Until this threat of terrorism is dealt with (how ever we define that) is it unreasonable to say that America should close it’s borders to all non-citizens?
I know determined terrorists would still find a way in, but closing out borders would stop some terrorists, and this does not infringe the rights of any US citizens, since they will be allowed to travel freely.
What about extending this? No flying lessons, or licenses to drive large trucks, etc. I know that this starts to get into the territory of National ID card type of thing, but let’s not take it that far.
Just a suggestion, but maybe you want to formulate a more coherent OP. When you say close borders, does that mean specifically immigration or all entry? You’re all for dictating who can fly or get a large truck license (just in case the car bomb won’t fit in a car) but against national ID cards?
Great, so when I travel back to the US, my non US passport holding wife won’t be able to come with me? I believe that would infringe upon my US citizen rights, or at least certainly subject me to great difficulty. My daughter is a dual national, so not sure if that would be allowed either. Get rid of all those foreign students and green card holders as well, since they are not US citizens. What about recent immigrants since they might be “sleepers.”
Can you say Tule Lake? (And just in case you don’t understand the reference, I’m referring to Japanese internment camps during WW2 in the US.)
Let’s ignore the truck license stuff, and focus on just this:
Is it wrong to close our borders (all entry) for non-US citizens? What are the problems associated with this idea?
Are anybody’s rights being violated?
China Guy you bring up a good point about non passport holding relatives.
Let’s say from now until the threat has passed (if it does indeed pass) only US citizens and their immediate families will be allowed into the US at all. Let’s also say that anybody already here will not be kicked out. We’ll deal with “sleepers” when we find evidence of wrongdoing.
Problems with that scenario that I see of the bat:
Business trips and tourism to the US will stop. Okay that’s a big problem. Say that the economic loss of this is deemed to be worth the added safety of knowing terrorists will have a harder time getting into the US. Since non-citizens do not have (AFAIK) any kind of fundamental right to enter the US, there should be no problem with this from the civil rights angle.
I can see a possible slipperly slope arguement that this will lead to another Tule Lake. But let me state that I’m not talking about rounding anybody up, or filtering people out based on anything other than their citizenship status. And that’s all, just filter them out. We’re not talking about killing, or arresting those who attempt to enter, only turning them back.
I think it’s pretty wrong. Certainly, the US should be choosy about who they let inside the border, but to close it off is over the top. Make the US a prison and the terrorists would have “won”.
Some off the cuff problems is that first, other countries would probably close their borders to US citizens. Take that to the furthest extension and you’ll see a curtailment of imports/exports and dismantlement of the global economy.
Big business such as education (think of all the foreign students in the US paying tuition) would get hammered.
(1)It is not viable. (2) America’s enemies would love it as it would be to their benefit
Thousands of people arrive every day to do business. Business would take a big hit if you stopped them. Thousand arrive every day for tourism. America makes a lot of money from this. A lot of people would be out of jobs.
Would you also expel all foreigners already in the country? And why are you assuming all bad guys are not US citizens? It is not viable, it is not even a reasonble thing to consider.
I believe many former communist states had a similar policy.
I believe freedom of movement is a universal human right. See article 13. (at least that’s my interpretation of the article)
These are some serious consequences. Is the economic downfall of the US and the revertion to a police state worth the perceived security it will offer?
I say perceived because you must realise that what you’re proposing will not hinder any future terrorist attacks. Oklahoma springs to mind.
My son is an international adoptee. Under current law, international adoptees become US Citizens when is adoption is final in the US. This varies by state, but its often something like a minimum of 90 days post placement.
Obviously a six month old baby is not going to be driving truck bombs next to buildings.
This is just one of many, many exceptions that would need to be made to make this idea even vaguely workable. It is not easy to get into this country - we had three months of paperwork through INS just to bring a baby in - my housekeeper (a born in the USA citizen) spent over a year trying to get the proper paperwork for her husband. Any US citizen who deals with INS is stunned by the hoops to be jumped through - if more US citizens dealt with INS, the whole process would be streamlined - we’d demand it.
Obviously, some bad eggs slip through - more often I think on tourist visas than on immigration paperwork - tourist visas and student visas being much easier to acquire, but occationally on immigration paperwork. The vast majority of immigrants to this country are law abiding, contributing members of our communities.
We aren’t dropping tourist visas anytime soon - entire industries are dependent on international tourism - check out a hotel in Hawaii. Tourist visas are also how global businesses do business. Want to stop Honda from building cars in the US - stop its executives from being able to visit its plants.
Nor are we going to stop student visas - most of those kids come from families that are paying full tuition to some of our more expensive private colleges - making it possible for our kids to get finacial aid.
