I don't think a fence will stop anyone... :) But sure, go ahead.
this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2024
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Finnish border officials say fences equipped with top-notch surveillance equipment — to be located mostly around crossing points — are needed to better monitor and control any migrants attempting to cross over from Russia and give officials time to react.
A fence won't stop anyone, but it can detect people, which sounds like the point.
Detect, deter and slow down.
It's a bit more than a line in the sand, though, which I suspect is the point.
It does help
As the traditional saying goes, show me a five meter high fence, and i’ll show you a six meter high ladder.
More seriously, if you want to catch people at the border, you do mainly just need to have cameras, sensors, and people monitoring it, and you then just need to send some guards out in a truck to go out and talk to the things that walk through it.
If their arn’t guards, then there is nothing to stop anyone with bolt cutters or a cutting tool coming along and getting through, or as the US found out, coming along and stealing parts of the unguarded fence in the middle of nowhere whenever the price for scrap metal got high enough to be worth the trip.
The only problems with this approach of just sending guards out is that it doesn’t look as imposing in stock footage, and that it’s harder to deny people a chance at the universal human right of asylum if they’ve set foot on your territory and you have to talk to them and escort them back instead of pushing them away from a fence with your fingers in your ears saying I can’t hear you.
It's a bit of a silly thought that because you can have a six meter tall ladder a five meter fence wouldn't help in stopping people. Of course it helps and that's the supposed function, help, not stop everyone.
I don't know what you know about Norwegian-Russian border but the fence is supposed to be part of the other things you mentioned.
it’s harder to deny people a chance at the universal human right of asylum if they’ve set foot on your territory
These are people who have traveled the whole of continent of Europe and big parts of Africa and Middle East to apply for such asylum and who Russians are trafficking in to use as part of influence operations. It's pretty easy to tell them to go back.
How does any easily cut through or driven over fence help at all, much less justify the significant expense? It doesn’t help stop people, or even particularly slow them down. You’re still relying on guards actually responding and getting out to meet them, now just with higher maintenance costs because there is a hole dozens of kilometers from anything else.
All that a fence does is take resources away from the things that actually help intercept people crossing the border, because fences are primarily a social barrier rather than a way to practically slow people down.
Here's something for you to think about when making these silly drive over the fence remarks:
The border area consists mostly of hard to traverse terrain with only half a dozen roads or so on Russias side iirc. It's easy for us to see vehicles approaching, because the places where the could are far and few between.
The issue is just random people walking over. We have plenty of road networks to intercept on this side, as long as we know where border guards are needed.
Final note: there are only 9 border crossing stations altogether in a border spanning 1,343km.
Neglecting the silliness of assuming that we were talking about where the road crosses the border, or alternatively showing a map where the Russian road parallels the border for sections and where not a single part of the border is more than 10km from the Russian road while meaning it to show that no vehicle could even drive near to the border much reach it, surely what you said about the guards always knowing when someone is coming from kilometers away and being ready to meet them makes the case for a fence over the whole length worse, as it is evidently is and has not been needed for that purpose?
I guess it is nice though that the issue is just Norway considering spending a lot of money to help solve the issue of lost Russian tourists instead of trying to solve any security concerns.
The point of mentioning the road crossing points were that those places are reinforced, and yeah, it's silliness to attempt it there, leaving no possible places to take a truck over the border due difficulty terrain - we're talking about migrants here, not soldiers.
They aren't using vehicles, the russians provided migrants bicycles to get to the crossing points when they had the "flood our border with immigrants" operation active some months ago.
That leaves us with one large issue to cover: people traversing the foresty areas by foot, attempting to slip in undetected. That's where the fence comes in - they can obviously get over it if they bring a ladder, but as they struggle to even have proper shoes, a ladder becomes a luxury item they cannot afford. In any case, the fence is a slowing measure. The fence also contains alarm systems and surveillance, so that our border patrol can then pinpoint where they are needed ASAP.
The border patrol people themselves wanted this, and it's been working well.
I thought you just said the issue the government needed to solve was random people wandering across the border without realizing it. People crossing or being trafficked across Russia in an attempt to exercise their right as a human being under article 14 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, an agreement specifically drafted with the goal of facilitating large movements of persecuted people in the wake of nations turning away people fleeing the Holocaust, well those people are either trying to find and be collected by the border agents or being trafficked and falsely terrified they’ll be sent back to horrific abuse if their discovered by the border patrol instead of welcomed in, so why would a fence change anything about the number of them trying to get out of a dangerous foreign nation?
