Borders
Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2024 12:25 am
I live in a state called Washington. It has three neighbors and four borders. Two of my neighbors are states called Idaho and Oregon. They are separated from Washington by a border.
Those two borders are open borders. I don’t need to ask permission to cross into Idaho or Oregon. I don’t have to stop my car and answer questions from an Idaho law enforcement offer before I enter Idaho.
And nobody thinks that it’s weird or strange or scary that I can go to Idaho any time I want. As long as I obey Idaho’s laws while I’m there, I can do what I want, say what I want — even move there permanently.
People come to my state from all the other states. If they break laws while they are here, we prosecute them just as we would against anyone who lives here.
People like me, who were born in my state, are a minority in Washington. Most people moved here from other states. From time to time we get Californians with a bunch of money who want to make us like California or their vision of what California should look like. But we just go vote on stuff instead of demanding that our government control which Californians can come in and which stay out.
In fact, people who live in other states or who move here from other states commit crime — even brutal murders. But I’ve never heard anyone say “We shouldn’t have let that murderer come to Washington.” That would be weird.
Another border we have is one the north, with Canada. That border is most definitely not open. I know, because I have to sit in long lines and get permission from an armed person in a uniform before I can cross into Canada. And I have to let that armed person search my car and my pockets and even my phone if he asks. And I if I have certain stuff in my car or in my pockets, the armed guy can just take it.
And I have to sit in longer lines and answer more questions when I cross back into the United States, even though I am a citizen of the United States. And the armed guy can search my stuff and take things, too. Even things I’m legally allowed to have in Washington, which is where I’m trying to go to. Like, I have to get permission from the armed person in a uniform just to come home.
Once, when my mom was crossing the border from Canada, a bunch of armed people in uniforms came running out with their hands on their guns and barking orders at her. She was there for a while. Another time, my brother said a word while waiting in line to get home that he shouldn’t have said, and the folks with the guns took a long time searching every inch of his car. So, nothing like the open border with Idaho.
If I really wanted, it would be pretty easy to cross into Canada without permission if I wanted to. That border crosses a big range of mountains with tons of places to cross.
The fourth border doesn’t really have a neighbor unless you count thousands of miles of open ocean. I guess you could say that the world is my next door neighbor across that border. It isn’t open either. I know because when I take a ferry from Washington to British Columbia, I have to talk to another armed person in a uniform and show him all the stuff I have with me if he asks. But I’ve also been lots of places along my border with the world and not seen anyone looking for people crossing the border without permission. There aren’t a bunch of buildings with a bunch of folks in uniforms patrolling the beach or the rocks or whatever.
I’ve heard folks talk about closed borders. When I hear that, I think about West Berlin. My father in law was stationed in Germany for a while and has hilarious stories about folks in the service driving from Germany to West Berlin through East Germany and the way the East German police would try to trick them into breaking the law so they could throw them in jail. But, if US soldiers could cross the border into East Germany, was it actually closed? And despite the walls and barbed wire and all the soldiers, people still managed to cross that border without permission.
I crossed one “closed” border once, between Finland and the USSR. I was with a busload of other US citizens. Our crossing was held up because, although we were warned not to, someone tried to smuggle a bunch of Bibles into the country. While we were waiting, I walked a few steps behind the bus to look up the actual boundary. It was a really broad swath of trees with large towers at regular intervals as far as I could see. I’d never seen anything like it. My view was cut short when I was ordered back to the bus by a big man with a very big gun.
Still, the border wasn’t closed. They let us in.
Talking about “open” and “closed” borders when discussing US border policy is idiotic. We have neither. No R politician is going to close a border because it is not financially feasible. No D wants open borders — the kind Washington has with Idaho. That’s some flavor of Libertarian. The entire issue is how much money are we willing to spend and how brutal are we willing to be in regulating the flow of people across our borders?
The amount of illegal immigration varies over time with the strength of the US economy. Human migration is analogous to market forces. People move in large part from places with too much supply of or too little demand for labor. And they move towards places where there are available jobs. And, just like market forces, trying to do anything that directly opposes those forces is difficult, if not futile. Hermetically sealing our borders is likely impossible. Getting anywhere close would cost more than any US taxpayer would be willing to pay.
