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Are we for open borders? [1]

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Date: 2025-06-10

Are we for open borders? I already know the official Democratic Party position: NO.

I suppose when I ask if we want open borders, I am asking about the position of Democratic activists and readers here. I am having a difficult time figuring out what activists would like to see as a political endgame. I haven’t seen any advocates for open borders at all, which is a little surprising to me.

Over the last couple weeks, I have reconsidered my own position on open borders in light of the current global situation. Situation, meaning environmental collapse, rising fascism, economic turmoil, the impending rise of AI, and Russia waging a war that threatens international stability. I finally came down on the side of open borders (at least for the US), because at the core you are talking about a human being who wants to either escape trauma, pursue opportunity, or reunite with family. Every one of those reasons is clearly a moral positive. Borders are built mainly to privilege those inside that border, even if the vast majority of those people did nothing to deserve or earn their special place inside. Your average American has no moral claim to the privileges of being an American. They just happened to be born here and have spent their life pursuing their own personal benefits. A classic case of I got mine, so fuck you.

There are some valid reasons to control your borders: denying criminals entry, sure. Stopping smuggling, human trafficking, things like that. But when it comes to preventing immigration? Those reasons sound like BS to me after consideration.

“Preserving culture” in this country is particularly galling. What culture? The one that practiced slavery and segregation and persists today? The culture that committed genocide against Native Americans and still treats them poorly? The way we put capitalism on a pedestal and declare corporations people? The way we are so greedy we leave mentally disabled people to freeze in the streets?

After culture the big fear is economic. Oh no the dirty immigrants might steal my job. I say that if a human wants your job and is willing to work harder and better at it, they have earned that job.



Anyways, the thought that triggered my own conversion to an open border supporter is that I see no way to enforce immigration policy without violence against people who have not been violent themselves. Immigration agents raid workplaces, knock down doors, set up checkpoints, etc in order to do their job. People will run, and agents will run after them. All because we have made being American a special privilege for the lucky few.

Now, maybe it’s easier for me to support open borders because I don’t have much to lose. I also like people in general when I travel, and like variety of culture and food. I like the unfamiliar, and new challenges. But I think it is mostly because I approach the question with hope instead of fear. I hope that new immigrants will add more to a community than they cost. I also take the gains of immigrants themselves into account when weighing the question- even if a community feels costs when an immigrant arrives, does that cost outweigh the human improvement for that immigrant? And will that immigrant make up that cost many times over thru a lifetime of taxes and community involvement? I think more often than not that immigrants are a net positive. Just look at how America got to be so powerful in the first place.

Ok back to the Democratic Party for a moment. I just read the party platform to see where the Dems are at.

It notes that Biden already took these actions: increased enforcement, restricted eligibility for asylum, increased border resources to 24,000 agents, and surged thousands of law enforcement from Homeland Security.

Here’s more main points from the platform:

President Biden has repeatedly asked Congress for additional resources to secure our border, including increases for personnel that are critically needed to quickly deliver consequences at the border to those who cross unlawfully. Democrats believe that asylum processing should be efficient and fair, and that those who are determined not to have a legal basis to remain should be quickly removed. President Biden announced executive action that significantly curtailed asylum eligibility the President should have emergency authority to expel migrants who are crossing unlawfully and stop processing asylum claims Congress should also dedicate resources to detain and remove individuals quickly

Now, there were positive sounding items in the platform as well, but the selections above clearly show that the Democratic platform echoes Donald Trump’s platform. Yes, it is kinder and gentler and more professional. But the end goal is the same: strictly limit the number of immigrants, and quickly remove those who do not qualify for legal status.

But families will be torn apart! Of course the Dem solution is to create a hundred special categories and try to finesse away the worst family harms while somehow still not awarding citizenship, building a process that takes a decade and is subject to collapse the second a Republican is elected. It’s actually a brilliant political strategy: allow millions of family members into the country on temporary status, and then advertise that all those people will be deported if the Republicans get elected. It’s quite the incentive to hold those people’s futures hostage to the success of your political party every four years. Of course it would work better if families were paying attention enough to realize that yes, Trump will actually deport your undocumented family members even though you voted for him.

Here’s an example of the feel-good blather in the platform:

The bipartisan border legislation would increase the number of immigrant visas that are available by 250,000 over 5 years

First, that is 50,000 per year. I mean, 50,000 isn’t nothing but for a country our size it is a small drop in a big bucket. Second, that is a visa, not citizenship. Visas require work or family sponsorship so already we are talking about a subset of immigrants who are better resourced than most. Basically I read that as allowing 50,000 H1B visas so tech companies can have their pick of cheap labor.

Ok back to the point- the Democratic Party has no coherent immigration policy at all, at least not one that is distinct morally from the Republicans. If I could sum up the Dem position in one sentence it would be: limit immigration but do not enforce those limits. Which is just a disingenuous and transparently business-serving position. That is partly why the national Democratic Party has so little to say right now, at the very moment the people have reached the point of rioting. Substitute Trump for Biden in the platform positions above, add a few grammatical errors, and you could be listening to a Stephen Miller wish list.

But the people are not the party. What do the people actually think?

I foresee large numbers of migrants headed north in our future due to social and environmental upheaval. When that moment comes are we going to support humanity as it tries to survive, or will Dems finish building the wall and man it with kinder, gentler border agents? In my opinion we may as well start getting ahead of this moment as a party and the left wing should start making the case to remove all immigration quotas entirely. If nothing else the Overton window needs a clear expansion to the left so there is actually some room in the middle for something other than authoritarian fear mode.

Make the moral case: it is the pro-life position.

Make the economic case: more people=higher GDP.

Make the military case: many immigrants will volunteer.

Make the law enforcement case: all those people will be citizens, able to assert their rights and partner with law enforcement to keep their communities safe instead of hiding in the shadows and being taken advantage of.

Make the political case: blocking freedom of movement is anti-freedom and we want to be the party of freedom.

I can’t handle the cognitive dissonance of arguing that immigrants are good, productive people, with the idea that we should swiftly remove them if they don’t fit into a special arbitrary bucket of our design because we got here first. So yeah I guess I am now an open borders person.

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