A major U.S. ally in Europe has completed a large wall on its eastern border.
Poland completed the structure of the 115-mile-long and 18-foot-tall wall late last month, according to The Associated Press.
The wall was built in response to state-abetted illegal migrant smuggling on the part of Belarus, Poland’s eastern neighbor.
It isn’t as tall as the fortifications former President Donald Trump completed on the U.S.-Mexico border, but it is fitted with barbed wire, unlike the American wall.
Other elements of the Polish wall bear resemblance to Trump’s playbook.
Like the U.S. border wall, it features slats that allow law enforcement to see what’s happening on the other side.
Poland’s Prime Minister Morawiecki said today that Poland has completed the construction of its 186-km-long border wall with Belarus.
The wall was built in less than 6 months thanks to the army working in 3 shifts 24/7 on its construction.
49 000 tons of Polish steel was used. pic.twitter.com/eD0ewut9aA
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) June 30, 2022
Belarus’ Stalinist dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, began turning a blind eye to large populations of Middle Eastern migrants entering his country with the intent of traveling into the European Union in 2021.
Should the U.S. complete the wall along its southern border?
Belarus sought to use the migrants as a weapon against the European Union in response to sanctions from Brussels.
“The first sign of the war in Ukraine was Alexander Lukashenko’s attack on the Polish border with Belarus,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said during a visit to the wall in June, according to the AP.
Belarus is considered a satellite state of Russia, with Russian soldiers having invaded Ukraine from Belarusian territory.
The wall was still slated for the installation of electronic countermeasures and surveillance systems.
Poland is one of America’s closest NATO allies in Europe.
In 2020, Trump sought to move U.S. military personnel stationed in Germany into Poland, a move sought by the Polish government, according to The Washington Post.
Increasingly strict immigration policies have slowed the flow of illegal migrants from countries such as Syria to the European Union.
However, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has spurred its own refugee crisis.
Poland has received more Ukrainian refugees than any other country.