Some of the current immigration arguments are just wrong headed. Take fentanyl. Fentanyl is not smuggled into the US on the backs of random peopke walking miles though savage desert continues. That would be the stupidest business model ever. Fentanyl is smuggled in vehicles that cross at regular border crossings in vehicles mainly driven by US citizens. It’s not an immigration problem at all. It’s a drug problem.
There was just a bust at a very sophisticated fentanyl production and distribution facility. In Canada. One location is right across the border from me in Surrey BC.
We’ve wasted billions and billions of dollars on a war on drugs largely based on restricting supply. It’s been a failure. Some years back, heroin was smuggled mostly across Florida’s water borders. The feds conducted a huge operation to interdict all of that smuggling. You could have called it sealing the border. All it did was push the smuggling to the land border with Mexico, which is what we see today.
Restricting the supply of fentanyl in the US raises its price. The higher the price, the more profitable it becomes. The more we reduce fentanyl smuggling across the border, the more we make other ways of smuggling it into the US more profitable. Tighten the screws on Mexico, and the flow will shift back to Florida. Or Montana. Or any coastal state. Heck, raise the price enough, and we’ll be overrun with home made fentanyl — essentially importing organized crime and gangs into the US.
in my opinion, Fentanyl is being used to create a moral panic over immigration that will drive voters to vote for Trump. There are solutions, none of which have to do with how we treat asylum seekers or migrant laborers.
Another argument is not just wrong headed — it’s morally despicable. It’s the politicization of horrible personal tragedy by political demagogues. It is trivially easy to claim, after a tragedy, that person X who did bad thing Y should never have been allowed here in the first place. That’s because we have a bunch of information after the fact.
Before the tragedy, it’s all levels of risk. The government doesn’t have the benefit of hindsight. What is the risk to the average person in America of being murdered by a person who is here illegally? How much would it cost to reduce that risk by, say, half. And, finally, could that money be spent to reduce the risks of murder by anyone more effectively?
If the rate of murders by illegal aliens is lower than the rate of murder by US citizens, why would we spend billions of dollars trying to seal the borders instead of on crime prevention aimed at US citizens?
I have zero problem with not having an open border with other nations, in contrast with the open borders we have between states. I have no problem regulating who is allowed to come to the US and for what reasons. But that policy should be driven by facts and data and not emotion and tribalism.
Those two borders are open borders. I don’t need to ask permission to cross into Idaho or Oregon. I don’t have to stop my car and answer questions from an Idaho law enforcement offer before I enter Idaho.
And nobody thinks that it’s weird or strange or scary that I can go to Idaho any time I want. As long as I obey Idaho’s laws while I’m there, I can do what I want, say what I want — even move there permanently.
People come to my state from all the other states. If they break laws while they are here, we prosecute them just as we would against anyone who lives here.
People like me, who were born in my state, are a minority in Washington. Most people moved here from other states. From time to time we get Californians with a bunch of money who want to make us like California or their vision of what California should look like. But we just go vote on stuff instead of demanding that our government control which Californians can come in and which stay out.
In fact, people who live in other states or who move here from other states commit crime — even brutal murders. But I’ve never heard anyone say “We shouldn’t have let that murderer come to Washington.” That would be weird.
Another border we have is one the north, with Canada. That border is most definitely not open. I know, because I have to sit in long lines and get permission from an armed person in a uniform before I can cross into Canada. And I have to let that armed person search my car and my pockets and even my phone if he asks. And I if I have certain stuff in my car or in my pockets, the armed guy can just take it.
And I have to sit in longer lines and answer more questions when I cross back into the United States, even though I am a citizen of the United States. And the armed guy can search my stuff and take things, too. Even things I’m legally allowed to have in Washington, which is where I’m trying to go to. Like, I have to get permission from the armed person in a uniform just to come home.
Once, when my mom was crossing the border from Canada, a bunch of armed people in uniforms came running out with their hands on their guns and barking orders at her. She was there for a while. Another time, my brother said a word while waiting in line to get home that he shouldn’t have said, and the folks with the guns took a long time searching every inch of his car. So, nothing like the open border with Idaho.
If I really wanted, it would be pretty easy to cross into Canada without permission if I wanted to. That border crosses a big range of mountains with tons of places to cross.
