Michael Brown: Actually, walls do work for keeping others out

Re “Walls don’t work; Reagan knew it” (Letters, Aug. 23): The writer misunderstands the walls he dismisses. The Berlin Wall was built by communists to keep their oppressed citizens in, not keep immigrants out. Sadly, it was extremely effective. The Great Wall of China was built, and rebuilt over a 1,000-year period, as effective protection against small-scale raids, the regulation of trade and various other reasons. That’s why they kept building it. True, it was not effective against full-scale military assaults, just as a wall with Mexico wouldn’t be effective if the Mexican army invaded Arizona. Often, armies simply avoided the incomplete sections of the wall, just as the Germans avoided the Maginot Line when they invaded France in 1940, and as Mexican and Central American immigrants do today.

The Immigration and Control Act of 1986, signed by Ronald Reagan, was a compromise bill that required increased border controls, which Congress never funded. Your arguments against a border wall fail when they are based on such a misunderstanding of history. You can find this on Wikipedia.

This story was originally published August 30, 2016 at 12:57 PM with the headline "Michael Brown: Actually, walls do work for keeping others out."