What does the term “open borders” mean? I know that it became popular during the Obama years by some Republicans who wanted to and did defeat the proposed bipartisan immigration reform bill in Congress at that time. I note that it is only Republicans who claim that we have “open borders.” At the Republican Presidential Convention this week, speaker after speaker spoke of the evils of Biden’s “open border” policy. But the term makes no sense to me. We have hundreds of miles of fencing on our southern border. If the border was open, why do we have fencing? We arrest tens of thousands of people illegally crossing the border each month and deport them. If the border was open, why do we arrest people who cross and why do we deport them? There is a thriving business of smuggling people across our southern border. If the border was open, the smuggling business would not exist. We have quadrupled the number of Border Patrol agents since 1992. If the border was open, we would not have border patrol agents. Lines at ports of entry have gotten longer because of new requirements to enter the U.S. which is putting pressure to expand hours at newer ports of entry. If the border was open, why are the lines longer and why are there border ports of entry and why are we constructing new border ports of entry? Congress has passed many laws and Presidents have enacted many executive orders concerning the legality of crossing the border. If the border was open, why do we have these laws and executive orders?
The fact is that the border is not open. We cannot have open borders if we are trying to stop as many undocumented/illegal immigrants as possible from coming into the US via our southern border. The US has not had an actual open border since the early 1920s. Prior to this it was relatively easy to cross the southern border into the US and you simply needed a boat ticket to get here from Europe. It was the dramatic rise of the KKK which led to immigration laws passed by Congress that restricted Catholics and Jews from entering the US. Key groups such as the Chinese, the Japanese, and eastern and southern Europeans were disproportionately not allowed to immigrate to the US. The border patrol was created in 1924 primarily to prevent people from coming across the southern border from Mexico. Since then, we have essentially militarized the southern border with Mexico. The Department of Homeland Security estimated that in 2020 we had 10.5 million undocumented/illegal people here and today the estimate is at 11 million.
Not only did the Republicans at the convention this week speak erroneously of “open borders,” they essentially lied about immigration at the southern border. For example, undocumented/illegal immigrants were blamed for being the primary suppliers of fentanyl in the US. The fact is that most fentanyl is brought into the US through regular ports of entry along the southern border and most of it is brought in by US citizens. Undocumented/illegal immigrants were blamed for the rise in violent crime and murders. The fact is that undocumented/illegal immigrants are less likely to commit any crime than US citizens. Also, violent crime and murders have been in decline since 2020. It was claimed that undocumented/illegal immigrants were encouraged by Democrats so they could vote in the next election. This is not factual. Non-citizens cannot vote and there is absolutely no evidence of this happening. It was claimed at the convention that undocumented/illegal immigrants were taking jobs from US citizens. There is absolutely no evidence to support this. What was not discussed at the convention was the extremely restrictive bipartisan Senate immigration reform bill that was defeated in the Senate and the House at the insistence of Trump earlier this year.
The US desperately needs Congress to pass broad immigration reform not only dealing with issues at the border but also with those included in the deferred action for childhood arrivals program (DACA). Republicans have defeated the last two serious, bipartisan attempts by Congress to bring about substantive immigration reform in the US. Why? I would argue that either they don’t want to resolve the problem, or they don't want to resolve the problem with a Democrat in the White House. It is convenient politics. They use populist tactics and scapegoat poor people who look different and are either fleeing political persecution or simply want the opportunity for a better life for their families. I wonder whatever happened to “love your neighbor?”
Data Sources: the Customs and Border Patrol, the Department of Homeland Security, the Pew Research Center, and the Center for Immigration Studies at NYU.
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