In this and future columns (well, in at least one), I will be discussing some of the electrical engineering issues coming out of the US election campaign and the promises made by the candidates.

There is a song which goes: “If you’re white, you’re all right; if you’re brown, stick around; if you’re black, get back.” I was reminded of this song when I heard that Donald Trump had promised that, if elected, he would build a wall between the US and Mexico to prevent illegal immigration and that he would then deport millions of illegal immigrants.

On the face of it, the argument for keeping illegal immigrants out is compelling – services and facilities in any country paid for by the taxes of the people. These are not just the taxes paid by people who are living, but also the taxes paid by their forefathers. This is because, in many cases, we are paying only for maintenance, whereas the capital cost of any service was paid for years ago.

A good example is the Red Cross Children’s War Memorial Hospital. When the Second World War ended, all the messes and canteens of the Army, the Air Force and the Navy had a surplus of capital. It would have been impossible to redistribute this to the members because it had not come from the existing members alone – some of it had come from members who were dead as a result of being in the war. All this money was gathered together and used to build the Red Cross Children’s War Memorial Hospital as a memorial to those who had died.

Now you have some African immigrant who jumped the border and wants his or her child to be treated. So, the argument is: Why should we? It is a simple fact that many countries have their commercial and industrial foundation following the immigration of white people to those countries. Consequently, immigration is not new to the world but it can be argued that white immigration was firstly for the purpose of enrichment and subsequently for the purpose of cheap labour (an example being European emigration to America).

What Trump is saying, if you look closely, is that current electrical and electronic means of keeping people out of the US are not working. It is a very simple thing to detect border crossings by infrared cameras, laser beams, satellite survey, and so on. Why Trump believes that a wall is going to do the job is a puzzle. The Great Wall of China, Hadrian’s Wall and, closer to home, the thorn hedge of Jan van Riebeeck (which was supposed to stop the Koi from swiping cattle) have all been failures.

There is, of course, one wall which succeeded in a way: the Berlin Wall. However, it was designed to keep people in, not out. Even so, 5 000 East Germans managed to cross the border in various ways, including by microlight aircraft, flying in hot air balloons and crawling through the sewers. The Berlin Wall was about 140 km long and employed about 47 000 border troops. The US Customs states that it has about 930 km of barriers in place. Since the US-Mexico border is about 3 201 km long, there is still some way to go. If the US-Mexico Trump Wall is as manned as the Berlin Wall was, the US would need about one-million guards. If the same number of people, proportionally as Berlin, escape, then 4 000 Mexicans a year will still make it.

I think this is not a very good idea. Why not keep the electronic detection and spend the money on assisting immigrants to build the US? The alternatives just cannot work. It is strange that people are so slow to learn lessons. The Boer War taught us that you cannot win a war if you do not have the popular support of the people. In the Malaya, the British forgot this. In Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, the Americans forgot this. Walls do not work. Walls do not keep people out. The thing to do is to track the number of people coming in and figuring out how they are doing so. When you grasp this, then the solution is possible. The Great Wall of Trump. Can’t wait.