All posts by Joel Newman

Joel has a bachelor’s degree in history from Pomona College and works as a teacher in Beaverton, Oregon. See also: our blog post introducing Joel all blog posts by Joel

Open Borders Benefit First World Citizens Too

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A primary advantage of open borders is the opportunity provided to Third World citizens to escape their impoverished conditions and find a better life in more economically advanced countries.  While open borders would probably most benefit those in the Third World,  its advantages for citizens of more advanced countries should not be overlooked.

Many First World citizens might benefit under open borders from the positive economic impact of a greater influx of immigrants into their countries.  In response to a 1990 Alexis de Tocqueville Institution survey question “What reforms in U.S. immigration laws or quotas would you recommend to improve the U.S. economy,” the late economist Milton Friedman, 1976 Nobel laureate, stated “From an economic point of view, unlimited immigration, but limiting access for a decade or so to welfare and similar benefits would be ideal.”  And Philippe Legrain writes in Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them that immigrants “… bring different skills, varied views, diverse experiences and a zeal for self-improvement that combine with the talents of local people to boost innovation, productivity and economic growth.” (page 19)

Another advantage of open borders for citizens of countries with advanced economies would be the expanded opportunity for them to move to another country in search of economic opportunities.  In fact, some Americans are currently emigrating to other countries to find work, especially given the high unemployment rate in the United States and the millions of people who are considered long-term unemployed   (See also here.)   An article on the NBC site  states that “Reversing a trend that’s perhaps 400 years old, workers are leaving America to find opportunity elsewhere.”  The article refers to Americans who have found work in China, Australia, and the United Arab Emirates.  An emigrant to China was reported as saying that her standard of living was better there than in the U.S.  In a report that collected stories from Americans who are struggling in the U.S. job market,  an American teaching English in South Korea, referring to fellow Americans working abroad, stated that “… for many of us the best way to find a steady job or pay off a student loan is to leave America.” The NBC article notes that the U.S. government has had difficulty determining how many Americans are working overseas, although it could be in the millions.

Hein de Haas, blogger and co-director of the International Migration Institute, notes that Europeans are similarly looking for work outside of their countries’ borders.  He writes that many Irish are emigrating to a number of English speaking countries, Portuguese are emigrating to France, Brazil, Mozambique, and Angola, Greeks are emigrating to Germany, Australia, and Turkey, and Spaniards are moving to a number of other European countries and Morocco.  Mr. de Hass states that “what many people ignore… is that some African economies are growing fast, and can nowadays offer better opportunities to skilled, entrepreneurial Europeans than the stagnating economies of Southern and European Europe.”

Many from advanced countries are emigrating to Mexico, according to a New York Times article entitled “For Migrants, New Land of Opportunity Is Mexico.”  Almost 70,000 Americans were legally working in the country in 2011, as were tens of thousands of Europeans, Canadians, and Asians.   A French citizen moved to Mexico, according to the article, “… because college graduates in France were struggling to find work.  He has stayed here… because the affordable quality of life beats living in Europe–and because Mexico offers more opportunity for entrepreneurship.”  He has opened a successful communications business in Mexico and said, “‘We’re not going back to France… The business is doing well and we’re very happy in Mexico.’”  The article notes that “… Spanish filmmakers, Japanese automotive executives and entrepreneurs from the United States and Latin America arrive practically daily–pursuing dreams, living well and frequently succeeding.”

Some American retirees are also emigrating to improve their quality of life.   Some who moved to Mexico between 2007 and 2010 had houses and stock that had lost a significant amount of value.  More emigration to cheaper countries would, in the opinion of Don Peck of the Atlantic, “… give recession-battered Baby Boomers more choices and opportunities.”

I am not an expert on immigration policies throughout the world, but the apparent ease with which many citizens of advanced countries emigrate to other countries is probably due to the substantial financial, educational, and occupational resources they possess compared to emigrants from Third World countries.  In the New York Times article on emigration to Mexico, it was noted that “most of the immigrants who have the resources or corporate sponsorship to gain legal residency here come from the United States and Europe. The thousands of Central American immigrants coming to Mexico without visas — to work on farms or in cities, or to get to the United States — are often greeted with beatings by the Mexican police or intense pressure to work for drug cartels.”

However, none of this is to suggest that open borders currently exist for First World citizens, with the exception that citizens of European Union countries can freely look for work in other EU countries. (See also here and here.)  Americans are sometimes deported from Mexico,  Canada,  and Europe (see here and here), and Europeans are deported from Australia  and the U.S. (see here and here).  John Lee has shared that his American employer no longer sponsors work visas for foreigners, including Canadians, because of the cost and uncertainty involved.

A universal acceptance of open borders would provide insurance against fluctuations in the health of national economies.  It would allow citizens in countries who experience flagging economies in the future to seek employment in economies with greater opportunities.  Consider the dramatic vacillations in Spain’s economy.  According to the Atlantic, after years of being a “poor, backward country,” in the late 20th century it quickly evolved into a “… modern, wealthy, technologically-advanced European social democracy…” with a single digit unemployment rate by the mid-2000s.  However, the 2008 global economic crisis has led it to have one of the highest unemployment rates in the developed world.  Fortunately, Spain’s membership in the EU has allowed its citizens the opportunity to seek work in other EU countries.

Similarly, the relative ease with which citizens from advanced countries can currently move around the world, even in the absence of open borders, may not last.  Perhaps one day Americans, Canadians, and Europeans may have great difficulty emigrating to China, Brazil, or Africa, for example.  Establishing durable, universal open borders would help insure against the future closing of borders in many countries.

