For years, I have wondered why the Democrat Party in the United States of America has pursued a policy of open borders. The problem of the border was around during President George W. Bush’s time in office. He tried to get Congress to pass a border bill but was unsuccessful. Yet the Democrat Party kicked into high gear in opposition to candidate Donald Trump’s promise to close the border and build a wall along the southern border with Mexico in 2015. Under President Joe Biden, with Vice-President Kamala Harris charged with the border, the Democrats pretended that there was no ‘crisis’ at the border while throwing it wide open. They not only permitted people to enter en masse without regulation. They also allowed conditions for people to be trafficked by cartels, enter dangerously across the Rio Grande River, and disappear into the country, losing track of thousands of unaccompanied children. Remarkably, this was all presented as humanitarian by a media that refused to investigate the real story. They even flew migrants into the United States, clandestinely moved them around the country during nighttime flights, and used tax dollars to house, feed, and otherwise support them. The real story also included illegal drugs, sexual abuse and sex trafficking, exploitation of labour (slavery), and criminal gangs. How on earth could a government be so mindless and self-destructive? I will suggest six possible reasons.
The Permissive
Society: Alongside the Democrats’
open border policy were policies relaxing laws prohibiting drugs, more
permissive attitudes toward sex, allowing criminal behaviour and
theft, and protecting people who broke the law in ‘sanctuary
cities’. Thus, one reason for ‘open borders’ was that Democrats were
advocates of a more permissive society in general. Borders of all
sorts were being crossed, even in the area of marriage and
gender. What is the difference between a Venezuelan entering the USA
illegally and a ‘transgender’ boy in a girl’s locker room?
The Immigrant
Vote: Much of the discussion of
open borders from Republicans focussed on a second reason. They
accused the Democrats of wanting to flood the country with immigrants who felt
welcomed and protected by their party. That some areas of the
country wanted to include non-citizens in voting this past election cycle gives
credence to this allegation—although it has not worked in the Democrats’ favour
as they had hoped.
Postmodern
Culture: A third possible reason for
open borders is the cultural shift in the West to
postmodernity. Talk of ‘civilization’ even seems immoral when one
claims that all cultures are equal and multiculturalism is considered a higher value than a single or certain culture. Indeed, Democrats managed to argue
that wanting regulated immigration and appreciating ‘American’ culture were
racist. Incompetent historians (really, journalists) advocated a
revisionist history of America in which it was said to be based on slavery and
racism. The American story as a story of progress based on certain
values had to be cancelled, and a blind acceptance of all groups was touted as
the moral high ground—despite the fact that everyone crossing the border into
America was coming here precisely because they preferred America. By
valuing multiculturalism above the notion of America as a cultural melting pot,
the Democrats pursued identity politics. They sought the support of groups
according to their identities identities rather than laws and services for all
citizens. They spoke of people in terms of sexuality, gender choice
(inventing a host of such), race, class, and religion. (If racism is
defined as seeing individuals not as individuals but in terms of their race,
their pretense that Republicans were racist is exposed: identity politics is
racist, among other things.)
The Marxist
State: A fourth reason for
advocating open borders might betray the Marxist element in the Democrat
Party. According to Professor Douglas Rae, Marxist interpretation of
socio-economic history includes views on monopolies, the falling rates of
profit, the consequence of an increasing misery of the working class, the
inevitable result of social revolution, a theory of the universal class of the
lowest social group, and the consequent withering away of the state.[1] The theory of
class involves the idea that each class exploits the one below it until the
class at the bottom has no one else to exploit. This class in each
country shares its situation with others in other countries. It is,
therefore, a class without state loyalties, and the uniting of the proletariat
of the world means the withering away of the state. Democrats have
held together a socialist idea of a state with expanded powers, a cancelling of
American nationalism, globalism, and the idea of a stateless
proletariat. (Social Marxism expands the 'proletariat' class from the original meaning of a poor and disempowered class to almost any socially marginal group [Christians excluded, of course].) Watching a middle-aged woman wade across the current of
the Rio Grande, holding a small bag of possessions on her head and the hand of
a small child, does not evoke in them a repulsion at a government allowing such
unregulated and dangerous migration but a sense of progress in the revolutionary demolition of the state by
the stateless, universal class.
