I am for Open Borders

[ck4829]

Come on in - For real.

Not only am I for open borders, I think that once you plant your feet on our soil whether you are born here or an immigrant (Legal, illegal, refugee, stateless, I don't care!), you should be entitled to quality healthcare, education, competitive wages, a safe and healthy environment, public benefits, minimum income, public goods and services, rights, and more.

You think you'll see those things in a post-Roe United States?

Heh heh heh... no.

We should fight for these things for everybody. Everybody.

[TexasTowelie]

1. I don't think that we should offer an open invitation to the rest of the world

to use all of our resources. The decision on Roe has no correlation to anything else that you want. Please enjoy your fight because I (and a lot of other Americans) are not going to join you.

[Wingus Dingus]

2. Most places in the US don't have the tax base to support whatever you're suggesting.

Completely unchecked immigration is national suicide, no developed country does that. No one will end up with: quality healthcare, education, or any of the other stuff you mention, because all our systems will be crippled and overburdened. Of course, it will never happen.

[Voltaire2]

4. Why? Everyone working would be paying taxes

to support the system.

[LeftInTX]

11. Many refugees do not come here with marketable skills

Older women from Central America will probably never enter the job market and they often come here single. Same as with older women from the Middle East.

[Voltaire2]

16. You just took a leap from 'open borders'

to ‘everyone entering the country will be a refugee’. But, even if we accept that, what exactly is the unemployment rate in our r
Immigrant population?

Oh, it is about the same as far native born.

The unemployment rate for native-born Americans (ages 16-plus) was 5.5 percent in May, well above the 3.5 percent in May 2019 before Covid-19. Among immigrants (legal and illegal together), the rate was 5.6 percent, higher than the 2.8 percent in May 2019.

https://cis.org/Report/Employment-Situation-Immigrants-and-Natives-May-2021

[LeftInTX]

17. Yep, you're right

[slightlv]

18. I'm going to be contrary, just because of what's going on in SCOTUS

If what I'm afraid of happens once they get rid of women's choice, there may be a lot of older women here in this country desperately looking for a country that will take them in as refugees. Many may not have great marketable skills in those countries. Do you just write them off, as well? At least the world organized a type of underground railroad for the women of Afghanistan, as pitiful as it was.
I'm really not picking on you. I'm just really scared of this first step into the darkness I see this country taking so willy-nilly, and where it's likely to lead. I've been there already and I don't want to go back there. I don't want my daughter or my sister stuck there as they come into retirement age, either. And I don't want my niece to grow up with her life choices as restricted as mine were when I first turned 16.

Besides, aren't older women from Central America the holders of the cultural stories? Aren't they the ones who keep the culture alive, not only through the stories but through the arts? Also, the same for older women from the Middle East. And, while I don't know about Central America (shame on me!), I do know many of these women in the Middle East were able to get an education and hold good, skilled jobs. Not all of them are young ones. I was recently able to buy my first Middle Eastern robe from a consortium of Middle Eastern women who owned the company, created the robe, etc. It was gorgeous. I'm all for encouraging this type of fair trade. It was a little on the expensive side for me; I sure couldn't buy many! but even as a once-in-a-lifetime gift for myself to help out other women trying to "make it"... it was money well spent, IMNSHO.

And if the "only" offering Cent. Am. women had to offer were cultural stories and myths, I'd buy a published book and add it to my collection, then buy another for my grandson to add to his. These types of books go well in libraries the world over, both personal and institutional.

I guess I'm saying, everyone has worth and value. Sometimes you just have to slow down and find out what it is and encourage it. Find the niche to which they can fit, and help them fill it. With the changing of the world, we're going to be doing a lot of redefining of values; I hope we'll be redefining them toward our better natures, and less toward greed and power. But that's just this old lady's pipe dream, I guess.

[LeftInTX]

20. I was responding to the comment regarding potential taxes that immigrants pay

Of course everyone has something to offer.

My grandmother and great grandmother were refugees. But they did not contribute economically.
But they certainly contributed to me..LOL

[tirebiter]

3. Corporations are people, too

Take that into consideration.

[thatdemguy]

5. Here is my favorite question to ask

When people talk about immigration, how many people should we let move here every year?

I was very surprised when I found out it was over a million per year. As was said open boarders, while it sounds nice would overwhelm pretty much every part of the system. Schools would be packed, housing would be even worse, food supplies would go nuts.