Even in the absence of a compelling need to emigrate to find work in another country, the unobstructed ability to move to another country would enrich the lives of many citizens of First World countries.  Victoria Ferauge has referred to the “joy of discovering a new country and building a life and a career there,” and Paul Crider has stated that “migration is a valuable right and capability for all kinds of people, not just those who ‘need’ it to escape poverty or persecution.”   Some people are happier living in a country other than their own, economic (and political) considerations aside.

Citizens of advanced countries have much to gain from open borders.   And, as Mr. Crider has noted, appealing to their self-interest may make the case for open borders more attractive to them than focusing on how it can help people in the Third World.

Can Open Borders Save Detroit and Other Ailing Cities?

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The American city of Detroit is in terrible shape.  An online piece in The New York Times by Joseph Stiglitz summarizes its ills: “… 40 percent of streetlights were not working this spring, tens of thousands of buildings are abandoned, schools have closed and the population declined 25 percent in the last decade alone. The violent crime rate last year was the highest of any big city. In 1950, when Detroit’s population was 1.85 million, there were 296,000 manufacturing jobs in the city; as of 2011, with a population of just over 700,000, there were fewer than 27,000.”  The city government filed for bankruptcy in July.

Witold Rybczynski of the University of Pennsylvania has described the negative impact of depopulation on cities: “When a city loses population, it loses residents, but keeps the same amount of infrastructure. The same streets must be policed and maintained, the same streetlights repaired, the same water and sewer systems operated, the same transit systems run. It is like an (impoverished) elderly couple having to keep up a large house after all the kids have grown up and moved out.  This imbalance has several deleterious effects. Because the city has fewer taxpayers, the quality of its municipal services goes down. For example, police response time to 911 calls in Detroit is currently said to be 58 minutes. It expends scarce resources on nonproductive uses; Philadelphia pays $20 million a year just to maintain 40,000 vacant properties. Moreover, because urban vitality depends on density, without an adequate concentration of people, corner stores close, streets become empty — and dangerous — and abandoned buildings become haunts for criminal activities. According to a 1973 study by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the tipping point in a community occurs when only 3 percent to 6 percent of properties are blighted; many neighborhoods of shrinking cities passed that point decades ago.”

Mr. Rybczynski, like Detroit’s outgoing mayor, advocates “planned shrinkage” of Detroit.  Declaring that “Detroit has no other realistic option,” he suppports  “consolidation,” in which people living in underpopulated areas of the city move to other parts of the city.  City services to the abandoned areas are then discontinued.  Mr. Rybczynski states that “Experience has shown that voluntary displacement of residents is unlikely to succeed, and some version of eminent domain with regard to nonviable neighborhoods is required.”

In contrast, others have offered immigration as a solution to Detroit’s problems.  Michael Bloomberg, New York City’s outgoing mayor, has stated that “if I were the federal government… Assuming you could wave a magic wand and pull everybody together, you pass a law letting immigrants come in as long as they agree to go to Detroit and live there for five or ten years, start businesses, take jobs, whatever.  You would populate Detroit overnight because half the world wants to come here… You can use something like immigration policy – at no cost to the federal government – to fix a lot of the problems that we have.”  Similarly, the Boston Globe’s Leon Neyfakh calls attention to proposals for “…‘regional visas’ that would open up additional slots for newcomers but limit them to specific destinations within the United States, while giving state and local officials a role in deciding how many immigrants—and which ones—to let in. Under this system, states that want to attract more foreign workers could do so, and perhaps even target people with the kinds of skills and training that local businesses are looking for… many parts of the country–especially depopulated cities like Detroit, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh–would love to welcome motivated new residents.” (John Lee has noted that Canada allows its provinces to issue immigrant visas.)

In fact, in Detroit and other depopulated cities, there are currently active efforts to attract immigrants.  Organizations in Detroit, Cleveland, and St. Louis are seeking immigrants to help their economies.   For example, the non-profit Global Cleveland focuses “on regional economic development through actively attracting and retaining newcomers (defined as ‘immigrants and international and domestic individuals’)…”  The goal of the St. Louis Mosaic Project is to have “the fastest immigration growth of any big city in the U.S. by 2020.”  In Dayton, Ohio, the city itself “… voted to make the city “immigrant friendly,”  with programs to attract newcomers and encourage those already here, as a way to help stem job losses and a drop in population.”   (These efforts recall similar ones in 19th century America.  Maldwyn Jones, in American Immigration, notes that “After 1865… practically every northwestern state and territory from Wisconsin to Oregon embarked upon a policy of encouraging immigration.” (p. 188)  Mr. Jones explains that states sought immigrants because “… they were anxious to dispose of their unsold lands, and they recognized that increased population was essential to material growth.” (p. 187))

There is evidence to support the efforts of these local entities and those who propose regional visas. The key findings of the recently released report “Immigration and the Revival of American Cities” are that immigrants create and preserve manufacturing jobs, increase housing wealth, and make the areas they populate more attractive to U.S. citizens, who follow in response. (pp. 2-3)  The study “shows that immigrants are more than just our neighbors; they’re a key part of the way local areas grow and thrive.” (p. 3)  Likewise, in his report “The Economic Impact of Immigration on St. Louis,” Jack Strauss of St. Louis University concludes that “there is one clear and specific way to simultaneously redress the region’s population stagnation, output slump, tepid employment growth, housing weakness and deficit in entrepreneurship – Immigration. This report provides considerable economic evidence and statistical analysis using U.S. Census data that increasing immigration will significantly raise employment and income growth as well as boost real wages in the St. Louis region. An influx of foreign-born could reverse the region’s housing prices declines and lower unemployment rates for both whites and African Americans in our region.” (p. 3)   (In a previous post of mine, Mr. Strauss’s research showing the positive impact of Latino immigration on African Americans was noted)  In Dayton, immigrants have “have started restaurants and shops, as well as trucking companies to ferry equipment for a nearby Air Force base. And they have used their savings to refurbish houses in north Dayton, where Turkish leaders estimated that they had invested $30 million so far, including real estate, materials purchases and the value of their labor.”

