Why Are We So Afraid of Open Borders?
U.S Mexico Border, Photo by Charlie Riedel/Associated Press
The stark images of Haitian migrants being rounded up and lassoed by horse-mounted border patrol agents has drawn sharp condemnation from the very top of the Democratic establishment. In a rare turn senate majority leader Chuck Schumer criticized the Biden administration arguing “We cannot continue these hateful and xenophobic Trump policies that disregard our refugee laws.” For her part, Vice President Kamala Harris called the images “horrible” and said she would raise her “grave concerns” with Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. A step further to the left, calls from immigrant justice organizations to abolish ICE have grown stronger in recent years, especially after reports of shocking conditions immigrants face while detained, such as the pattern of forced sterilizations in an ICE facility in Georgia. The popular feminist author, Roxane Gay, released a blog post on September 23 entitlted “The Delusion of Borders,” where she astutely describes the racist conventions of U.S borders and reveals how little is different under Biden compared to Trump when it comes to the border:
“When Biden was elected, this country did not immediately become a better place and I don’t know that anyone was naive enough to think it would. But many of us did think (hope) we would abandon the delusion of borders and create humane, equitable immigration policies. That has not yet happened. It will probably never happen. Many of Trump’s policies remain in place as Biden does his (and Stephen Miller’s) dirty work.”
But even Gay’s writing will only go so far. She is (understandably) hesitant to directly challenge an assumption that can feel so culturally-beyond-dispute as to be invisible: that having a secured border is a necessary component of a functioning society. The frame of reference for any debate on immigration has been defined so far to the right that speaking on open borders feels, frankly, impossible. The consensus liberal intelligentsia logic is reflected clearly in the most popular comments on a recent New York Times article about the treatment of Haitian migrants. A well known, frequent left-leaning commenter who goes by the pseudonym “Socrates” writes: “Enforcing the nation’s border is not always rainbows, butterflies, and unicorns, If the nation wants a border, it has to enforce that border not treat it like swiss cheese. Sometimes, it’s not pretty.”
Another top commenter says: “The optics are certainly not great but; and I can’t believe I’m saying this, [Texas Governor] Greg Abbot has a point- a sovereign nation can’t have porous borders...as sad as it is, I think the administration did the right thing with deportations.”
These positions appear nothing if not reasonable. They posit themselves as a more compassionate analysis than the nakedly racist immigration rhetoric of Tucker Carlson or Ben Shapiro, while remaining sober and grounded in their assessments. The unspoken alternative, so terribly unserious it need not be actually verbalized is captured in two words: open borders. But why? Why is the premise of free movement of humans between countries treated as the misguided musings of a college sophomore after a few bong rips, while the ongoing systems of mass detention and deportation that eerily reflect concentration camps are treated as imperfect, but deeply important components of a well functioning society?
It’s worth beginning by asking ourselves if “open borders” exist between any countries in the world, or ever have. When examined from multiple angles, the answer is yes. Perhaps the most relevant example is the Schengen Agreement. Signed in 1985 it effectively abolished the national borders of the majority of European countries. As a consequence, nearly 400 million people can travel across an area of 1,664,911 sq miles without stopping at fixed checkpoints. In the agreement are 26 countries, both EU and non-EU members, which all, despite their porous borders, continue to exist as sovereign nations. The fact that most of us have never even heard of this treaty is a testament to the fact that it has not resulted in political, social, or economic collapse for the countries involved.
Of course, someone might argue that certain geographic or cultural factors may predispose European countries to have success sharing open borders which simply wouldn’t translate to the American context. That’s a fair argument, but worthy of scrutiny as well. What if you were told that someone born in Washington state would no longer have the right to live, work, or even temporarily visit family living in Florida. Any attempt to do so--even if fleeing a dangerous home or searching for work-- would result in indefinite detainment and ultimate deportation back to Washington. No matter how radically different in geography or culture, we have a right to pass through state borders as we wish and it seems like a preposterous thought experiment to imagine otherwise. But why do we take for granted that it seems equally as preposterous to imagine residents of central America being able to move across a similarly arbitrary border, free from the threats of violence and imprisonment?
If we return to the voice of reason, as symbolized by the New York Times top commenters, we realize these questions, while provocative, rely on an unrealistic straw man; no true “sovereign nation”, it is argued, can have a porous border, and as radically different as some states within the union may be, they are all part of a country that, if it is to remain unified, must have a border. This begs legitimate questions that must be dealt with: what is a sovereign nation or even sovereignty? How would an influx of non-citizens affect our already weak welfare system? Would wages fall and unemployment skyrocket?
Upon closer examination an uncomfortable truth exists for those who truly value a “secure” border. While our current militarized southern border forces migrants to undertake a brutal and dangerous journey, despite the risk, in the last few months alone there have been hundreds of thousands of “migrant encounters” (referring to documented occurrences of border patrol encountering migrants.) Obviously, there are many more immigrants than that who are passing into the U.S undetected and joining the 11 million+ currently undocumented people living within U.S borders.
Contrary to the fabulous and pervasive right wing mythology portraying undocumented Black and Brown immigrants as violent, or at least free-loading, drains on society, the undocumented community is arguably the economic backbone of the U.S economy. Migrant farmworkers are estimated to make up as much as 73% of agricultural workforce, growing and picking the majority of food U.S citizens eat. In restaurants, conservative estimates are that 20% of line cooks are undocumented, and this number is over 40% in urban areas such as Los Angeles and New York City. Undocumented immigrants pay billions in taxes every year, most with a higher effective tax rate average than the top 1% of taxpayers, with no current plan to receive a dime in social security or medicare in their futures. Moreover, undocumented people are actually less likely to commit crimes than U.S citizens, which intuitively makes sense; a misdemeanor slap on the wrist for a citizen could mean deportation for a non-citizen.
