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.

Wulf. ...“and our constitutional republic is not a half step away from a dictatorship.”

Could you please offer, more clarity about that statement?

@MrGrimm888 Sure. A Constitutional Republic is based on representatives voting on things for the people. The entire rule of the country is based in our Constitution. None of this lends itself to a dictator very well. However our friend @Kropotkin is a Marxist. A Marxist wants to undo all things capitalistic, views governmental control as not something that is good for the people, that the government is better at providing all things for the people than they are for themselves. It is a belief that there is an ideal society out there but it requires someone to manipulate people’s beliefs to accept it and make it a reality. Eventually this leads to one person or a small group seizing tyrannical, self-serving control. In the history of our world, this has been a fairly constant trend.
1. Democracies form – people vote on things that they want the government to do,
2. People start thinking the government can do more for them.
3. The people start wanting more stuff.
4. The government begins getting power from the people and not providing power to the people.
5. The government takes control of all aspects of society, making it into something that no longer is a democracy
6. There is major resistance, often resulting in military force being used
7. One person or a small group set themselves up as the leaders, dictating to all how things will be. And all things favor themselves.
8. Oppression becomes commonplace and people are beaten down.
9. Revolution happens and the government is over thrown
10. A democracy is formed to replace the tyranny and restore power to the people.

The Constitutional Republic, in the beginning, is both steps 1 and 10. The Marxist efforts are closer to step 5. Right now the USA is probably around step 4.

^I couldn’t disagree more. But thank you, for clarifying.

Closing the border is a campaign slogan. It’s something said because it appeals to voters. A porous border is blamed for a wide variety of social ills, from drug addiction to crime to high consumer prices. It’s not something said with much thought as to what it would actually entail. But it also encompasses a scale of possible actions, i.e. there is a gulf between halting asylum applications and deporting every illegal immigrant currently in the country. A lot of industries rely on illegal labor, and they would have a vested interest in not “closing the border”. In either case, only so much can be done as long as desperate poor people from other countries see a possibility a better life in the U.S. They will come no matter how much you say “do not come”. The border may close, but they will still amass at it.

A bit of a tangent, but re. drugs, it’s interesting that when we talk about drug addiction, we mostly talk about the drugs themselves and the border. There’s a chorus of people who will say in re. to gun violence that guns are not the problem, it’s people and their violent urges, mass shootings are seen as a kind of social contagion that would happen with or without easy access to guns. In general, I’m not an “A or B but not both” type, I think there are many factors in gun violence, the guns themselves being just part of it. Likewise, I feel the same about drugs. We can talk about cartels and illegal drugs coming over the border, but we also need to talk about Americans’ insatiable appetite for illicit substances. We consume more drugs than anyone else. We consume fentanyl, a drug that simulates death before it finally causes it. Do Americans just have a death wish? We can’t talk about illegal drugs coming over the border unless we talk about the market for them too.

@Demosthenes I tend to agree with you about drugs and people’s appetites for such things. But there is another difference between guns and drugs that you haven’t considered: the controls. Both can kill, that is true. But gun sales are largely regulated. You have to have a FFL to sell guns. Purchasing guns generally requires a call to the FBI to ensure the buyer is allowed to buy the guns…is old enough, is not prohibited by law because of being a felon, etc. In some cases there are waiting times between purchase and obtaining a gun or there might be full blown background checks that have to be done. There are, of course, exceptions: private sales is a great example. Gun shows even have rules that have to be followed. Drugs, likewise have lots and lots of regulations associated with them. You have to be licensed to prescribe and sell them, the drugs have to pass approval of the FDA, they have to be accounted for, controls of opiods is higher…limiting who can purchase and how often, etc.

But drugs are easier to dodge the regulations with. They get transported without license, produced without controls, sold without licenses, sold to minors, many of the drugs are not approved by the FDA, etc. And there are a whole lot more drugs than guns. Guns can be sold to the same people as the drugs, that is true, but getting illegal guns is a whole lot harder than illegal drugs.

I think closing the border and securing the border are two different things. Closing the border is more of an administrative task. Securing it is tough to do but should be done regardless if it’s open or not. When people say “close the border” I believe most people just want it secured and are fine with legal immigration.

Wulf. You don’t have to have an FFL, to sell a firearm.

Straw purchases, are the interest. But if you saw me shooting a firearm at a range or something and offered me money for it, I could legally sell it to you. No vetting process, once someone owns a firearm.
The serial numbers aren’t even tracked, unless the weapon has been involved in a reported crime.

I don’t want to start a big thing here, but as a person who has had an FFL (which I got on the computer at work) I don’t feel that guns, are regulated well…

A LOT of the guns that have been found in yhe hands if cartel members, came from America.

I’ve seen a few guys go down, for being REALLY dumb, and selling them a bunch of guns.
I imagine, at some point, you have to keep providing them with guns, or else…

@MrGrimm888 Yes, I know. Go back and look at what I wrote. I specifically said ” There are, of course, exceptions: private sales is a great example.”. The point of what I was saying is that there are many regulations about guns. At some point the gun that someone sells privately had to be bought publicly if it was purchased legally. Now I do have my grandfather’s old gun. It was made in 1914. There was likely no restrictions on buying the guns at that time. But there are very few guns in existence from that time period and people are clamoring to buy or sell them. You can always find some little loophole but overall there are restrictions for buying and selling guns, just as there are restrictions on making, buying and selling drugs. It is just a whole lot easier to dodge the restrictions with the drugs.

^Like I said, I wasn’t trying to make much of it. Mainly I wanted people reading to be aware too.