Before we build a wall along 2,000 miles of the U.S.-Mexican border, Americans should have clear and compelling answers to the following questions:

• What problem is the wall supposed to address?

• Will a wall solve the problem?

• Are there other ways to solve the problem?

• Is a wall the best way to solve the problem?

• What are the costs and benefits of building and maintaining a wall?

• What would a border wall symbolize?

After World War II, an 866-mile-long inner German border separated East and West Germany. It was a continuous line of high metal fences and walls with watch towers, minefields and guards.

The wall was built allegedly to keep out spies, smugglers and terrorists, but in fact its purpose was to prevent East Germans from emigrating to the West in large numbers. Despite the obstacles, thousands of people made it across. Over the wall’s 45-year life, about a thousand died in the attempt.

The wall was a physical manifestation of the metaphorical Iron Curtain that Winston Churchill used to describe the division between the free people of the West and the evil empire of the Soviet Union.

The message of the wall to those growing up in that era was clear: We are not like that. What message would an American wall send to the world?

“Before I built a wall I’d ask to know what I was walling in or walling out.” – “Mending Wall,” by Robert Frost.

Brian Hodgkin

Gorham