From Texas comes word that the government is plugging away on a border fence along the Rio Grande. This is sad news. Because no matter how troubling illegal immigration might be as a national issue, it can be handled otherwise and does not warrant the United States walling itself off in the way, say, East Germany did during the later years of the Cold War.

A wall or fence with electronic and video sensors! And maybe a little razor wire to top it off! The image alone is bad enough. But there is also a practical side, and it is bad as well.

The government has sent property owners along sections of the Rio Grande letters of condemnation. It plans to seize their property or parts of it. That will mean displacing some farms or at least disrupting their operations by making some of their land inaccessible.

Also, the wall will prevent access, from the American side, to part of the river that has been used for generations by people seeking recreation. To make that point, as we reported Sunday, various groups have organized boating festivals on the lower Rio Grande later this year. They said the right to use the river — by people on both sides of the border — is guaranteed by a treaty.

A tall, long and supposedly impenetrable border fence is what you might expect dictatorships to build. Congress and the administration should scrap this un-American project. If they don’t, the next president should. (hh)