Adding a regional visa category to the current immigration system would allow additional people to legally immigrate to the United States.  Moreover, they would enter communities where many would welcome them.  However, from an open borders advocate’s perspective, there are downsides to a regional visa category.  First, it would be limited numerically.  Second, it would limit the freedom of immigrants to live where they want during the period of regional residency that probably would be required under the visas.

But would open borders provide the immigrants Detroit and other depopulated cities need for revival?  It is conceivable that even with increased immigration flows under an open borders policy, newcomers would go to areas of the country which are thriving, bypassing Detroit and similar cities; open borders doesn’t offer the control over immigrants‘ destinations as a regional visa program would.  However, there are factors that would lead at least some of the flow to Detroit and similar cities.  First, of course, is the increased flow itself.  If only a small portion of new immigrants went to these cities, their immigrant populations could be boosted substantially.  Second, there are the aforementioned functioning compaigns to attract immigrants to these localities.  Third, these areas may attract immigrants by offering a lower cost of living than more successful cities.

If needy cities didn’t receive enough immigrants under open borders, the federal government could provide additional incentives.  These might include an accelerated path to citizenship (based on an idea from Mr. Bloomberg) for immigrants who live in these cities for a certain number of years and, should an open borders system be established involving surtaxes on immigrants’ wages, relief from these taxes for immigrants while they reside in these areas.  (Unlike  under a regional visa system, failure to comply with residency requirements would mean not deportation but a longer path to citizenship and/or higher taxes.  Immigrants would be free to move to a different part of the country at any time.)  Local, state, and/or federal governments could also arrange for newcomers, whether immigrants or American-born, to take possession of abandoned housing on the condition that they restore such housing.

Another consideration is that, by supplying a larger supply of immigrants, an open borders policy would prevent a situation in which localities compete with each other to attract people from relatively small pool of immigrants (those already in the U.S., the limited number of immigrants allowed in through the current system, and, potentially, a number of regional visa immigrants).  There would be enough immigrants to revive ailing communities throughout the country.

With open borders Detroit and other cities can be revitalized without having to compromise the freedom of immigrants to choose where they want to live, without localities having to compete over a small number of immigrants, and without adding a new layer of rules for regional visas on the current labyrinthine immigration legal system.  At the same time, the enthusiasm in these cities for attracting immigrants as a tool for urban renewal aids the open borders cause.  Open borders will be attained not only through rigorous ethical arguments but also through a recognition by the native-born population that immigration is not a threat but an opportunity.

Championing Both Open Borders and An End to the U.S. Drug War

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Even advocates of open borders acknowledge that its realization is very unlikely for many years to come.  Similarly, campaigns for the legalization (or at least the decriminalization) of drugs face an uphill battle, although there have been successes in recent years in the U.S. and Europe.  Despite the challenge of realizing both of these radical causes, the legalization of drugs would complement some of the advantages of having open borders.

The failed war on drugs

Image source Failed drug war: U.S. and Mexico losing battle against cartels

Coincidentally some progress on both fronts has occurred this summer in the U.S.  The Senate passed a bill that would raise legal immigration levels by 50 to 70 percent within five years and legalize the millions of undocumented individuals already in the country, although the enforcement provisions of the bill are unwelcome.  On the drug policy front, the U.S. attorney general signaled that federal prosecutors would no longer pursue mandatory minimum sentence laws for some drug offenses.

Let’s begin with some background information on the war on drugs in the U.S. In The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindedness  Michelle Alexander argues that the war on drugs has placed many African-Americans and Latinos into a new “racial undercaste.” (p. 185) The latest version of the war on drugs was instituted because some politicians were trying to “…appeal to poor and working-class whites who, once again, proved they were willing to forego economic and structural reform in exchange for an apparent effort to put blacks back ‘in their place.’” (p. 186)  The war on drugs began being pursued in earnest during the Reagan administration (p. 49), and as a result over the next three decades there was a huge increase in the U.S. prison population. (p. 59 and p. 99) Ms. Alexander adds that “In the drug war, the enemy is racially defined… Although the majority of illegal drug users and dealers nationwide are white, three fourths of all people imprisoned for drug offenses have been black or Latino.” (pp. 96-97)  And even after those who have been incarcerated for drug violations are released, they “will be discriminated against, legally, for the rest of their lives–denied employment, housing, education, and public benefits… They become members of an undercaste–an enormous population of predominately black and brown people who, because of the drug war, are denied basic rights and priviledges of American citizenship and are permanently relegated to an inferior status.” (pp. 181-182)

Similarities Between Immigration Restrictions and the War on Drugs

Before exploring the advantages of ending both immigration restrictions and the the war on drugs, consider several similarities between American immigration restrictions and Ms. Alexander’s description of the war on drugs.  One is that both were created largely due to racial biases.  As we have seen, some politicians supporting the drug war were appealing to white insecurities about African Americans.  Similarly, the imposition of vigorous federal immigration restrictions was motivated by concerns about the race of certain immigrants.  In the late 19th century, Chinese were excluded by federal law from immigrating based on what Chris Hendrix calls “knee-jerk racism.”  Later, the 1924 Johnson-Reed immigration legislation, “the nation’s first comprehensive restriction law,” was largely propelled by racism.  (quotation from Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America by Mae Ngai, p. 3)  Politicians were concerned over immigration from southern and eastern Europe and the maintenance of America’s northern European “stock.”  John Higham, in Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism 1860-1925, notes that as the House of Representatives worked toward the 1924 legislation, its champions “now largely ignored the economic arguments they had advanced in behalf of the first quota law three years before.  Instead, they talked about preserving a ‘distinct American type,’ about keeping American for Americans, or about saving the Nordic race from being swamped.  The Ku Klux Klan, which was organizing a vigorous letter-writing campaign in support of the Johnson bill, probably aided and abetted this swell of racial nativism…” (p. 321)

