# So, do you want OPEN BORDERS?! Um, yeah, sure! **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 16, 2026, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-do-you-want-open-borders-um-yeah-sure/1026733 "2026-01-16T03:14:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2026, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-do-you-want-open-borders-um-yeah-sure/1026733/21 "2026-01-16T22:35:34Z")
Alright, had I not be so overwrought from events yesterday, I might have written a more sedate and nuanced OP, so here are some points I’d like to add, which will also cover some of the responses: **There are three main reasons for not wanting “open borders”:** **1. Not wanting to be unsafe** The desire to keep out criminals and other bad actors from one’s territory is perfectly fine in my view. No country has ever wanted this, even if they didn’t otherwise feel the need to control migration, so I don’t think it’s particularly germane to the debate we’ve traditionally had in the US. Though, of course, Republicans have always portrayed Democrats as being lax in this regard. **2. Not wanting to share** This is the most important of the three reasons in the US. We don’t want poor Mexicans coming into the country because we don’t want to share what we have with them. Even if they are adding to the economy, we fear that they are taking more than they are giving. As I said in the OP, however, we are schizophrenic with respect to this reason: big business, which the GOP seeks to support, requires the labor of the undocumented in order to function, but then the same GOP rails about the “illegals.” So which is it? It’s both, since consistency means nothing to the GOP, and not knowing one’s own mind in this case is politically expedient. It’s also economically expedient, as well as exploitative and oppressive, since poor Mexicans are treated as expendable guest workers. In short, our immigration system is deplorable, but it won’t change until ethics win over exploitation. This motive for not wanting immigration can get a bit complicated. Do I want Mad Emperor Trump to invade Greenland and take all their resources? Absolutely not. But do I think it’s cool that 50,000 and change Greenlanders get to sit on all that land and get all its value and all its space for themselves just because it’s “theirs”? Well, not really! Now wait, before you get mad, let’s look at it from another angle. The Greenlanders are highly sympathetic: they’re cute, civilized, modern, and basically Western in culture (yes, I know they are also native to their land to a large extent–but still). Yet not all people who sit on valuable land are sympathetic. Is it a good thing that a bunch of Saudi princes sat on a bunch of oil, took it all for themselves, and formed a despotic country that exploits a very large number of guest workers? I think you’ll see my point, even if you don’t totally vibe with what I’m saying. What I’m _not_ saying is that there is a cut and dried solution for any of this. **3. Not wanting to be diluted** In the US, white supremacists don’t want to see Hispanics or brown people in general become a majority. In the US context, this is an unacceptable reason to reject immigrants, especially if we are exploiting them anyway per above. But is it unacceptable in _every_ context? That’s complicated. In the US, we are used to the traditional melting pot ideal, which held that anyone can come here if they learn English (more or less) and adopt the culture (more or less). To our credit, we have been very good (but of course not perfect) at welcoming people from all around the world and having everyone get along (more or less–obviously this is a simplification). Not every culture, however, is “designed” to be a melting pot. For example, I’m a Japanese/English interpreter, and I lived in Japan for eight years. Japan is the polar opposite of a melting pot, and welcoming too many immigrants (though they dearly need the labor and population boost at this point) would easily wipe out the language and (therefore) the culture. I like the fact that there are different cultures in the world. Heck, English is already endangering local languages in multiple countries without any imperialist aggression. Again, I’m not saying there is any solution. Finally, I don’t think we need a World Government right now just to prove we could do it. It would be extreme folly, for an exmple for the US to try to merge with China. It would just be dumb. So I’m not a utopian. I don’t think I’m naive about the issues. But I also think that we in the US should not be in denial about the dark side of our motivations, and neither should we toss around the term “open borders” without understanding its connection to our motivations, whether positive or negative. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2026, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-do-you-want-open-borders-um-yeah-sure/1026733/22 "2026-01-16T22:41:41Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > This is the most important of the three reasons in the US. We don’t want poor Mexicans coming into the country because we don’t want to share what we have with them. I have no doubt that some people – especially conservatives and MAGAs – feel that way. OTOH, several people in this thread have already noted that immigration is desirable, for economic as well as cultural and societal reasons, and that we, as a nation, have been made stronger by it. I certainly feel this way. But that doesn’t mean that 100% open borders is what we want. One can support immigration without just wanting to throw open the gates, and overwhelm our country with many millions of immigrants all at once. The U.S. has not had a coherent immigration strategy for decades – in no small part due to racism and other-ism – and that’s a big part of why we’re in the situation we’re in now. ---
