One of the most prominent problems, that is part of political discussion in the west is keeping borders opened or closed. Many people bring in their ideas and present quite compelling arguments about how open or closed borders are better a better choice. Personally, as an anarchist, I don’t believe there should be border control and as explained on my main political philosophy page one should be free to choose and form commune with whatever group of people they align with. However, things always need to be addressed in the current scenario. Which brings us to the question of open borders or closed borders, which option is better?
To answer this question easily let us look at the main reason for immigration. For legal immigrants, it is usually better job opportunities, and a chance to get a better education that leads to immigration to a new place. For illegal immigrants it is mostly, to obtain a living worth of wage to support their family or to escape some sort of prosecution. While the stats differ for legal and illegal immigrants drastically, we will keep our focus on illegal immigrants not only because they are the focus of this issue but also because for legal immigrants the borders are already open.
Among the two groups of illegal immigrants, the ones that come to escape prosecution are usually on run from culturally divergent things. Such people seek refuge in a place that will be tolerant toward them. For example, a woman who tends to be a victim of domestic abuse and belongs to Pakistan will seek refuge in Canada or a Western European country where she will be protected. This woman wouldn´t seek sanctuary in patriarchal Eastern countries where there is a chance of repetition of such heinous crimes. Similarly, a gay guy from Morocco will not seek refuge in Saudi Arabia who will sentence this person to death if found committing homosexual acts.
Hence, these people not only quite easily integrate as an immigrant but also these people tend to forget or stray away from their birth values because they have barely given them any benefit throughout their life. Not only is this group of people warmly welcomed into the new society because of their past but they are supported in many ways because of NGOs, governmental schemes, and UNESCO programs. And I am sure even the most arrogant of conservatives will agree that these people need assistance even if not the benefit they should be given free passage since they need it.
Now comes the last group, the one group that is the problem and is considered a financial burden by most people that stand against immigration. While like the legal immigrant these people come all the way to a new country to seek better employability and earn more money to feed their families. The only problem is because they came in illegally, they have one of two options. They can either lie and seek asylum which will grant them free money or work illegally which will give them relatively less amount of money, but they will be able to work. Obviously, most people opt for the first option because it’s free money.
In addition to this most of these people fail to integrate themselves into the new culture, mainly because they are side-lined because of all the existing regulations and hence in countries like France, Sweden the even UK we observe that there is neighbourhood entirely taken over by incoming illegal immigrants. People exploit their situation and hire them for a very less wage compared to what one will get paid as a minimum wage in the same country. While I was in Portugal, I even met some illegal immigrants who were working in return for a promise that they will get support for registration when the time comes. And even though legally it takes a year for this time to come for some people who are being exploited to the extreme this time never comes.
Since this is the scenario for closed borders what would happen if the borders remained open in these situations? Let us consider the same scenario, a person from a very poor background has just arrived in France. Considering there is no border restriction the person has no option but to work to fend for himself and his family. Obviously to avoid starvation the person will immediately seek out a job. If the job market is already saturated this person will either go ahead to another country or go back where at least his cost of living was less and the person was able to survive. Not only that it will be much better for this person to die by the people he loves rather than in a strange country. Now let’s say this person was able to find a job. The person will stay and work, however, there are again two options for this person, one is the person stays and integrates into the new country or two the person despises the culture. If the person integrates, the anti-immigrants again have no problem with this guy because the person in question has already submitted to their will.
However, if the person does not integrate, such person will try to earn only enough to go back and live a relatively better life in their own home country. This happens because the person is sure that if there is a chance that in future the person has a lack of money they can always come back, make a fortune while sacrificing a few years of life and eventually get back home happily. But if they had no such option, they would rather stay in the country that they so much despise and form a segregated community that will be hated by nationalists causing a divide in the country.
Hence, we can say in many ways open borders are a much more beneficial option compared to closed borders.