Collectivism: To Professor Rae’s list of Marxist interpretations of history, I would
add Marxism’s collectivism and opposition to private property. One
might recall Josef Stalin’s collectivization of farms in Ukraine—and his
incarceration and killing of the kulaks, persons owning property of a 3
hectare or more. America’s wealthy elite hypocritically advocate
policies opposed to the possession of private property, particularly through
taxation. The goal is not so much to confiscate private property as to
make government the wealthy distributor of goods for social, economic, and
political reasons. Marxist ideology and political expediency work
together: the confiscation of private property through taxation strengthens the
power of the bloated federal government and makes them the benefactor of a
large, voting, and grateful proletariat (urban blacks, poor Hispanics, college
students). As long as votes matter (and cannot be stolen), wooing
this class with government handouts is important for maintaining power. Collectivism
and opposition to private property, then, is a fifth reason for promoting open
borders. On the contrary, I would suggest the view of government’s
duty expressed by the Roman statesman, Cicero (1st c. BC):
The man in an administrative office, however,
must make it his first care that everyone shall have
what belongs to him and that private citizens suffer no invasion of their property rights by act of the state.... the chief
purpose in the establishment of constitutional state and municipal governments
was that individual property rights might be secured. For, although it
was by Nature's guidance that men were drawn together into communities, it was
in the hope of safeguarding their possessions that they sought the protection
of cities (De Officiis 2.73).[2]
Redistribution
of Wealth as Generosity: A sixth reason
for open borders expands on the previous point about collectivism and private
property. Some people have argued that it is wrong to shut out the
poor masses from the privileges enjoyed in America by citizens who have worked
to achieve their property and lifestyles, although they have often stumbled
when asked to apply this to their own home and gated
community. Illegal migrants deposited in Martha’s Vineyard were
quickly removed: the wealthy elite advocating diversity, equity, inclusion, and
socialism were not serious when it came to their own
playground. However, wanting to be generous and kind to others and
feeling guilty about one’s privileged situation and possessions have motivated
many in the argument for open borders. Indeed, the Marxist, woke
ideology that took hold of America and spread to Europe and England and beyond
is centered not only on the core values of diversity, equity, and inclusion but
also on identifying one’s own privileges as immoral and favouring social
‘victims’ (intersectionality and equity). Hard work and fortune do
not explain privilege, on this view: oppression of victims
does. Thus, equal outcomes, not equal opportunity, is held to
be the better moral value. Reparations for the enslavement of
ancestors six generations ago is claimed to be justice. To achieve
equal outcomes (as opposed to equal opportunity) means to oppose privileges
like private property. ‘Thou shalt not covet ... anything that is
thy neighbour’s’ (the Tenth Commandment) becomes, ‘Thou shalt let those who
covet anything that is yours have it.’ Hence, open borders.
Biblically,
there is no argument for open borders. Caring for the aliens in the
midst of Israel has nothing to do with open borders. The Gospel is
for all nations, but the universalism of the Church has nothing to do with the
proper regulation that a government provides through its laws and border
policies. Scripture does affirm private property and oppose theft
(two of the Ten Commandments). The morality of almsgiving is moral
because it is freely given, not a tax collected by the government for the
redistribution of wealth. Care for the poor is important for
Christians (e.g., Galatians 6.10; 1 Timothy 5; etc.), but even the collective
practices of the Jerusalem Church (Acts 2-4) were voluntary. On the
other hand, open borders have allowed the proliferation of misery, slavery, sexual
abuse, drugs, crime, and the exploitation of children, let alone the breaking
up of families. It has also not addressed the problems in those
countries from which people flee.
That said, however, this does not mean that Christians should treat individuals who are here illegally as unworthy of Christian love and charity. Christians can appreciate the government’s deportation of illegal migrants while at the same time expressing Christian love to all. The missionary goes abroad to share the Gospel to sinners, and the illegal migrant comes to the USA and hopefully encounters Christians. The Church does not welcome migrants because of their immigration status but because they, like all believers, are sinners seeking the grace of God and the fellowship of the Christian community. Christians can feed the hungry, help the needy, employ the unemployed, educate children, provide healthcare to those without insurance, and so forth. They can do so in the USA just as they can do so in some foreign land where missionaries of previous generations took the Gospel, established schools and clinics, and witnessed to the love and grace of God. Paul expressed the ‘sincere love’ of the Church alongside the notion that God uses government to bring social order in Romans 12-13. Indeed, social disorder, like unregulated migration, is a failure of the government's role assigned by God and is immensely unkind.
[1] Douglas W. Rae, ‘Karl Marx, Joseph Schumpeter, and an Economic
System Incapable of Coming to Rest’, Lecture 4 of Capitalism: Success, Crisis, and Reform Yale Course (Fall, 2009);
available online: PLSC 270 -
Lecture 4 - Karl Marx, Joseph Schumpeter, and an Economic System Incapable of
Coming to Rest | Open Yale Courses (accessed 8 November, 2024).
[2] Marcus Tullius Cicero, De
Officiis, trans. Walter Miller (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1913).
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