What exactly does "close the border" mean?

“Closing the border” can take many meanings to me. It can mean “close the illegal entry into the country” or it could mean “Close all entry into the country”. I would think the latter would only apply during times of extreme like a world war. Stopping the illegal entries and turning anyone trying to enter illegally away. No excuses. Even the weak claim of asylum doesn’t hold water if the people are coming from multiple countries away.

It means you stop letting people circumvent legal immigration policies. This can be done in many ways, but a big ass wall probably won’t do it. Removing the incentives to come here and opening up legal avenues to immigration will greatly help. That’s the part the right gets wrong. The left’s position of apathy on this is dumbfounding to me. Don’t close the immigration tap but for crying out loud, put a filter and a valve on it.

To me it means randoms dont get to just walk in like SoCal and other areas.

“Closing the border” is a call to criminalize people, most of whom are fleeing the economic violence and destruction that are direct results of Western corporations and state actions on behalf of corporate interests. We invade and/or overthrow and manipulate governments to open markets of cheap labor and resource extraction. And when the population attempts to push out Western rule – even by democratic elections – they are deemed illegitimate and ripe for regime change, which means direct violence and sanctions, which destroy the economy and cause immense suffering.

And when the victims of US foreign policy drag themselves to the US to work so they can survive and feed their families, it’s best for private power to have these people scared. An undocumented population is perfect. They will overlook labor laws and work under horrible conditions because they are under existential threat of being outed for demanding an extra bathroom break.

If we wanted to really “close the border”, we’d have to start by creating a border that keeps US foreign policy, capital investment, imperial military interventions, predatory monetary funds, etc from leaving. Only then can you start to deal with the cause of so-called “illegal” immigration.

Then, you’d have to reverse the damage done, which would be nearly impossible and would involve immediate transfers of wealth and resources from the US (and other countries whose militaries are tools for global capital) and to those who have had their resources extracted. You’d have to immediately have some concept of the respect of sovereignty and respect democracy.

But for now, the people who objectively have more of a right of US citizenship than natural-born US citizens (yes, you read that right) are the citizens of the countries that have been victim to US foreign policy. The concept of a border in this context is obscene.

“Close the border” is a phrase Trump uses to drum up support. It serves the same purpose as “build the wall” did eight years ago and will be as ineffectual.

@hat ”“Closing the border” is a call to criminalize people, most of whom are fleeing the economic violence and destruction that are direct results of Western corporations and state actions on behalf of corporate interests.” No, the people criminalized themselves. Tell me one other country that has as open a border as the US has right now? Our laws are being ignored for so many to come here. As for your rant about fleeing economic violence and destruction, what you are saying is that western corporations, acting on corporate interests are the problem. So the answer for these people is to flee to the country that is the problem? Do you ever think about what you are writing?

It meant Trump had the first three words of the concept of a plan, so vote TRUMPTRUMPTRUMPTRUMP . . .

@seawulf575 It’s pretty self explanatory.
You even repeated it. An American corporate or state entity is different than a citizen fleeing violence…...one is an individual family, another is an institution that plans and maneuvers and implements large scale policy that affects individual lives…..

Does that make more sense?

It probably means different things to different people. I assume trade and tourists will still be coming through, and the kids who cross from Mexico to the US for school Monday through Friday.

To me it means putting more patrol, more judges, and turning people back if they can’t meet the criteria needed to be let into the country.

Just putting out the message that the border is closed will dissuade people from coming.

I think we need to make it easier to come in legally though. I would much rather someone or a company pay the US government instead of a coyote, and the US safely fly or bus people to the US and use the money for the paperwork and for some shelter and food when they first get here. If they can come into the country through a safer route or safer transportation sometime in the future, maybe that would help time the absorption of people coming over.

The US also needs to coordinate better what cities can take in people, cities that need more population. There are places in America where the population is on the decline and new people coming in could help revive the economy of those towns.

States have no fundamental moral or legal legitimacy, therefore anything they do is really no better than that of a mafia organisation.

In the context of “close the border”, @hat‘s analysis is correct.

