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Comment by MarkBook | Hacker News Reader

This is something that always puzzles me. How come it's accepted as a given that countries cannot seal their borders. The Soviet Bloc were pretty good at it

EDIT also the border between north and south korea is pretty tight

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The Eastern Block wasn't that good at all at sealing borders. Many millions of people have emigrated to the West from Eastern Europe during the Cold War.

Millions I have a problem in believing, certainly once the iron curtain proper was put in place.

You don't need to resort to believing--either way. Just look at some statistics. You have all the web at your disposal, I suppose.

Wikipaedia says 13.3 million crossed east to west europe between 1950 and 1990, 75% of this movement was sanctioned so that makes for 4 million irregular crossings or about 100,000 per year. Currently the US is estimated to have 11.5 million illegal immigrants with about 0.5 million entering each year

Thanks for actually doing the work I was only bitching about!

The UK is an island but our borders have more holes than a colander. Illegal immigration and people smuggling are a huge issue here, and a political hot potato. The problem must be 10x worse for countries with land borders.

I don't buy this. What's lacking is the political will to secure the borders of the UK. If the UK is so porous then how come Germany wasn't able to stroll over in 1940. People have been told that's it's impossible to keep out illegals and through repetition and the evidence of their eyes have come to believe it. Meanwhile in 'nice areas' the only illegals visible are the domestic servants who would otherwise be unaffordable. If countries are as helpless to prevent immigration as is generally implied then we might as well dismantle borders altogether.

> If the UK is so porous then how come Germany wasn't able to stroll over in 1940.

A few thousand unorganised migrant workers who are trying to smuggle themselves in with no more than a suitcase each and try to hide in the corners of soceity when they get there is quite different from a massive uniformed army with tanks and trucks who then try to take over the running of the government when they get here.

Also the army was legally allowed and ordered to shoot the Germans who were trying to come over, whereas they is not the political will to shoot migrant workers.

It's not the will to shoot illegals that's needed, simply the will to implement the law as it stands by putting in the necessary resources into border policing and deporting those illegals who are discovered. Almost all illegals into the UK entered as paying passengers, ie they needed a ticket. If commercial carriers can police their passageways why can't the government police the doorways to those routes?

He's not talking about an invasion but of infiltration by saboteurs and spys..

Perhaps length of coastline is perhaps part of the problem - the UK has a very long coastline for its area.

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