In a debate with Duncan Hunter on CNN's Late Edition yesterday Charlie Rangel compared the proposed border fence with the Berlin Wall. He claimed that the Soviet Union too built fences to keep people out. Er, no, Charlie, it didn't. Your own fond feelings for communism notwithstanding, a flood of people trying to enter the USSR was not one of the social problems that country ever faced.
Fifteen years after the Cold War ended, Rangel still doesn't grasp the difference between the USA and USSR. America build's walls to keep people out, while the Soviets needed walls to keep people in.