I mean it’s not like Norway would be trying to discourage them from holding it to the obligations the nation signed and agreed to that require it to thoughtfully and thoughly analyze each of their claims in court, now would it? I mean if they don’t have even proper shoes, Norway is of course going to spare no expense in welcoming as many of them as show up as quickly as possible, and as such undercutting human trafficking by showing how easy and risk free the alternative is, right?
It apparently has all this extra money to spend on a changing a border system that is currently working very well in your own words.
Also, you realize we are talking about a press release about the Norwegian government considering future fencing of more of the Russian-Norwegian border, and not the system as it exists currently, right?
And that this boarder fencing functionality requires a nice, level, drivable trail to be cleared through the wilderness either side of it to be built and maintained, right?
And why exactly are these people not trying to get that asylum in Russia since they're already traveling through the whole North-South length of it or in any countries in-between their country of origin and Russia? For people in acute need of asylum it does seem suspect that they're making a long and costly trip through whole of Europe and large parts of Middle East and North Africa, though several countries where they could apply for that asylum, only to seek asylum in Norway-Russia border.
It doesn't help that Russia and Belarus have used migrants as a tool of their influence operations and been allowing traffickers to operate and even helping them out.
Um, so let’s think about this. Why are people fleeing the Russian military and its operations to secure the power of its chosen allies in Syria not rushing to seek asylum in the country that blew up their homes in the first place? I mean Russia is obviously such a great nation to live in, with its very high standards of living and no possibility of being forced to either join the Russian military or being handed over to the very regime you are claiming asylum from.
I also didn’t realize that Türkiye and Russia, the two nations between Syra and Norway, represented ‘the whole of Europe and large parts of the Middle East and North Africa’.
I guess the one poor country already hosting 3.2million refugees is handling it very well, as there have been absolutely no race riots, violence, or mass deportations back to Syria, and we should expect every single refugee to stay there instead of attempting to make a claim in any other nation.
I also missed that line in the UN declaration of human rights that says you can ignore applying these rights to people if the Russians are also being dicks to them. /s
It's not about shopping for a great country to live in, that'd be just migration. It is about finding asylum from persecution etc. If they're willing to travel very far to find one with the best quality of life until they make their asylum request, then that does sound very suspects. That's not the point of the system and just makes things worse for those needing acute protection.
And I'm not sure if you are being purposefully obtuse about the system but also of the fact that there's quite a few other countries closer to Syria than Norway and plenty of opportunities to apply for asylum. And of the fact that it's not just Syrians who are doing the asylum requests but people from a lot further away.
When people paying hefty sums to traffickers and organizing trips through several countries to the far North instead of anywhere closer and aren't willing to settle for anything other than Norway for example, it does put into question their motivation. Whether it's acute need of protection, war, famine such a thing or just seeking for a better life.
Again, Norway is actually very close at just two nations away, one of which has regular race riots and has still taken in literally millions of refugees, while the other is the one that installed the regime persecuting them and is fucking Russia.
Most of the nations that are closer are either filled with religious persecution, so impoverished as to require vast amounts of western food aid just to feed their own people, or are already taking in orders of magnitude more refugees than Norway.
Why should the aid a nation provides the international community be based solely on geographical proximity? Does this mean that Norway should also not provide any aid to Ukraine, as it is also geographically far away? Why should it only the the poor nations that should do their part to take in people in distress and not the rich?
When so much of the world is impoverished and struggling to survive itself, why is it so ‘suspicious’ that when people are forced to start over from scratch they might try and do so in the lands of over abundance and where their children don’t have to worry about being beaten to death by a mob or living in Putin’s Russia?
just two nations away
Lmao it's whole North-South lenght of Russia. That's like saying Finland is very close to North Korea since there's just one country between us and them. You are being silly.
Why should the aid a nation provides the international community be based solely on geographical proximity?
It just makes sense that if you are in need of acute protection from persecution or are temporary displaced and need a temporary shelter that you'd seek it close to you, instead of organizing a trip to where you'd think the quality of life is the best and skip applying in counties you're passing through.