**Author:** ![Neidhart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Neidhart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neidhart)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2026, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-do-you-want-open-borders-um-yeah-sure/1026733/23 "2026-01-16T22:47:57Z")
If my sources didn’t lie to me, Bernie Sanders said “If you don’t have borders, you don’t have a country.” ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2026, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-do-you-want-open-borders-um-yeah-sure/1026733/24 "2026-01-16T22:53:03Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > But that doesn’t mean that 100% open borders is what we want. One can support immigration without just wanting to throw open the gates, and overwhelm our country with many millions of immigrants all at once. Like most things in life, going extreme one way or the other is a bad idea, and doing something correctly is difficult and complicated. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2026, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-do-you-want-open-borders-um-yeah-sure/1026733/25 "2026-01-16T22:57:48Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > OTOH, several people in this thread have already noted that immigration is desirable, for economic as well as cultural and societal reasons, and that we, as a nation, have been made stronger by it. I certainly feel this way. Of course, I do too. > [@](#): > > But that doesn’t mean that 100% open borders is what we want. One can support immigration without just wanting to throw open the gates, and overwhelm our country with many millions of immigrants all at once. For the safety reason alone, I also don’t want “open borders” in the strictest sense. But one question that I think is really important is why we could go from having in essence no border control until the 1920s and to needing it now to prevent such overwhelming (which I also recognize to be a real danger). Because the GOP is dishonest and intellectually incurious, they just pretend that the current situation was always the case (or, being ignorant and stupid, perhaps they really believe it). > [@](#): > > The U.S. has not had a coherent immigration strategy for decades – in no small part due to racism and other-ism – and that’s a big part of why we’re in the situation we’re in now. It seems probable that we never had one at all. Since the border was closed in the 1920s, has our policy ever been fair, rational, or effective? It seems to me that the issue of being “overwhelmed” has only grown since the 1920s, and at no point was it ever really dealt with. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2026, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-do-you-want-open-borders-um-yeah-sure/1026733/26 "2026-01-16T23:12:34Z")
All I really want the border authority to do is to identify who’s coming in, how long they’re allowed to be here, and what they’re allowed to do. If someone’s caught violating their status, begin deportation proceedings, but otherwise don’t go hunting for violators. Companies should face tough criminal penalties for illegal hires. Getting in should be so easy that there’s no incentive for illegal crossing. Let people come and go, name and tag them, process violators if they pop up as troublesome. Don’t go hunting people down. ---
**Author:** ![dougrb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/76d3ee/32.png) [@dougrb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougrb)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2026, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-do-you-want-open-borders-um-yeah-sure/1026733/27 "2026-01-16T23:18:15Z")
The post I was working on before you beat me to it… How about we just don’t fuck with people unless they’re doing something wrong? ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2026, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-do-you-want-open-borders-um-yeah-sure/1026733/28 "2026-01-16T23:19:36Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > Since the border was closed in the 1920s, has our policy ever been fair, rational, or effective? Arguably, in the years since then, it may have been closest to “fair, rational, or effective” in the 1960s through the early 1990s. More reading, if you are interested, on the history of it: > **[How U.S. immigration laws and rules have changed through history](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2015/09/30/how-u-s-immigration-laws-and-rules-have-changed-through-history/)** > > The United States began regulating immigration soon after it won independence from Great Britain, and the laws since enacted have reflected the politics and migrant flows of the times. We looked at key immigration laws from 1790 to 2014. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2026, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-do-you-want-open-borders-um-yeah-sure/1026733/29 "2026-01-16T23:22:02Z")