And, of course, the obvious as pointed out by puk - Timothy McVeigh was not an immigrant. Neither was the Unibomber (I’m not going to try and spell it). We can homegrow our own terrorists.
I’d just like to point out that lots of the foreign nationals already in the United States happen to have relatives back home, whom they’d like to visit every now and again. So either you require the customs and immigrations officials at the border to keep track of every single foreign national already in the country (hah!), so they can let them back in after such visits, or else you tell those foreign nationals whom you’ve so graciously allowed to remain that if they ever leave to visit their relatives again they won’t be able to come back. In other words, give up the job or educational program that you spent so much effort to get, or never see your family again.
Well, for one thing, the company I work for would have to severely reduce their US operations, as close to half our staff consists of foreign nationals, here on short-term work visas.
They perform a service called “mud logging” at oil well sites; this requires specialized training and it is currently quite difficult to find and keep sufficient US nationals to support these operations.
I suppose this is where some bright spark is going to chime in with “See, this is all just about Big Oil”!
As for not kicking out those who are already here: aside from the objections by other posters, the ‘sleepers’ who carried out the 9/11 attacks had in some cases been in the country for years.
Beyond that, there are huge numbers of Americans who work in the petroleum (and other) industries overseas. If the US closed its borders, chances are good that some countries would invoke reciprocal arrangements making it impossible for Americans to cross their borders.
For example, during the late eighties, France began demanding visas of Americans after the US began doing the same of French visitors.
Finally, the whole scheme is ridiculously clumsy. What possible benefit could there possibly be that could not be accomplished by closer scrutiny of those requesting visas? After all, there’s already an item on the questionnaire that asks applicants if they’ve ever participated in genocide. :rolleyes:
Good points people. In the end I think I have to agree with you guys that for a variety of reasons, my idea won’t work even if you refine it. I’ll respond in more depth later.
First off, let me say that you Dopers have come up with some good responses, and expressed situations I would not have thought of. Second, Let me say that this idea originally had some merit, but was not my idea. I wanted to see how good or bad of an idea it was. I always knew it would not work from any kind of practical standpoint, but want to see if it was wrong in any kind of civil rights aspect. Overall, I think it is a bad idea, but mostly for economic reasons.
China Guy: I fail to see how this makes America a prison. Anyone, either citizen or not, can leave the US at any time. In a sense maybe this makes the rest of the world a prison, but that’s a stretch. You do have a good point about the dismantlement of the global economy, but again, that is only an economic disadvantage to my proposed idea.
sailor: I already talked about not kicking out those who are here already, see my previous post. As for assuming all terrorists are non US citizens, I didn’t say that either. Certainly this proposal would not stop all terrorists, but it would stop some. That last point is also debateable, but if we prove that closing the borders has absolotely zero effect on terrorism, then of course don’t do it. If there is a chance that this will increase America’s safety, perhaps the option should not be disregarded.
puk, from your link:
This does not apply to my proposal. Everybody would still have the same freedom to move within the United States, or leave the US. Everyone also has the right to return to the county where they hold citizenship.
Math Geek brings up the best point IMO, about foreign nationals wanting to leave and then come back. This can be a problem, if you define the person’s country to be the one they have a home in rather than the one they have citizenship in. My interpretation of atrticle 13.2 is that a person cannot be denied entrance to a country where they hold citizenship. In this case these people would have to either become US citizens, or stay in the country they visit until the US opens it’s borders again.
In the end I have to say this is a not a good idea. The economy would be hurt very badly. Exceptions such as adoptees, family of citizens, etc, aside I still don’t think that this is a bad idea based on any kind of human rights violations.
In a time of crisis why does the US have any obligation to allow non citizens in to our country, when keeping them out could possibly keep us safer?
NJB: You appear to think the word “state” in this particular article means the same as the word “state” in the United States Constitution. It does not. It refers to a country, aka state. For your edification, please check any decent dictionary of the English language.
No, I do not think, nor did I before, that “state” is refering to states like in the United States, but rather country or nation.
It says “within the borders of each state.” (emphasis mine) Once you get into a state then you have the right to travel freely within its borders, but to get into a state, or cross state borders is not what Article 13 is talking about.
This would effectively make the US a prison because just about every other country would respond by not allowing US visitors. Look at Australia today. The US requires visas for Australians visiting the US, the Australians require UC citizens to have a valid Australian visa. The US charges Chinese nationals $x for a US visa, China turns around and charges US nationals the exact same $x for a Chinese visa.
You close down the borders of the US, then other countries will close down their borders to US citizens. Seems like a prison to me.
You’re right, I didn’t really think about the longer term repercussions. In that sense the US does become a prison, and then in that case you would start seeing the freedom of movement being violated. Not really a direct effect of our policies, but we would still be responsible.