Both systems also involve racial profiling.  In Opening the Floodgates: Why America Needs to Rethink Its Borders and Immigration Laws, Kevin Johnson writes that “racial profiling in immigration enforcement… harms the dignity of persons stopped by immigration officers and stigmatizes U.S. citizens, especially Mexican-Americans, who are subject to immigration stops because they fit the ‘undocumented immigrant profile.’” (p. 108) Similarly, Ms. Alexander notes that “studies of racial profiling have shown that police do, in fact, exercise their discretion regarding whom to stop and search in the drug war in a highly discriminatory manner.” (p. 130)

Under both systems authorities have significant power to intrude on people’s lives.  Within 25 miles of international borders, Border Patrol agents have access to private land.  Even in a zone extending 100 miles from borders, their “authority extends beyond that of other law enforcment agencies,” and agents in that zone regularly ask bus and train passengers for identification and question them.  Similarly, Ms. Alexander notes that rulings by the Supreme Court during the War on Drugs have made “… it relatively easy for the police to seize people virtually anywhere–on public streets and sidewalks, on buses, airplanes and trains, or any other public place–and usher them behind bars.  These new legal rules have ensured that anyone, virtually anywhere, for any reason, can becom a target of drug-law enforcement activity.” (p. 62)

In addition, both legal systems produce an “undercaste.”  Like drug felons, undocumented workers in the U.S. live under a different set of rules than most residents.  They are legally barred from employment, cannot access many public services, and live in fear of detention and deportation.  Mr. Johson writes that “… a new, but often invisible, racial caste system slowly emerged in the United States.  Immigration law in the United States allows for labor exploitation along racial lines.  It is a new Jim Crow system.” (p. 129) (emphasis mine)

Finally, the behavior that both systems target is non-violent, often born out of limited economic opportunities, and often harmless.  Ms. Alexander notes that in 2005 most drug arrests were for possession and that most of those imprisoned for drug offenses do not have violent histories.  Many arrests are for marijuana possession, which is “less harmful than tobacco or alcohol.” (p. 59) Because of a decline in employment opportunities in inner cities due to globalization and industrialization, she notes that there are “increased incentives” to sell drugs. (p. 50 and p. 123) With regard to immigration, there is lots of information at this site and elsewhere showing that immigration benefits receiving countries and any negative consequences can be mitigated by keyhole solutions.  Immigration itself is peaceful and largely arises from a desire to improve one’s economic situation.

The Advantages of Ending Both Immigration Restrictions and the War on Drugs

There are several advantages to ending both immigration restrictrictions and the war on drugs.  First, much of the pressure on the border would be eliminated with these changes.  Along the U.S.-Mexican border, the Border Patrol focuses on illegal immigration and drug smuggling.  With the changes, these would no longer be issues for the Border Patrol, since immigrants would have no reason to sneak into the U.S. and, particularly if Mexico were to end their drug enforcement efforts and the U.S. didn’t regulate the flow of drugs over the border, the same would be true with the movement of drugs.  Border Patrol agents, who are officially Customs and Border Patrol agents, could focus more on customs matters at ports of entry, look out for potential terrorists, and address weapons smuggling.  In addition, landowners along the border who have endured drug smuggling, people smuggling, and/or individual immigrants coming through their property would no longer experience these intrusions.  Currently, in some rural border counties, “the threat of cartel-related crime, whether the smuggling of drugs or illegal immigrants, has caused people to arm themselves to an extraordinary degree and take other precautions.”  The undesirable impacts of border fencing could also be avoided.

A related benefit would be a weakening of criminal gangs that operate along the U.S.-Mexican border.  In Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them, Philippe Legrain observes that immigration restrictions force some immigrants to rely on criminal gangs to smuggle them. (p. 38) Similarly, “organized crime, gangs and drug cartels have the most to gain financially from prohibition” of drugs.  Sometimes a criminal enterprise does both, smuggling immigrants and drugs.   For immigrants, according to an article in the New York Times, sometimes “… the only way to get across (the border) is to deal with gangs that sometimes push migrants to carry drugs.”  With open borders, immigrants wouldn’t have to rely on these groups to cross the border, and legalizing the drug trade would allow non-violent economic competition which would be detrimental to the groups.

Second, open borders and terminating the war on drugs would benefit African-Americans and Latinos in the U.S.  As we have seen, both groups have disproportionately suffered from drug enforcement during the drug war, from being subjects of racial profiling to going to prison to dealing with the harsh economic consequences of having a criminal record once released.  Latinos must deal with immigration enforcement as well; Latinos, whether citizens, legal residents, or undocumented, are subjected to profiling of them as undocumented individuals and, if they are undocumented, face exploitation by employers, detention, and deportation.  There are also many Latino mixed status families, all of whose members suffer if the member(s) who is undocumented is apprehended by immigration authorities.  Ending these types of enforcement would liberate African-Americans and Latinos from the terrible burdens associated with them.  (To help those convicted of drug crimes succeed, their records would have to be expunged, and they should be allowed to not have to reveal these convictions on applications for jobs and public benefits.)

