Many years ago, I made some posts on this blog (in its earliest, pre-Life-in-Korea incarnation) about the issue of open borders and migration as a human right. I still basically believe this, although it’s not something that I consider particularly urgent, and certainly, living as a de facto immigrant in one of the world’s less immigrant-friendly regions presents some ironies to this.
Recently, in a post on the crookedtimber blog, I ran across what I would consider one of the best counter-arguments to the idea that borders should be thrown open. Actually, it was a comment below the main post that raised the issue (by a commenter named “Merkwürdigliebe” – whoever that might be), but I think it’s possibly the best rebuttal to open borders I have run across.
The idea is that when you have open borders, a government (or a people, in the form of a mass movement) could “weaponize” migration. Many conspiracy-theorists (especially on the right) already believe there is intentionality behind mass migrations of e.g. Mexicans into the US, and, with respect to certain fringe groups (such as the Aztlan revanchist movement) there is actually some validity.
The commenter raised the idea of, say, the Russian government using putative open European borders to flood former East Bloc countries such as the Baltics with direct Russian migration, until those countries were rendered majority Russian and thus captured into the Russian orbit.
In fact, there are plenty of examples from history of successful “weaponized” migration – everything from the barbarian invasions of the Roman Empire to the movement of settlers from the British Isles into North America to the Argentinian leverage of Welsh nationalism to subdue the Patagonian natives, to the entire Zionist project from conception to its current manifestations in the West Bank settlements.
These historical examples themselves constitute the essential counter-rebuttal to the argument, however: all of these historical examples of “weaponized” migration were successful despite active resistance on the part of the people being “migrated against.” Thus, whether or not there are “open borders” seems structurally irrelevant. If a given people or movement or government make a concerted effort at weaponized migration, the presence or absence of border controls seems not to matter a whit. As the borg pointed out, as it effortlessly zoomed across Federation border controls, “resistance is futile.”
Nevertheless, it is a cogent and intelligent argument, and would need to be addressed in the context of a debate in favor of open borders.
[daily log: walking, a little bit]
