A Brief on Open Borders

 

The idea of open borders is confusing. I have talked with some people who believe that President Biden has implemented an open border policy, but he has not. This belief is because of the numeric increase in illegal crossings, which many on the Right interpret to mean "open borders." But the term doesn't mean porous borders, being borders that ought to be rigidly secured but people are able to bypass. This is the build the wall mentality. Under this interpretation, if that is indeed what open borders are, then I would agree that there is enough porousness to suggest that our borders are indeed open. 

But this is not what the sociological and political meaning of open borders is. Biden's policies are not causing illegal crossings. For the most part, his policies, which are practical exercises of existing law and not some sort of new law, are in line with the 1996 Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act. Perhaps the most drastic change Biden implemented was an end to Trump's stay in Mexico platform for purported refugees and asylum seekers, which is actually a violation of international treaty and therefore a contravention of the U.S. Constitution, which elevates treaties to the level of domestic law. 

The term "open borders" refers to policies that allow people easy access across international boundaries and the freedom to set up residency in a chosen country with very little in the way of exclusion. In an open border system, the concept of illegal crossings is moot, so porous borders is a natural given. Illegal crossings would basically not be a thing, so the arguments against immigrants is nullified. Open borders is based on the idea that people have an inalienable freedom of movement and are allowed to settle where they want, to become part of a nation they want to be in (access does not mean permanency should people be shown to be non-productive or criminal and it does not mean citizenship), and given the ability to become productive in that nation. It's like shopping freely at a supermarket instead of a Costco or Sam's Club membership store. 

America actually had generally open borders before 1882, with very few restrictions. That didn't mean people didn't have concerns. Many of the same tropes we hear today actually found their first iterations in the early to mid-nineteenth century: immigrants are costing American livelihood and taking our jobs... immigrants bring crime and immorality... Immigrants don't assimilate... Etc. Most of these claims were first lobbed at Catholics, and especially Irish Catholics, with Italians to follow. 

For a study on these tropes, see my book Holy Other. 

The next big group to face these tropes were the Chinese and shortly after that most other Asian populations, which actually led to our first real immigration exclusions and the creation of a whole new category of illegal immigrant, which is really a product of xenophobia and racism. These exclusions influenced later laws, up until the 1960s. The 1965 Hart-Celler Act abolished the national quota system that limited immigration racially, but it still placed limitations on who from which country could come. This act and subsequent immigration law focused primarily on people with immediate family already here and a skilled-labor, excluding low-skilled masses who have no familial ties. Yet, it is these masses that are more inclined to move.

Look at it this way, if your job wasn't paying the bills in your state and the standard of living showed better in another state, you have the freedom of movement within the country as an American. The concept is the same for those internationally. Their migration is often a matter of necessity, especially if they are seeking to leave poverty, war, crime, climate-impacted areas, etc. Migration has been a human factor since our beginning. We move when there is drought and farms fail, we move to escape war and violence, we move to greener pastures. This is normal. To exclude in this light is actually inhumane. That doesn't mean there won't be an impact or even a negative one on an existing population, but economists and statisticians have shown that these worries are often hyperbolic and knee-jerk. By the second generation, the negative impacts are typically reversed and serve as a net-gain in domestic GDP. This has a ripple-effect internationally, as migrants often send money home, which helps stabilize those country's GDPs, which actually reduces later immigration. This was the case with Greek immigrants in the early twentieth century. I wrote a bit about that in my other book: The Wyoming Hellenes.

In our system, because we closed our legal pathways to most people, save those with family here, refugees/assylees, and those who can demonstrate skill sets our country can covet, this means most people are simply shut out. This includes people who might legitimately have a purpose in coming as reasonable as a refugee, but don't meet the specificity of that definition. There really is no line to wait in, because most people do not qualify. These are the one's most likely to cross borders illegally, and usually out of economic desperation, not because they are "criminals" or "invaders" (we need to move away from that sort of rhetoric... it doesn't help). They just want to move to where they could contribute and be blessed, as anyone in this nation would be in moving to where they could to be more productive should their state or city be so limiting. 

An additional caveat is that by closing the racist restrictions of earlier immigration law, all nations were generally equalized in numeric access, where before 1960, more than 80% of immigrants were white Europeans. The new system increased the ethnic diversity of the country, but it reduced Western hemisphere allotments when all countries were equalized. Before the 1965 act, there were no substantial numeric caps on immigrants from the Americas, because Latinos were deemed essential migrant labor. With the advent of the Hart-Celler Act, Latinos lost this edge, which closed-off access to people and families that had traditionally migrated as itinerant workers, and this in turn affected their poverty levels and the GDPs of their home nations, leading to greater desperation. It is this desperation of need and the new limitations of who can legally enter that pushed people to make severe decisions to cross the border illegally. In short, we actually created our illegal immigration problem. Our laws do not actually serve to control illegal immigration, but really propel it. If we want to end illegal immigration, we need real immigration reform that looks at the big-picture.

So, when we say open borders, we are actually talking about global-stabilizing economic access and not physically porous borders. If the former were implemented, the latter would be moot. It's time to act more compassionately and to think outside our insecurities as a nation.

Blessings.