[quote=“clovis8, post:251, topic:88”] I
don’t think anyone is suggesting there should be no difference between a citizen and non-citizen or that countries should not exist.
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Sounds great to me but it’s a bit of a non sequiter on a politics forum.
Grunching
For people, I don’t see much downside, but there is a minor ecological benefit to customs, preventing unwanted plants or animals into an area they could potentially disrupt / become invasive
Sure, and California has sometimes stopped people driving in from Oregon, Nevada, or Arizona as long as I can remember to ask if they are carrying any fruits or vegetables. People could still get through, they just had to toss their salads.
Again I don’t think “open borders” means no customs.
It just means people can come and go, live and work when they want. All other rules and regulations in terms of movement of goods ect would still apply.
Everyone here who thinks USA can’t have open borders with Mexico and still be a country ridiculed the UK for pulling out of the EU because they don’t like Polish people.
For sure, I was just picking a nit. There is still a minor benefit so even under an open borders concept we wouldn’t have completely unstaffed borders. It would just be a bunch of ecology nerds instead of cops with guns.
I think the US could pretty easily have open borders with all countries in the Americas. We’ve basically reached a stasis with Mexico where the costs of immigrating to and living in the US are roughly equal to the opportunities normal Mexicans have at home, so net migration with Mexico has flatlined. Brazil would probably not be too far behind, and that’s half the population of Latin America right there.
For small countries like Haiti, a huge chunk of the population could immigrate to the US and people would barely notice. Keep in mind, most people even in countries like Haiti do not have either the means or ability or desire to emigrate. The vast, vast majority in all cases will stay put.
Part of the reason equilibrium would be reached is that wages would fall in immigrant-heavy professions, which would decrease the “pull” and, in honesty, harm some lower-skilled Americans. I would propose a much more robust safety net to such population segments–of course, they should have a much more robust social safety net regardless.
Finally, our society’s professional licensure, zoning, and regulation of food service etc would be strained like crazy in this scenario, but the libertarian part of my mind is skeptical of these things to some degree anyways.
“Open borders” would also have a lot of people leave the USA immediately, as many undocumented immigrants want to go home for some period of time but know they won’t be able to come back to the USA ever again, so they’re just stuck in limbo forever. (For instance, someone who is undocumented but has citizen children who have aged to early adulthood, and is suddenly stuck in a bind.)
I see the question as whether you continue with the unlimited jus soli found in almost all of North and South America and limited or non-existent elsewhere.
Ending jus soli is something that people would have considered unthinkable a generation ago just like they thought holding people indefinitely without trial, or torturing people, or extended solitary confinement were just things the USA wouldn’t do or at least isn’t supposed to do. I think the Overton Window has already shifted enough for ending it to become thinkable for most Americans. If not, it’s getting there.
All of this, plus the effects of climate change (which the USA has contributed to much more than Central American countries) is going to be felt much harder in places like Guatemala.
If there are any countries that deserve open borders, it’s places like that.
And even way moreso in the Caribbean. We didn’t take seriously what happened in Barbuda in 2017. The only reason it wasn’t such a big deal is the island only had like 1,500 people living on it, many of whom evacuated to much larger Anguilla before or right after the hurricane. But, basically complete and total destruction of the island.
This could happen to entire Caribbean countries. It will happen to entire Caribbean countries. We absolutely need to give them the ability to leave these islands freely as a very basic human rights issue.
For small countries like Haiti, a huge chunk of the population could immigrate to the US and people would barely notice. Keep in mind, most people even in countries like Haiti do not have either the means or ability or desire to emigrate. The vast, vast majority in all cases will stay put.
Hmm, I’m not entirely sure I agree with this. There is a big difference between having to trek through 12 countries as a migrant versus just finding $250 bucks for a one way ticket to Miami.
I agree with you that it seems like it would depress wages quite a bit as well.
I am sympathetic to the argument about a welfare state + open borders creating problems. I’m assuming for most of those 100 years there was basically no social safety net, no child labor laws etc.
If you opened borders tomorrow, many social services would go well beyond their capacity very quickly (e.g. k-12 public education).
Child labor laws are not really relevant there and man, migrants coming here to work in sweatshops instead of staying in Haiti would be good for reducing child labor.
Says who? It’s theoretically possible, but people seem just as certain when they say things like “legalizing drugs will turn everyone into drug addled zombies”. People who come will also work and pay taxes. They don’t actually just come and soak up services without providing any resources.
The social safety net is basically a big social insurance program with risk pools to account for an ex-ante uneven distribution of luck and ability. If you have open borders then you have an adverse selection bias problem where the unluckiest people get to ex-post seek jurisdictions with the best benefits. That seems like it could present a problem. Similar concept to why a single state cannot implement universal free healthcare without going bust.
I don’t think this would happen. For instance, what evidence is there that the California tent cities are comprised of immigrants? But even if it did, it wouldn’t happen over night. There would be other ways to address the issue rather than just locking down the border and implementing the current system we have that’s pretty inhumane and antithetical to some of our fundamental societal values.
It’s really the opposite. What you select for is people who are ambitious enough and capable of moving.
I think it’s tough to say what exactly the counterfactual would be for open borders with full welfare benefits. I mean yes, right now it selects for ambitious and physically/mentally strong people, but that may be in large part because it is so hard to make it as an undocumented immigrant.
There are no tent cities all over California. That’s BS fear mongering. Cowardly right wingers imagine San Francisco is a big tent city, when it’s mostly just a few square blocks. And then, of course, very few of the people there are immigrants.