And while many would (I think, rightly) argue that people seeking asylum, or even people simply wishing to migrate for any reason, shouldn’t have to prove their economic worth to seek safety, these truths are still puzzling. If undocumented immigrants make our food system function, commit fewer crimes than the average American, and pay billions in taxes that disproportionately benefit U.S citizens, why is there a moral panic that prevents any politician of consequence from being able to even mention the idea of open borders?
To explore this question it's worth returning to the relationship between sovereignty and borders, which seems to be the ultimate fallback defense of militarized borders. Under international law, a sovereign nation is defined as a nation that has one centralized government that has the power to govern a specific geographic area. Surprisingly, there is little said about borders and how they are policed. Questions arise when we consider in what other ways may the United States already treat sovereignty and borders like swiss cheese already?
Perhaps the most obvious and topical thing is the U.S Military, whose blundering retreat after 20 years of occupation in Afghanistan has captured headlines in the last few weeks. While the invasion of Iraq is now deeply unpopular amongst the American public, (77% of Americans disapprove, even across typically polarized political lines,) many don’t realize that it was legally dubious as well. The Iraq War was justified on the shaky assertion that Iraq broke terms of a cease fire from the first invasion of Iraq in 1990. Thus, the U.S never even tried to claim that the war was in self defense and to this day the U.N security council never sanctioned any resolution approving the use of force. Based on the world police role the U.S has anointed itself with, is should come as no surprise that U.S forces are stationed at over 800 military bases in 70 countries, and our military budget is more than those of the next highest 10 countries combined.
Moreover, for decades U.S agencies such as the CIA have been shown to actively undermine elections in countries across the developing world and fund and train paramilitaries and military dictatorships from Chile’s Pinochet to the Nicaraguan contras to, the anti-Soviet Islamic Mujahideen rebels (some of whom would go on to form the Taliban using the billions of dollars in US weaponry). All of this is to say, the principled claims of our desire to maintain sovereignty through a militarized border are argued from shaky moral ground; since its inception the entire existence of the United States has been characterized by violating the sovereignty of other nations. From the North American indignioues peoples whose treaties are routinely violated to the Palestinians whose life under indefinite illegal occupation relies heavily on U.S aid to Israel, no country has more ignoble sludge to wade through when it comes to violating other nations’ sovereignty.
Putting the question of sovereignty aside for a moment, it's worth addressing one of the other key concerns people raise about free migration. Talk to anyone who has taken econ 101 about open borders and they’ll likely parrot some free market talking points; an influx of new workers would raise unemployment and drive down wages, two things that would be incredibly unpopular and harmful to US citizens. What seems to be forgotten in this argument, however, is another important category of things that flow across our border with ease: capital.
When workers cannot come to find jobs, in many cases, jobs go to find them, which has undermined wages, employment levels, and power of workers everywhere. Investments from the multinational corporations--in the form of money, food and crops, and physical machinery for manufacturing and mining of natural resources--travel freely due to trade deals, the largest of which is the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). NAFTA famously allowed for a massive amount of highly government-subsidized, mono-cropped American corn to flow into Mexico, which in turn decimated small Mexican farmers who simply couldn’t compete selling corn against agribusiness. And while manufacturing jobs did increase in Mexico, it was because multinational corporations understood that moving capital to a country with more relaxed labor and environmental regulations would allow them to profit and pollute more, with indifference to workers and the natural world alike. The irony is that by dismantling millions of people's economic livelihoods and immensely contributing to climate change, these corporations helped catalyze the biggest influx of migrants to the U.S in decades. NAFTA was good for American and Mexican billionaires, and harmful to the rest of us. Those who are genuinely worried about wage stagnation and an increase in unemployment should be worried about how the restriction of movement of people and free movement of capital has contributed to both of those things and consider how allowing people to move freely could undermine corporations ability to exploit workers.
The late, great anthropologist David Graeber famously wrote a short treatise on open borders in his booklet, Fragments of Anarchist Anthropology. On the elimination of global travel restrictions he writes:
“The rest would pretty much take care of itself. The moment the average resident of Tanzania or Laos was no longer forbidden to relocate to Minneapolis or Rotterdam, the government of every rich and powerful country in the world would certainly decide that nothing was more important than finding a way to make sure that people in Tanzania or Laos preferred to stay there.”
While Graeber’s analysis is tongue in cheek, it pushes the envelope of what can be discussed in the realm of immigration. It’s frustrating to see that even some of the sharpest thinkers and writers, and organizers on the left are bound by the right-wing’s hold on the paradigm of possibility for immigration. While the right openly calls for violence and imprisonment of migrants, the left seems searching for the other end of that pole but can only grasp at progressive platitudes like a “more just and humane immigration policy.” In the last year The Movement for Black Lives has stretched our collective imagination with calls to Defund the Police-- we all know that the project of defund is a long term one, but having an organizing North Star is motivating and clarifying. Already on a small scale, certain cities and towns have won decreases in the police budget, and the slogan, while controversial, has definitely framed the conversation around policing and not left it solely in the hands of the right wing. In what ways could a call for open borders be used to inspire actions, create new visionary policies on a smaller scale, and generally create the conditions for a more humane society?