When so much of the world is impoverished and struggling to survive itself, why is it so ‘suspicious’ that when people are forced to start over from scratch they might try and do so in the lands of over abundance and where their children don’t have to worry about being beaten to death by a mob or living in Putin’s Russia?
If you are just looking for a place with a nice quality of life to settle in, you do seem more like a migrant than an asylum seeker in need of acute protection.
I get wanting to live in a rich country but that's not what the asylum system is about. It's not a human right to get to live in Norway. At that point it's just immigration and they should do that through proper channels instead of frankly abusing the asylum system. In the long run that will just fuck up the whole system.
Given that it’s takes months of work to cross a border for a refugee but it’s only a three day drive from Sochi to the Norwegian border, yes, the number of borders absolutely matters more than physical distance.
Show me where in article 14 it says that this right only applies the geographically closest nation and all others are except.
Or, because you keep insisting that there are so very many safe nations with unlimited resources and food for people to wait out the collapse Russia and its puppets with only one nation between them and Syria, list them.
Note, these nations must not be a theocracy or limit the freedom of religion, not currently be at war, have an effective refuge program that does not limit the number of entrants, and of course not be in need of significant international aid themselves.
you keep insisting that there are so very many safe nations with unlimited resources and food
Note, these nations must not be a theocracy or limit the freedom of religion, not currently be at war, have an effective refuge program that does not limit the number of entrants, and of course not be in need of significant international aid themselves.
See, this is the shopping I meant. For some reason it has to be a wealthy land of plenty like Norway that they make their application in even though the point is just to seek protection, not to just pick a country that fits your bill for the best place to live. Nowhere in article 14 it is said that the asylum application guarantees that you'll live in a wealthiest of wealthy European country while your status is processed. But somehow these people find the money and means to apply in such countries instead of accepting lesser conditions.
Jordan for example is right next door to Syria and understandably a lot of Syrians have went there. But these certain desperate people in need of acute protection skip over Turkey and whole of Russia to apply in Norway instead.
I don't fault them for wanting a better life and Norway is an excellent pick. But of course it's easy to see why them being serious asylum seekers is taken with a pinch of salt and they're often just treated as migrants.
does not limit the number of entrants
I think everyone does that to a degree.
So that’s the one option then, and it’s a good option that a lot of Sunni Syrians (who are not subject to the same religious persecution as converts) take, and as such 30% of the entire nation are refugees or migrants from Palestine and Syria.
Naturally a small desert country, the influx has caused significant strain on the nations water infrastructure, and with a small economy, limited resources, and limited capital, Jordan is forced to sacrifice 6% of the entire nations GDP on the refugee program. Also worth noting that said national GDP is smaller than just the Norwegian government budget.
This on top of an already struggling economy, and the fact the nation is dependent on buying foreign food, and the limits placed on foreign dept by international creditors, the nation has been forced to undertake an extreme austerity program in order to prevent mass famine, which has of course further limited economic growth.
As such not only are people fleeing religious prosecution going to find similar prosecution in Jordan, but the nation is struggling hard to feed its own people and is in no position to take everyone even if it wanted to. As a result it has increasingly turned refugees away, and heavily pushes for non Sunni refugees to go to places where they will actually be safe.
Since most people arn’t dumb, many take said advice and travel to a nation where they will actually be safe, you know, the whole point of the asylum system.
The whole reason it needs to be a wealthy land is because the land needs to actually be able to support the refugees for them to all actually be able to go there without trapping the host nation in a cycle of poverty.
So now that you, as a non Sunni refugee, have been rejected from Jordan, what’s you next suggestion for the nearest safe nation?
And again I must ask the basic question, why are poor nations expected to sacrifice so much so that the rich ones can do absolutely nothing?
edit: Or on second thought don’t, this conversation has already drifted so far from the actual subject of border security methods, and going nowhere if I have to explain the baisc idea of why the rich might have to help the poor or why border crossings between unsafe nations might be harder than a road trip within a single nation.
Going down the list of nations within two hops of Syria and explaining why each in turn may be unsafe for you or turn you away is also going to be exhausting and you can just google it.
