ For Refugees)
Countries are also investing their money in building walls and fences in other countries. The United Kingdom is currently constructing a wall in Calais, France to prevent migrants from crossing the English Channel.
Austria has become a major investor in border protection in the Balkans, and recently deployed 60 troops to help Hungary protect the European Union’s exterior border.
“The welcome culture that was customary here at the beginning was an absolute mistake and now we have to handle the effects,” Höflechner, mayor of an Austrian border municipality, said in an interview with WaPo. “All these people that came over the border were not checked and not registered. No one was asked who they are, what they want, where they want to go, which intentions they have, which is no condition for a constitutional state like Austria.”
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