Furthermore, increased immigration under an open borders policy could help African-American communities get back on their feet after enduring decades of the drug war, deindustrialization, and other negative factors.  A summary of a study released in June by the Immigration Policy Center and conducted by Jack Strauss of St. Louis University demonstrates how immigration helps these communities:   “A comprehensive analysis of Census data from hundreds of U.S. metropolitan areas indicate that immigration from Latin America improves wages and job opportunities for African Americans. This analysis serves to dispel the common myth that African Americans are negatively impacted by the immigration of less-skilled workers from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America… The positive economic impact of Latino immigration is related to population. Many metros, particularly in the Midwest, including Cleveland, Dayton, Detroit, and St. Louis, are not experiencing vibrant population growth. Instead, aging baby boomers and negative net migration are leading to a hallowing out of cities, declining school revenue, falling housing prices, big businesses moving their headquarters, and a dearth of small businesses. St. Louis, for instance, has experienced a sharply declining population, and at the same time, very little Latino immigration. As a result, Saint Louis has closed more than a dozen schools in recent years, which has cost the jobs of hundreds of African American teachers, administrators, and staff. Our research shows that an increase in immigration from Latin America would have sustained St. Louis’s population, tax base, school enrollment, and most of the lost African American jobs. Further, it would have reduced crime among young African American men by giving them more economic opportunities.

“Why are population size and composition so important for economic development? Edward Glaeser and Joshua Gottlieb argue that larger cities are successful because they have thriving clusters of people and companies working together. More people from Latin America increases the vibrancy of a city, its culture, and the opportunities it offers. Further, research shows that specialization by encouraging different skill patterns leads to higher wages and more jobs.”

Third, ending both immigration restrictions and the war on drugs would allow the U.S. to avoid the expense of incarcerating huge numbers of individuals and would free up law enforcement and the courts.  According to the Drug Policy Alliance, in the U.S. more than $50 billion is spent annually on the war on drugs and more than 1.5 million people were arrested in 2011 on nonviolent drug charges.  The tab for immigration enforcement is close to $18 billion, and hundreds of thousands of immigrants are apprehended and/or deported each year.  Over three hundred thousand people were in prison for drug offenses at the end of 2011, and a similar number are put in detention each year by immigration authorities.  Many immigration violations have become criminalized, and Kevin Johnson notes that “as it did during Prohibition, the criminalization has created a caseload crisis in the federal courts.” (p. 179)  Many drug and immigration cases have reached the Supreme Court, and Mr. Johnson states that federal courts of appeals have been flooded with immigration cases. (p. 179)

So what about all of the money that would freed up from ending the expensive enforcement associated with the drug war and immigration controls?  (Even more money would be availabe with the legalization of at least some drugs, which would allow the government to tax the trade.)  Some of the money would have to continue to go toward border monitoring: customs enforcement, controlling weapons flows, and keeping watch for terrorists.  Ms. Alexander notes that many Americans are financially vested in the war on drugs, including rural communities where prisons are build to house offenders, prison guards, private corrections companies, and others, so some of the money could be spent on helping some of these individuals adapt to an America with far fewer prisoners.  Some of the money could go toward additional drug treatment and prevention programs, even if drug use rates do not significantly change.  The remaining money could be used to help inner cities that have been devastated by the drug war and to help Americans who might be adversely affected by rising immigration under open borders.  In effect, ending the drug war could be a keyhole solution that would help ease the transition to open borders.

Finally, from a libertarian perspective, these radical changes would end government intrusions into the lives of millions of people, including those who have no involvement with drugs or immigration.  For those wishing to immigrate legally or possess drugs, it would be a dramatic expansion of individual liberty.

Based on how the outcomes of ending these two oppresive systems of enforcement could complement each other, should open borders advocates also vocally begin calling for an end to the drug war?  It might alienate some, although I suspect that many who would be receptive to open borders would also be supportive of ending drug enforcement.  The case for open borders also might receive more support from the African-American community if it were paired with ending the drug war.  American open borders advocates should consider attaching the campaign to end the drug war to their efforts to change immigration policy.

Open Borders editorial note: As described on our general blog and comments policies page: “The moral and intellectual responsibility for each blog post also lies with the individual author. Other bloggers are not responsible for the views expressed by any author in any individual blog post, and the views of bloggers expressed in individual blog posts should not be construed as views of the site per se.”

If Open Borders Are Instituted Gradually, What Should Be The Initial Number of Immigrants Admitted?

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In a recent post, Vipul wrote about the importance of better understanding the number of people who might migrate under policy changes in the direction of open borders.  One reason why he considers this important is to evaluate the legitimacy of concerns about “swamping:” “One of the main concerns of people ranging from hardcore restrictionists to moderate pro-immigrationers and even some who identify as being pro-open borders is that true open borders would lead to very large numbers of people moving over short time periods in a manner that would strain housing, electricity, water supplies, and other infrastructure in the countries receiving the immigrants.”

Whether receiving countries would be swamped if open borders were implemented, and what the swamping would actually be like, is pivotal to determining the morality of open borders.  That’s because, absent the possibility of a swamping that turns a receiving country into an economic and political basketcase similar to Haiti or Somalia, from a moral standpoint there are no obstacles to instituting open borders immediately.

In fact, two of the strongest moral arguments in favor of open borders include caveats in which extremely harmful swamping might override the arguments.  In “Aliens and Citizens: The Case for Open Borders” Joseph Carens uses John Rawls’ question about “what principles people would choose to govern society if they had to choose from behind a ‘veil of ignorance,’ knowing nothing about their own personal situations,” such as their class, race, sex, or natural talents, to address immigration policy. (p. 255)  Since people would be prevented “from knowing their place of birth or whether they were members of one particular society rather than another,” (p. 257) he concludes that they would choose an open borders regime: “In considering possible restrictions on freedom, one adopts the perspective of the one who would be most disadvantaged by the restrictions, in this case the perspective of the alien who wants to immigrate.  In the original position, then, one would insist that the right to migrate be included in the system of basic liberties for the same reasons that one would insist that the right to religious freedom be included: it might prove essential to one’s plan of life… So, the basic agreement among those in the original position would be to permit no restrictions on migration (whether emigration or immigration).” (p. 258)  (The original position means when people operate behind the “veil of ignorance” about their personal situation when choosing society’s laws.)