[slightlv]

6. Actually, I've said the same thing, ck4829

It'll never happen; it's a Utopian dream with no practicality behind it. I know that. And my reasoning for it is way different than yours. Mine is due to climate change. No country in the world is ready for the climate refugee disaster we're going to see. I envision millions of people travelling to other places to settle wherever they can, just as they did in the days of prehistory during the last climate change. Only now, most everywhere on earth is already settled. Where are all these people going to go? How are they going to live? Is ANY country making any plans to accommodate them? A few thousand here or a couple million there isn't going to make a dent. We're talking about entire islands of people moving; entire half continents of people picking up and walking north... including in the U.S. I laugh while I cry at the antics in Texas. It's gonna revert back to the desert it used to be. Too hot and dry for humans to survive, let alone thrive, and that'll continue up thru OK and into KS and probably NB. Good farmland will be the upper Midwest. I don't think those Militia groups up there are going to appreciate all of us "homesteading" their territory (LOL). And that's just immigration within the U.S. Imagine the border between U.S. and Canada! And imagine that all over the world. We're going to have to rethink borders if we're going to retain any type of civilization.

Unfortunately, coming on the heels of the Populist (re: right wing/fascist) presidential vote wins around the world lately, I don't see how civilization survives. If climate change doesn't get us, the Nationalists will. (sigh)... I'm really not a pessimist; but this world lately is sure working hard to make me one!!!!

[dalton99a]

9. +1. Plants and animals have already started migrating toward polar regions for survival

Soon mass migration of people

Either do that or die of thirst/starvation/drowning/violence

[slightlv]

14. You see where I'm coming from!

There are no borders, really, for plants and animals. People may -try- to keep out non-native plants and animals, but it's rarely successful. But what ARE they going to do when the mass migration of people starts in earnest? We're already seeing the beginnings of it now, but much of it is hidden from us via the news media. We don't read or hear much about it in our media, other than from the "normal" South American countries, etc. Although we are seeing more from Haiti, and island countries in that area. And the U.S. has treated them like "ordinary" immigrants from Mexico. (shrug) To me, that ain't right. Want to impress on people the "now-ness" and "Urgency" of climate change? Well, here it is, right on your doorstep, people. What are you gonna do about it? Imagine what's gonna happen when all of South America becomes intolerably hot and drought-stricken, and the Caribbean Islands and the Polynesian Islands are eaten by the sea and you've got all that population, not to mention everyone in your own country, America, from Florida to Southern California, trying to move north to Oregon, and Michigan and Wisconsin and New York. Talk about a mess!!!

[Polybius]

7. Do any countries have open borders?

I wish Canada did.

[msfiddlestix]

8. I am not a proponent of open borders, never have been

In the past it was essentially over environmental concerns, presently I add exposure to deadly diseases.

[slightlv]

15. You've got an excellent point, msfiddlestix!

But I'm afraid deadly diseases are going to be coming even without immigrants to bring them in... unless you count the mosquitoes and other pests that'll be moving North to get out of the intolerable heat down south. And they really don't recognize borders. Just hope the scientists can come up with better ways to neutralize the pests without having knock-on consequences that we're not sorry for later on down the line.

As far as diseases go, what really concerns me is the permafrost thawing and releasing viral and bacteria strains that have been frozen for millennia. We probably have no natural immunity to them any longer. I doubt immunity would have been passed down thru the genes of our ancestors, but who knows? Maybe that's why some of us still have Neanderthal genes!

[nuxvomica]

10. I agree

The primary concern I hear is that people coming into the country bring nothing with them except dependency but historically that has not been true. Most of the greatest gains in American prosperity came on the heels of periods of high immigration. My paternal grandparents were impoverished immigrants but they had backbones and brains and contributed far more to our society than they received from it and they were damn grateful for the opportunity. I think we could use an infusion of new Americans who are grateful to be Americans to counterbalance the over-coddled, infantilized crowd we have causing trouble on a daily basis.

[LeftInTX]

12. There is a difference between completely open borders and immigration

Completely open borders would render a country borderless.

My grandmother and great grandmother were deported due to strict new quotas on Middle Easterners. (1923) There was some fraud involved with my great aunt's immigration, but she got in.
My grandmother and great grandmother went to Mexico and somehow devised a way to get in. They were legally entitled to be in the US because they were both married to US citizens. My grandmother had been illegally deported. I don't believe she presented her marriage certificate with at her first go round.

My great grandmother did not have marriage documentation because their documentation was destroyed. Both her and my great grandfather had to lie about their backgrounds so they could become husband and wife in Nuevo Laredo. They both said they were widowed. My great grandfather came armed with bribes for both sides of the border..LOL

It certainly was not open borders for them. I don't believe we ever had them.

[nuxvomica]

13. Open borders means open immigration, not lack of borders

Borders are boundaries of jurisdiction.

[Texasgal]

19. What we should be doing

is making legal immigration faster and easier to navigate.

There is also the issue of exploitation that sadly happens now with illegals. It would become even worse of a problem than it already is.

[Hortensis]

21. Come on, get fighting, live your principles. Don't wait for the impossible.

I know people who've taken in homeless immigrants, and you can too. They're not exactly hard to find, even these days. By post-Roe America, hopefully you'll be posting on how they're doing. Maybe writing a book.