Interesting, will take a look! ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2026, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-do-you-want-open-borders-um-yeah-sure/1026733/30 "2026-01-16T23:22:20Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > But here’s a thought: FUCK the exploiters, FUCK the oppressors, FUCK the white supremacists. FUCK borders, FUCK the artificial division between people. _The whole wide world an endless universe_ _Yet we keep looking at the eyeglass in reverse_ _Don’t feed the people but we feed the machines_ _Can’t really feel what international means_ _In different circles we keep holding our ground_ _In different circles we keep spinning round and round_ _And round_ /possibly my favorite Rush song ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2026, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-do-you-want-open-borders-um-yeah-sure/1026733/31 "2026-01-16T23:31:03Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > But one question that I think is really important is why we could go from having in essence no border control until the 1920s and to needing it now to prevent such overwhelming (which I also recognize to be a real danger). The US didn’t go from having open borders to suddenly controlling them in the 1920s. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was an effort to keep Chinese immigrants out of the US. For 10 years after that, Chinese laborers were denied entry into the country (only allowing travelers and diplomats to come in). People from China who were already in the US who sought citizenship were denied, and any Chinese within the US needed to carry paperwork showing that they were allowed to be in the US, or they would be deported to China. Clearly there was border control occurring at that time, even if it was directed solely at a single ethnicity. Before that signing, immigration really was unrestricted into the US. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, William McKinley and his immediate successor, Teddy Roosevelt, sought to further restrict immigration into the nation (and Roosevelt infamously [gave a speech on the matter](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/68152/68152-h/68152-h.htm) later on). Then in 1907, the Immigration Act of 1907 was signed by Roosevelt, which added further requirements for “undesirables” who wanted to immigrate to the US. > **Excerpt from that Act** > > All idiots, imbeciles, feebleminded persons, epileptics, insane persons, and persons who have been insane within five years previous; persons who have had two or more attacks of insanity at any time previously; paupers; persons likely to become a public charge; professional beggars; persons afflicted with tuberculosis or with a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease; persons not comprehended within any of the foregoing excluded classes who are found to be and are certified by the examining surgeon as being mentally or physically defective, such mental or physical defect being of a nature which may affect the ability of such alien to earn a living… Then in 1917, another immigration act (referred to as the Burnett Act) added a further literacy requirement. And then 1924 brought about the Johson-Reed Act, since the previous act didn’t restrict immigration enough. This new act was extremely xenophobic; Albert Johnson, for who half the act was named, was a notorious and rabid eugenicist. The act was very openly trying to preserve the purity of American heritage, and keep out foreign blood. It pretty much halted any immigration from Asian countries, and put a quota on immigrants from European nations. It also formally divided the control of immigration between the US State Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service. (That latter group was later disbanded, and split into three different organizations, one of which is ICE.) So yes, immigration control started in the 1880s, not the 1920s, but it continued escalating until it hit a fever pitch in the 1920s. And it was all controlled by a fear of foreigners and a desire for racial purity, not security or economic concerns. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2026, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-do-you-want-open-borders-um-yeah-sure/1026733/32 "2026-01-16T23:41:22Z")
White man has being trying to wash this place of “others” since day 1. Ask a Native American. What happened to the melting pot? Yeah we need borders. We need sovereignty. But we also need an immigration plan that works. Isn’t designed to wear people down or out price them. If they have a good reason and want to come here there should be a path. Not a golden ticket but a real life obtainable way to get there. I have a border around my place. It’s ours, we paid for it, we pay taxes. If you come to my gate I most likely will allow you in, pretty quickly. I can’t see how it’s that hard.(I know, oversimplified). But, still… ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2026, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-do-you-want-open-borders-um-yeah-sure/1026733/33 "2026-01-16T23:46:18Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > There are three main reasons for not wanting “open borders” Well, yes, but IMHO- not those three, altho I can buy #1 if you add in "not wanting to have drugs and other dangerous things smuggled in " which includes invasive species- which have caused billions of $ in damages to US food crops, and more besides. I also dont want yahoos coming from mexico with loads of (California illegal) dangerous fireworks, because we have had too many large wildfires started with those. So I will make that #2- keeping illegal stuff out, laving your #1- keeping criminals and terrorists out. #3 Customs duties- Tens of billions of dollars, maybe 100 Billion +. Also, I dont think the USA could support _all_ the people who would want to live here. > [@Aeschines](#): > > But do I think it’s cool that 50,000 and change Greenlanders get to sit on all that land and get all its value and all its space for themselves just because it’s “theirs”? Well, not really! Most of their “land” is covered with Ice. So, yes, more open immigration policies would be good for the USA- worker permits for certain jobs, giving them the right to work in the USA, as long as taxes are filed and paid. > [@Neidhart](#): > > If my sources didn’t lie to me, Bernie Sanders said “If you don’t have borders, you don’t have a country.” From a quick search that was trump, not Sanders, but Bernie did say some things kinda like that. Sanders was NOT in favor of Open Borders. Most relaxed policies- yes. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2026, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-do-you-want-open-borders-um-yeah-sure/1026733/34 "2026-01-16T23:50:39Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > > [@DWMarch](#): > > > > I wish we lived in a world that was ready to accept this. > > I think a key question, then, is, “Why _aren’t_ we ready to accept this?” We went from open borders in the past to a world of borders, passports, and TSA inspections. Why? What is the benefit, and to whom? Because the world is a very different place now than it was in 1920. And became even more different after 9/11. I would like to see the expression “open borders” dropped from the language. No one seriously wants open borders, it’s just another myth that far-right lunatics like to smear progressives with, as if opening the borders to foreign criminals was an essential platform of liberal ideology. 🙄 ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2026, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-do-you-want-open-borders-um-yeah-sure/1026733/35 "2026-01-16T23:57:33Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > No one seriously wants open borders, it’s just another myth that far-right lunatics like to smear progressives with, as if opening the borders to foreign criminals was an essential platform of liberal ideology. True. But the OP seems to? However, no leading American politician wants them or has proposed them, nor has the USA had such a thing pretty much since day one- one of the main sources of pre-income tax federal income was customs duties. Mind you, _immigration_ was pretty open for a while- as long as you came from Europe. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-do-you-want-open-borders-um-yeah-sure/1026733/36 "2026-01-17T05:17:06Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > But one question that I think is really important is why we could go from having in essence no border control until the 1920s and to needing it now to prevent such overwhelming (which I also recognize to be a real danger). Things change. We tend to think of Mexica as very poor, but there were times in the 19th century the Mexican peso was on par with the U.S. dollar, so there wasn’t really any economic or political motivation for Mexicans to head north of the border in large numbers. What changed was the Mexican Revolution in 1910. During the ten year revolution, the number of Mexicans moving to the United States to escape violence and economic hardship produced what many Americans saw as an alarming increase in the Latino population. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-do-you-want-open-borders-um-yeah-sure/1026733/37 "2026-01-17T05:39:31Z")
Naturalization has little to do with immigration. Most immigrants never bothered to become citizens, because they wouldn’t be allowed to vote anyway. Only white, male landowners could vote. Immigrants could work, rent land, run businesses, marry, and raise families without being citizens. We had open borders, as the Founders intended, for 100 years before white nationalists gained power. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-do-you-want-open-borders-um-yeah-sure/1026733/38 "2026-01-17T05:41:13Z")
I think we should have open borders by default. Like all absolutes, _absolutely_ open borders would work poorly in the real world. But I think that anyone who wants to enter or leave should be allowed to, without a _genuine_ reason to consider the person dangerous. A violent criminal, terrorist or disease carrier being the obvious examples. Brown skin shouldn’t matter. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-do-you-want-open-borders-um-yeah-sure/1026733/39 "2026-01-17T05:57:15Z")
One issue I think some people may reasonably raise against open borders, even if it sounds racist or bigoted, is that open immigration could ruin the flavor or culture of what makes each place unique, and the whole world soon looks the same. Like…..when I travel to Japan, I like the fact that it is…..Japanese. I like going to the Czech Republic and it being….Czech. It would kind of suck if every single nation in the world became an exact blend-ratio of 50% Asians-Indians, 40% Hispanic-black-Arab-etc., 10% white, and every culture soon was identical in terms of cuisine, sports, music, language, etc. Regions would lose what makes them distinct. This isn’t to say we can’t have expanded immigration, but truly-unlimited, make-the-entire-world-all-the-same immigration would kind of suck culture wise. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2026, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-do-you-want-open-borders-um-yeah-sure/1026733/40 "2026-01-17T09:33:42Z")
Regarding not wanting “undesirables:” Modern Australia was founded as a place for Britain to send their convicts, starting in 1788. Doesn’t seem like it worked out all that bad after all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-do-you-want-open-borders-um-yeah-sure/1026733.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-do-you-want-open-borders-um-yeah-sure/1026733.md?page=3)