However, in “Migration and Morality: A Liberal Egalitarian Perspective,” Mr. Carens states that with open borders “… the number of those coming might overwhelm the capacity of the society to cope, leading to chaos and a breakdown of public order… A threat to public order could be used to justify restrictions on immigration… because the breakdown of public order makes everyone worse off in terms of both liberty and welfare.”  At the same time he writes that “the state is obliged to admit as many of those seeking entry as it can without jeopardizing national security, public order and the maintenance of liberal institutions.” (p. 30)

In “Is There a Right to Immigrate?” Michael Huemer argues that unless there are “extenuating circumstances,” people have a right “not to be subject to seriously harmful coercion.” (p. 432)  Therefore, unless special circumstances can be identified, physically barring immigrants from entering a country and expelling those already inside a country are violations of immigrants’ rights not to be harmfully coerced. (p. 434)  Mr. Huemer addresses a variety of justifications for this coercion against immigrants, including claims that immigration hurts native workers, that immigrants fiscally burden natives, that the government should prioritize the interests of disadvantaged natives, and that immigration threatens natives’ distinctive cultures.  Mr. Huemer effectively shows that these justifications do not override immigrants’ rights not to be harmfully coerced through immigration restrictions.

Nevertheless, the possibility of swamping gives Mr. Huemer pause.  He writes, “No one knows what the full effects of a policy of open borders would be, since it has been a very long time since U.S. borders have been open.”  Referring to Brian Barry, who predicts a billion immigrants coming to the U.S. with open borders and disastrous consequences, Mr. Huemer states that “Perhaps Barry is correct that the result would be disastrous for American society.  If so, this is the sort of extremely negative consequence that, it might be argued, outweighs the rights of potential immigrants to freedom of movement.” (pp. 453-454)

So would receiving countries be swamped with open borders, and would that swamping essentially destroy the economic and political systems that made those countries desireable destinations in the first place, thus overriding the moral imperative for open borders?  That is what Vipul is apparently exploring, but it seems that a clear answer will be elusive.

In apparent response to concerns about swamping, some, including Mr. Huemer (p. 454), have advocated for a gradual transition towards open borders.  This would involve increasing immigration levels over a period of time.  If receiving countries are not being severely swamped after each increase, then immigration levels would again be increased.  Politically, and perhaps morally, this approach may be warranted, although the suffering associated with restrictionism would persist.

At least the initial increase in immigrant numbers under a gradual transition could be substantial, without severe swamping of receiving countries, based on Israel’s experience with high levels of immigration from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s.  Philippe Legrain has highlighted this experience in his book Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them.  This flow of people to Israel was, in Mr. Legrain’s words, “one of the most dramatic experiments in the history of immigration.” (p. 133)  Mr. Legrain notes that between 1990 and 1997 over seven hundred thousand immigrants from the former Soviet Union arrived in Israel, a country with a population of about 4.6 million in 1989, and almost half of the immigrants entered in a two year period. (p. 134)  Mr. Legrain puts these numbers in perspective for America:  “Imagine, then, what would happen if over 15 million foreigners were suddenly to arrive in the U.S. over the next two years, rising to 29 million over eight years.  Twenty-nine million people who don’t speak English, don’t have jobs to go to and don’t even have any experience of working in a capitalist economy… Mass unemployment?  Riots in the streets?  Perhaps even the collapse of society?” (p.134)

Citing an Israeli economic expert on this impact, Mr. Legrain states that at first native Israelis’ wages fell by about 5 percent for men, and there was a sharp rise in interest rates.  However, “Israel’s economy seems to have absorbed a vast number of new workers without a rise in unemployment.”  Unemployment among native Israelis dropped during this period, and by 1997 the ex-Soviet employment rate was similar to that of native Israelis.  (p. 135)  In addition, by 1997, “natives’ wages had recovered to where they would have been without the mass immigration, and interest rates had fallen to their pre-immigration levels.”  Mr. Legrain concludes that “flexible advanced economies can absorb large numbers of immigrants without any cost to native workers if the inflows are reasonably predictable, and with only a short-term cost to them if they are unexpected.” (p. 135)

Some might counter that the ex-Soviet immigrants had higher levels of education than those who might immigrate to western countries from developing countries under an open borders policy.  However, Sarit Cohen and Chang-Tai Hsieh found that “… the Russian immigrants suffered from substantial occupational downgrading in Israel and thus did not increase the relative supply of skilled workers in Israel.” (p. 27) Many female immigrants, and presumably many male immigrants, ended up doing menial service jobs. This fits with Mr. Legrain’s explanation of how differences between native and immigrant workers limit competition between the two groups:  “… critics of immigration would be the first to argue that  immigrants and native workers are not identical.  The newcomers will almost certainly speak the local language less well, have fewer contacts and less knowledge of local practices… At most, then, they are imperfect substitutes for local workers, which implies that they only indirectly compete with them in the labour market—thus limiting any short-term harm they might cause natives.” (p. 137) Thus, despite their high education levels, the immigrants from the former Soviet Union should not be viewed differently from those who would enter developed countries under open borders.

