As smart as some conservatives are, many of them just don’t get it when it comes to the concept of open borders. They make two common mistakes. First, they are convinced that open borders means no borders. Second, they think that an immigration-control system that doesn’t work — that is, one where lots of people are successfully circumventing the border-control system — is “open borders.”
A recent example is a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal, in which a man named Kevin F. Swan, who I assume is a conservative, states, “The only shame here is the failure of Joe Biden during his presidency to protect Americans by having an open border.”
The second example is from a conservative named Mark Krikorian, who is the executive director of an organization named the Center for Immigration Studies, which has long been a fierce advocate of America’s system of immigration controls. Krikorian is the author of a recent piece entitled “Mi Casa Es Su Casa” which was published in the conservative Claremont Review of Books. In his article, Krikorian takes liberal/progressive author John Washington to task for his book The Case for Open Borders, a book that I reviewed positively in an article entitled “An Utterly Fantastic Book on Immigration.”
Needless to say, Krikorian does not believe that Washington’s book is utterly fantastic. On the contrary, he considers Washington’s arguments in favor of open borders to be “drivel.” In the process of countering Washington’s arguments, however, it’s clear that Krikorian subscribes to those two common conservative misconceptions that I mentioned above.
For example, the opening sentence of Krikorian’s article states, “I’m often asked why the Biden administration effectively opened America’s borders, allowing in 9 or 10 million foreigners who had no right to enter.”
He then followed up this point with the other common misconception by asserting that because Washington favors the right of people to freely cross borders, that means that he believes that “borders, as such, are immoral.”
Washington responded to Krikorian’s piece by absolutely decimating his argument that Biden had an “open-border” policy. I have no doubts that Washington’s response has left Krikorian totally dumb-founded. What Washington did was enumerate just some of the harsh measures that Biden took to enforce America’s system of immigration controls. The list included illegal denial of asylum claims, increased spending for immigration detention, mass deportations (a higher percentage than in Trump’s first term), increased expulsions to Mexico, and much more.
What Krikorian is really complaining about, without realizing it, is that Biden did not enforce America’s immigration control system in a sufficiently brutal and vicious manner as to effectively seal the border. But at the risk of belaboring the obvious, at no time did Biden ever call for or adopt a system of open borders — genuine open borders. There is a simple reason for that: Democrats are as fierce proponents of America’s socialist (i.e., central planning) system of immigration controls as Republicans are.
What Krikorian obviously doesn’t see is that an immigration-control system in which multitudes of people are successfully circumventing the controls, is not “open borders.” In fact, as I point out in my upcoming new Amazon Kindle book ($.99), The Case for Open Borders: A Primer, the difference between an immigration-control system that isn’t working to seal the border and a genuine system of open borders is the difference between night and day.
What is a genuine system of open borders? A good example is the border between Maryland and Virginia, where I live. Every day, hundreds of thousands of people coming from Maryland cross the American Legion Bridge, which spans the Potomac River, and enter Virginia. There are no border-control stations. No vetting. No searches. No stops. No government controls whatsoever.
Let me emphasize something important: Those hundreds of thousands of people coming into our state every day might include murderers, rapists, thieves, robbers, drug dealers, drug users, welfare seekers, terrorists, Muslims, and, yes, even illegal immigrants. Scary, right?
Well, that is open borders — genuine open borders, not a border-control system in which multitudes of people are successfully circumventing the government’s border-control system.
Oh, and notice something else important: Even though people are free to cross the Maryland-Virginia border (in both directions), the border (the Potomac River) doesn’t disappear. It remains the border, even though people are free to cross it.
I’d venture to say that if a poll were taken, at least 95 percent of the American people, including possibly Krikorian himself, would say that they favor America’s domestic open-borders system. After all, not only does it protect people’s right to freedom of travel, it also works. That is, it is harmonizes people’s interests rather than produce death, suffering, crises, chaos, and a massive brutal and vicious immigration police state. What conservatives just can’t see is that the same principles of freedom and free markets apply to our international borders.
The post Two Common Conservative Misconceptions on Open Borders appeared first on The Future of Freedom Foundation.
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Author: Jacob G. Hornberger
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