I’d like to add that the additional motivation, particularly when presented as anti-immigrant propaganda, is to foment nationalism and in-group bias. And this is done to divide people, because capitalism and statism rely significantly on keeping ordinary people in thrall to elites and divided along spurious lines instead of their shared economic class interests.

@Kropotkin If states have no legal legitimacy, then there is no such thing as “legal” legitimacy.

@Blackwater_Park Correct. In legal philosophy, the legitimacy of a legal system rests entirely on an asserted axiom called a basic norm.

The basic norm being some vague hypothetical construct that itself isn’t demonstrated or proven. A fiction created to provide some rhetorical or intellectual force to something that’s actually established through state coercion and power.

No more brown people.

@Kropotkin So let’s go your route: the state has no legal legitimacy. So anyone can come and go as they please and can do anything they want when they get there. Laws are no longer applicable and taxes should never be paid. Does that about sum it up? So what would that society look like? Complete chaos. The Wild West without any white hat lawman to help people. The law of the land becomes whoever is stronger and more vicious is the winner. That is the land you are aspiring for this one to become.

@seawulf575 No.

@Kropotkin How so? Didn’t you push for open borders? For no state legitimacy because it is based on “rests entirely on an asserted axiom called a basic norm.”? According to you, “The basic norm being some vague hypothetical construct that itself isn’t demonstrated or proven. A fiction created to provide some rhetorical or intellectual force to something that’s actually established through state coercion and power.”

So isn’t that what you are saying? Is that there should be no actual laws concerning borders or laws of the state since they are all fictional anyway? If that isn’t what you are saying, why do you say it? What do you really mean?

Illegal entry to a country is already illegal. The clue is in the name. “Cosing the border” wont make any difference because they’re already getting past the best defences you have.

Closing the border to economic immigration to do work the locals are too lazy or ill educated to do is just stupid and only a lazy ill educated person would think its a good idea.

@Kropotkin legitimate or not, existing laws that people have agreed upon are enforceable and for good reason. You can pontificate on the moral philosophy of the state all you want but there must be some form of order. I’m all ears if you can suggest anything in that respect.

@seawulf575 “So let’s go your route: the state has no legal legitimacy. So anyone can come and go as they please and can do anything they want when they get there. Laws are no longer applicable and taxes should never be paid.”

No, because you’ll get shot/thrown in jail.

What I’m trying to get people to understand is that these institutions you accept and take for granted, do not have a moral or democratic basis to them. This was actually a problem for political and legal theorists, which is why they came up with various bad and uncompelling arguments to ground their legitimacy in more intellectual ways, like social contract theory for the state and government, and the basic norm for legal systems.

I’m not actually prescribing anything here. I am describing what is. You might like authoritarian coercion, and that’s fine—many people do.

@Blackwater_Park I love order. I wish we had more of it.

@Kropotkin “No, because you’ll get shot/thrown in jail.

What I’m trying to get people to understand is that these institutions you accept and take for granted, do not have a moral or democratic basis to them.”

Again, you are trying to argue both sides here and it makes you look confused. Either the laws of the country are valid, meaning the state has legitimacy, or the are all meaningless with no moral or democratic basis to them. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t deny the logic of a society with no laws turning into chaos which is where your denial of laws and state legitimacy would lead. And you don’t like that being known so you try to say I’m wrong by saying the laws stop that. But then try to say the laws shouldn’t be there.

Not to mention that laws do, indeed, have a democratic basis to them. All laws are generated and voted on. Usually it is voted on by a duly elected (through a democratic process) body that represents the people. They are generated to help maintain society, provide safety, and prevent chaos. So they have both a moral and a democratic basis to them.

You don’t like this country because you are a Marxist and our Constitutional Republic is not half a step away from a dictatorship. But you have tied yourself into knots trying to be right on both sides of a discussion…sides that are diametrically opposed. You use faulty logic and flawed opinions to push whatever side you want to push so you never have to say you are wrong. That’s cool…just don’t expect many people to see you as some deep thinker.

@seawulf575 I’ve no idea who or what you’re replying to. It’s as if you’re just arguing with someone you’ve made up in your own mind.