The Israeli experience suggests an initial immigrant admissions level for the U.S., as part of a gradual move towards open borders, could be established that is much higher than current American admissions levels.  I don’t know how Mr. Legrain calculated the U.S. equivalent of 29 million people over eight years based on the Israeli experience, but my calculation is significantly higher.  First, there were over 820 thousand immigrants over the eight years, including immigration from other source countries in addition to that from the former Soviet Union.  Using the 1989 Israeli population of about 4.6 million and using a rounded down figure of eight hundred thousand immigrants between 1990 and 1997, there was about a 2.1% annual addition to the 1989 population over eight years.  A 2.1% addition to the current U.S. population of about 316 million yields more than 6.5 million new immigrants a year (52 million over eight years).  Therefore, a conservative recommendation would be to establish an initial immigration level to the U.S. of 6.5 million a year.  (By comparison, there have been about one million immigrants who have gained permanent legal status in the U.S. each of the last three years.  The undocumented population has been falling in recent years.)  The level would be raised regularly thereafter, assuming no devastating effects on the U.S. from previous levels.  Other receiving countries including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and those in Europe and East Asia could also set their initial immigration levels at 2.1 percent of their current populations.

Again, this gradual approach to open borders means that much of the suffering associated with immigration restrictions would continue for years to come.  I share Bryan Caplan’s concern that fears of swamping, which are unsubstantiated, stand in the way of open borders: “We’re trapping millions in Third World misery because we know that free migration has very bad consequences” arguably overcomes the presumption in favor of open borders. “We’re trapping millions in Third World misery because there’s a small chance that free migration has very bad consequences” does not.”   While I am very uncomfortable with the gradualist approach to open borders, at least we have evidence showing a relatively high level at which receiving countries should begin their gradual implementation of open borders.

 

Women and Open Borders

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TRIGGER WARNING: Some of the links contain graphic descriptions of rape, assault, and other forms of abuse.

In May, Christine Pelosi, chair of the California Democratic Party Women’s Caucus, urged feminists to support “immigrants’ rights as women’s rights” and “push for the most women-friendly immigration bill possible.”  She also observed that “many women’s rights advocates don’t see immigrants’ rights as a ‘women’s issue’ either out of privilege or unfamiliarity.”  Ms. Pelosi is correct about the overlap between immigration policy and the welfare of many women, although she doesn’t identify the best way to help women around the world: open borders policies in Western countries.

Before addressing how open borders could help women, I would like to observe that, just as many feminists may not concern themselves with “immigrants’ rights,” there is a dearth of women writing in support of open borders.  None of the contributors to this site are women.  Among those authors supporting open borders who don’t appear on this site, Vipul identifies only three women: Teresa Hayter, Jacqueline Stevens, and Aviva Chomsky.  (Harriet Grimsditch, a founding member of No One Is Illegal UK, can also be added.) (Ms. Chomsky’s support of open borders has to be inferred.  In her book  “They Take Our Jobs” and 20 Other Myths About Immigration (2007), she writes that “the decriminalization of border crossing would encourage almost all would-be immigrants to pass through established inspection stations…” (p. 190))  It is unclear why women are significantly underrepresented in authoring arguments in favor of open borders.  (It is interesting that a survey of global public opinion showed no gender differences in views on immigration policy.)

Open borders potentially could benefit women even more than men.  Like men, women would benefit from the economic opportunities made available by open borders and, conversely, be released from the various hardships imposed by restrictionism such as deportation, detention, separation from family, fear, exploitation, and being forced to remain in their home countries.

In addition, given the special plight of many women in many developing countries (and some wealthier countries, like Saudi Arabia) open borders would provide a crucial means of escaping their societies for the safety and freedom of the Western world.  In their book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity For Women Worldwide (2009), Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn write that “in this century the paramount moral challenge will be the struggle for gender equality in the developing world.” (p. xvii)  They ask, “Why is acid thrown in women’s faces, but not in men’s?  Why are women so much more likely to be stripped naked and sexually humiliated than men?  Why is it that in many cultures, old men are respected as patriarchs, while old women are taken outside the village to die of thirst or to be eaten by wild animals?  Granted, in the societies where these abuses take place, men also suffer more violence than males do in America–but the brutality inflicted on women is particularly widespread, cruel, and lethal.” (p. 67)

As Mr. Kristof and Ms. WuDunn suggest, many women around the world face widespread violence.  Some of the perpetrators are family members.  While domestic violence certainly exists in the U.S. and other Western countries, it is more pronounced and more tolerated in certain societies.  A Guatemalan lawyer claims that over a decade in her country, more than 4,000 women were killed in domestic violence, and only 2 percent of these cases had been solved.  Mr. Kristof and Ms. WuDunn describe the case of Zoya Najabi, an Afghan who was married at age twelve to a sixteen year old boy and who reported that “‘Not only my husband, but his brother, his mother, and her sister–they all beat me…’”  Mr. Kristof and Ms. WuDunn note that “the worst moment came when Zoya’s mother-in-law was beating her and Zoya unthinkingly kicked back.  Resisting a mother-in-law is an outrageous sin.  First, Zoya’s husband dug out an electric cable and flogged his wife until she fell unconscious.  Then, the next day, her father-in-law strapped Zoya’s feet together, tied her down, and gave a stick to the mother-in-law, who whipped the soles of Zoya’s feet.  ‘My feet were beaten until they were like yogurt,’ Zoya said.” (pp. 68-69)  Two other Afghan women were beaten each day for a week by their uncle and cousins, under their father’s supervision, for refusing to marry cousins. (pp. 156-157) Another form of domestic violence in parts of the world involves “honor” killings.  Sometimes, write Mr. Kristof and Ms. WuDunn,  “… a family kills one of its own girls because she has behaved immodestly or has fallen in love with a man…” (p. 82)  They estimate that there are at least 6,000 honor killings each year.

