As someone who has researched U.S. immigration policy for over three decades, I’m often asked why the Biden administration effectively opened America’s borders, allowing in 9 or 10 million foreigners who had no legal right to enter. Was it done to import voters who would change the balance of power in red states? Or perhaps to bulk up the population of blue states that have been hemorrhaging residents, in preparation for the 2030 census? To change the nation’s ethnic composition? Or maybe just for cheap labor?
None of these possibilities was the real reason—though some of those ends certainly have been served. Biden’s illegal border surge happened because the people in charge of border policy didn’t believe in the legitimacy of borders. Even the most radical of politicians can’t come out and say that, though the policies they support point inexorably in that direction. Fortunately, writers have no such constraint.
Which is why John Washington’s The Case for Open Borders is so useful. A staff writer for Arizona Luminaria, a nonprofit news organization, he avoids the usual obfuscations and says the quiet part out loud: borders, as such, are immoral. “[P]eople should be able to move and migrate where they need to or want to.” He believes free movement of people is an inherent right—not just the right to leave your own country, but also the right to enter any other country you want.
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