The fourth border doesn’t really have a neighbor unless you count thousands of miles of open ocean. I guess you could say that the world is my next door neighbor across that border. It isn’t open either. I know because when I take a ferry from Washington to British Columbia, I have to talk to another armed person in a uniform and show him all the stuff I have with me if he asks. But I’ve also been lots of places along my border with the world and not seen anyone looking for people crossing the border without permission. There aren’t a bunch of buildings with a bunch of folks in uniforms patrolling the beach or the rocks or whatever.
I’ve heard folks talk about closed borders. When I hear that, I think about West Berlin. My father in law was stationed in Germany for a while and has hilarious stories about folks in the service driving from Germany to West Berlin through East Germany and the way the East German police would try to trick them into breaking the law so they could throw them in jail. But, if US soldiers could cross the border into East Germany, was it actually closed? And despite the walls and barbed wire and all the soldiers, people still managed to cross that border without permission.
I crossed one “closed” border once, between Finland and the USSR. I was with a busload of other US citizens. Our crossing was held up because, although we were warned not to, someone tried to smuggle a bunch of Bibles into the country. While we were waiting, I walked a few steps behind the bus to look up the actual boundary. It was a really broad swath of trees with large towers at regular intervals as far as I could see. I’d never seen anything like it. My view was cut short when I was ordered back to the bus by a big man with a very big gun.
Still, the border wasn’t closed. They let us in.
Talking about “open” and “closed” borders when discussing US border policy is idiotic. We have neither. No R politician is going to close a border because it is not financially feasible. No D wants open borders — the kind Washington has with Idaho. That’s some flavor of Libertarian. The entire issue is how much money are we willing to spend and how brutal are we willing to be in regulating the flow of people across our borders?
The amount of illegal immigration varies over time with the strength of the US economy. Human migration is analogous to market forces. People move in large part from places with too much supply of or too little demand for labor. And they move towards places where there are available jobs. And, just like market forces, trying to do anything that directly opposes those forces is difficult, if not futile. Hermetically sealing our borders is likely impossible. Getting anywhere close would cost more than any US taxpayer would be willing to pay.
Some of the current immigration arguments are just wrong headed. Take fentanyl. Fentanyl is not smuggled into the US on the backs of random peopke walking miles though savage desert continues. That would be the stupidest business model ever. Fentanyl is smuggled in vehicles that cross at regular border crossings in vehicles mainly driven by US citizens. It’s not an immigration problem at all. It’s a drug problem.
There was just a bust at a very sophisticated fentanyl production and distribution facility. In Canada. One location is right across the border from me in Surrey BC.
We’ve wasted billions and billions of dollars on a war on drugs largely based on restricting supply. It’s been a failure. Some years back, heroin was smuggled mostly across Florida’s water borders. The feds conducted a huge operation to interdict all of that smuggling. You could have called it sealing the border. All it did was push the smuggling to the land border with Mexico, which is what we see today.
Restricting the supply of fentanyl in the US raises its price. The higher the price, the more profitable it becomes. The more we reduce fentanyl smuggling across the border, the more we make other ways of smuggling it into the US more profitable. Tighten the screws on Mexico, and the flow will shift back to Florida. Or Montana. Or any coastal state. Heck, raise the price enough, and we’ll be overrun with home made fentanyl — essentially importing organized crime and gangs into the US.
in my opinion, Fentanyl is being used to create a moral panic over immigration that will drive voters to vote for Trump. There are solutions, none of which have to do with how we treat asylum seekers or migrant laborers.
Another argument is not just wrong headed — it’s morally despicable. It’s the politicization of horrible personal tragedy by political demagogues. It is trivially easy to claim, after a tragedy, that person X who did bad thing Y should never have been allowed here in the first place. That’s because we have a bunch of information after the fact.
Before the tragedy, it’s all levels of risk. The government doesn’t have the benefit of hindsight. What is the risk to the average person in America of being murdered by a person who is here illegally? How much would it cost to reduce that risk by, say, half. And, finally, could that money be spent to reduce the risks of murder by anyone more effectively?
If the rate of murders by illegal aliens is lower than the rate of murder by US citizens, why would we spend billions of dollars trying to seal the borders instead of on crime prevention aimed at US citizens?
I have zero problem with not having an open border with other nations, in contrast with the open borders we have between states. I have no problem regulating who is allowed to come to the US and for what reasons. But that policy should be driven by facts and data and not emotion and tribalism.