It's not that certain nations have to suffer the burden of asylum seekers and refugees. We're not dealing these people like they're chips. That's not the discussion. But rather that some of these people, rather than applying for asylum in any closer country, they will seek out these wealthier ones much further away to make their asylum applications. And that can be pretty sus when you consider their honest motivations. If it is actual need of protection and safety or want to live in a wealthier country.
If there was a civil war in Sweden and Swedes needed asylum I wouldn't be asking why Saudi Arabia isn't taking these people in. It'd be natural that they'd come to Finland and Norway. But when there's issues in Sudan, Afghanistan, Syria, wherever, it's Finland, Norway and Sweden they come to. Hmm.
Since most people arn’t dumb, many take said advice and travel to a nation where they will actually be safe, you know, the whole point of the asylum system.
And many will use that opportunity to make false asylum claims and just try to migrate somewhere where they'd rather live. Which is not the point. Asylum seeker system isn't supposed to be some way to sidestep normal immigration procedures for people who'd rather not apply through the normal means. Abusing the system will just fuck over genuine applicants and make sure things such as what happened in Finland happen again. Russia brought in migrants to hassle Finland and we shut to borders. Now because of that even genuine asylum seekers were stranded.
It's funny when people came here to Finland through that route, claimed asylum on basis of needing international protection, then fucked off from Finland in the middle of the process to live somewhere else (often knowing their claim couldn't stand the scrutiny). Fucking hell, talk about discrediting the system. Sucks that the wealthier people who are able to pay for the visas, passports, to pay the smugglers travel all the way to Norway to apply for asylum while the ordinary people are stuck in camps much closer to the country of origin. Doesn't seem fair.
Well, the actually wealthy and well off people will just hire an immigration lawyer and fly there while keeping some wealth, and not working their way from dangerous predicament to predicament one step at a time, often dying in the process.
If you’re well off, you sure arn’t going to give it all up to a smuggler for an asylum claim.
People traveling to Finnish or Norwegian aren't the ones "often dying". You're probably thinking of the insane people crossing Mediterranean in dinghy. A lot of the people who came to Finnish border had bought a deal from smugglers to move them there, which included paying off Russians. Not exactly a tourist trip but considering Russians wanted them to reach the border to cause issues for Finland, it was a fairly good deal for those willing to pay. Of course people who couldn't afford that were left behind.
I think the solution to that would be to close the border and process applications at camps or facilities closer to the origin country. People don't have to risk moving through many countries and vast distances and assuming it was Finnish, Norwegian etc officials handling it it would curb down on corruption and need to pay. It would make human smuggling and organizing those trips for the ones with more means to pay less appealing and make sure even the poorer ones had an opportunity to apply for an asylum.
How would the fence be worse?
"How does making things harder help at all". Gee, I wonder.
You’re still relying on guards actually responding and getting out to meet them,
Well obviously, but now you also have a barrier to slow them down so those guards have more time to get there and make sure less people manage to get through. Again, the fence isn't supposed to work alone but to compliment the other ways of stopping them/slowing them. You're talking as if they've scrapped the border guards in favour of this instead of using this to make their work easier.
Again, fences are like cheap locks, they are creating a social barrier to tell people not to pass, not a way of significantly reducing the speed at which someone who wants to will take in doing so.
How many seconds do you think it takes a truck to drive through one, or someone to hop out of a truck to prop a ladder up against one? What else could be built or funded with the cost of building these expensive signs?
If your going to spend massive amounts of money on securing a border, at least spend it on the things that actually have an impact, like more patrols and guard posts, not on more extensive signposting.
Norwegian, Finnish and Polish border forces seem to disagree with your estimate on border fences and seem to think as them as valuable tools in addition to others they have. Those are the ones who have had to deal with this migrant issue.
Is it the people actually studying effectiveness of preventing security threats from crossing borders, or the politicians and leaders who want to be seen as doing something visible to deal with the ‘migrant issue’ dispite the pure absurdity of suggesting that people who crossed continents will see a fence and just decide to stay illegally in Russia of all places?
In Finland it was the border guards who were calling for this. Same for Poland. And it's easy to see why since it can play an important part in controlling but also as a deterrent and help in knowing about illegal border crossing.
Thus achieving?
"Build The Wall!"
Static defense worked for centuries in China!
And in France during WWII /s