Women are threatened by strangers as well, with little protection from law enforcement.  In the Ethiopian countryside, according to the Mr. Kristof and Ms. WuDunn, “…if a young man has an eye on a girl but doesn’t have a bride price (the equivalent of a dowry, but paid by the man), or if he doubts that the girl’s family will accept him, then he and several friends kidnap the girl, and he rapes her.  That immediately improves his bargaining position, because she is ruined and will have difficulty marrying anyone else.  The risks to the boy are minimal, since the girl’s parents never prosecute the rapist–that would aggravate the harm to their daughter’s reputation and would be resented in the community as a breach of tradition.”  Until 2005, the authors note that “Ethiopian law explicitly provided that a man could not be prosecuted for violating a woman or girl he later married.” (62)   Similarly, a Mexican woman related how a man “… made her live with him, and forced her to have sex with him by putting a gun or a machete to her head, by breaking her nose and by threatening to kill the small children of her sister.  Once when she became pregnant, she said, she barely escaped alive after he had poured kerosene on the bed where she was sleeping and ignited it…  Local police dismissed her reports of violence as a ‘private matter,’ the court documents said, and a judge she turned to for help tried to seduce her.  ‘In Mexico, men believe they have a right to abuse their women because they are like a possession,’ she said.”   Mr. Kristof and Ms. DuWunn report that in Pakistan authorities are indifferent  “to injustices suffered by the poor and uneducated.”  They quote a gynecologist in Karachi who treats poor young girls who have been raped, usually by wealthy perpetrators: “‘When I treat rape victims, I tell the girls not to go to the police… Because if a girl goes to the police, the police will rape her.’” (pp. 83-84)

Mr. Kristof and Ms. DuWunn note that some recent conflicts, including those in Sudan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Congo, have involved mass rapes. (p. 83) Even after the conflict ended in Liberia, the predation against women persisted.  According to Mr. Kristof, the war there “seems to have shattered norms and trained some men to think that when they want sex, they need simply to overpower a girl.  Or at school, girls sometimes find that to get good grades, they must have sex with their teachers.”  During the war it was estimated that 75 percent of the country’s women had been raped.  “The incidence of rape has dropped since then but is still numbingly high.  An International Rescue Committee survey in 2007 found that about 12 percent of girls aged 17 and under acknowledged having been sexually abused in some way in the previous 18 months.”

Another harm women face in some societies is genital mutilation.  According to a U.S. court ruling, “The practice of genital cutting, a tradition throughout sub-Saharan Africa, has long been criticized by human rights groups and the United Nations and frequently takes place under unsanitary conditions, with tools like knives, scissors, razor blades and shards of glass…”  Alima Traore, who is from Mali, had endured this mutilation as a child  and applied for asylum in the U.S.  She said this about the U.S.:  “’It is a better place for women than Mali, because in Mali women don’t have any voice… Because it is the men who control.’”  Other African women who were victims of genital mutilation have also sought asylum in the U.S.

Governments severely restrict women’s freedoms in some countries.  In the Sudan, women are prohibited from wearing pants and are flogged for doing so.  In Saudi Arabia, women “need permission from their husbands or fathers to work, travel, study or even receive health care.  They cannot drive.  While more than half of the university students are women, their job prospects are severely limited.”    A woman can be whipped for being alone with a man to whom she is not married.  In Iran, the government in 2007 cracked down on “un-Islamic dress” and detained 150,000 women for violating the dress code.

Ending oppressive laws and the violence inflicted upon women in many countries is a formidable undertaking and a goal that could take a long time to realize, if ever.  A way Western countries could relatively quickly help women in these harsh situations is to open up their borders.  This probably would not mean a mass exodus of mistreated women to Western countries, since, as Mr. Kristof and Ms. DuWunn suggest, some of these women may be comfortable with the status quo: “… women themselves absorb and transmit misogynistic values, just as men do.  This is not a tidy world of tyrannical men and victimized women, but a messier realm of oppressive social customs adhered to by men and women alike.” (p. 69)  And obtaining the resources and arranging the logistics for those who wish to leave would be a challenge.  This is where those in the West concerned about the situation of women in these countries could help by providing shelters and financial help to women seeking to emigrate.  In some situations in which societies and families would be hostile to such interventions, a kind of modern day Underground Railroad system could be established to help women flee.  But first an open borders policy needs to be established to guarantee that those women who want to escape from their societies could find refuge in countries that respect them as women and people.  (Open borders would also allow victimizers to enter Western countries, but Western laws and institutions would better protect immigrant women than those in their home countries.)

Currently, for women seeking refugee in the U.S., the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies notes that U.S. immigration law has often been unfriendly to women seeking asylum based on gender related harm. “Decision-makers often fail to recognize that harms unique to women — such as forced marriage or honor killings — may constitute persecution.”  In 2009, a Mexican woman was killed by a former boyfriend shortly after being forced to return to Mexico by U.S. agents.  In an article in the Columbia Human Rights Law Review, the author relates the case of an asylum seeker from Guinea:  “… a woman was told that she would marry her uncle’s friend, who was fifty years older and already had four wives. When she objected, her uncle beat her. She escaped briefly, but upon her return was again beaten before the imam and then before the tribal elders, all of whom instructed her to proceed with the marriage. In addition, her uncle threatened to kill her should she persist in her refusal. The woman was finally able to escape and apply for asylum in the United States. Despite her credible testimony, the immigration judge denied the woman’s claim… He did not address the various forms of coercion being brought to bear upon her, or whether a marriage entered under such duress would constitute future persecution.” (p. 91)

The realization of open borders would benefit numerous women economically and/or enable them to escape from oppressive situations in their home countries.  To help make open borders a reality, more men and women in the West need to join this effort.