Maybe some folks read “Maxim 370” this morning and you cocked your head like a confused beagle. “Is he advocating for opening the border??”
Yes. Yes, I am. Just like in the EU: if you’re in Italy and want to move to Germany, knock yourself out. Just like in the United States: if you live in Ohio and want to move to Wyoming, great. Nobody cares.
Much of what drives this southern border nonsense is not economic arguments, or security concerns, or panic about wages. It’s racism. White Americans don’t want those brown people coming in and polluting our pristine nation. The assumption among many White people—I know this for a fact—is that “this country is ours.” And how can we make America great (White) again, if these Hondurans are coming into the country with their disease, their foreign language, and their thirst for blood?
The solution to the violence, suffering, extreme cost, and time spent on boarder issues is to open the border. People move around. It’s what they do. And all the things you have heard—and fear—are wrong. Whether it’s about job loss (Americans don’t lose on this deal), violence (migrant populations have much lower rates of crime than our fellow Americans), or cultural concerns (migrants commonly do learn English or can be held to fluency expectations)—and isn’t America a melting pot?—there are really nothing but benefits to an open border policy.
As for culture, if America has more Honduran culture in it, what do you care? No one is going to take away your Miller Lite or your country music or your Ford F150. They will be just fine.
Furthermore, the United States has a vicious and violent history in Central America, so if these countries are to be deemed “sh*tholes” (as they were by former president and present felon Donald Trump), then the United States has much to answer for why that is. We have had a destabilizing effect on those countries, the people there are fleeing the violence that we are largely responsible for, and then we judge them as human filth as a result. This is moral ugliness.
The economically sound thing, the morally sound thing is to open the borders. We don’t need to let them all in tomorrow morning; it can be phased in. But it’s the smart and virtuous play.
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/open-borders-immigration/tnamp
