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The concept of free immigration is almost like a brain virus — once you learn what it is, you can’t stop thinking about it. What if immigrants could pass a simple background check at a country’s port of entry and earn guaranteed admission after that? No excessive visa bureaucracy, just free roaming across the globe. I learnt about this almost utopian concept at Professor Peter Jaworski’s talk for my club BORDERLESS. Jaworski, a professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, spoke to me and a few other students on why we should consider a case for more open borders. Particularly, he disputed some of the most common arguments of immigrants’ entry into the host nation.
In essence, Jaworski’s argument is that for borders to make sense as necessary entities and not xenophobic barriers, they should not discriminate against any person. One argument to keep immigrants out argues that countries want to avoid increasing local crime rates. If this is the case, shouldn’t locals who commit crimes be kept out as well? If you don’t believe in the second argument, but agree with the first one, your claim is inherently xenophobic. Then there’s the fear that immigrants will modify the host country’s culture. But nowadays, most countries lack a uniform culture anyway; regionalities are already ubiquitous in countries like the United States and Canada. For this argument to be valid, it would mean creating a definition of the “true” American or Canadian, and whoever does not meet that definition would be kept out of the border. It goes without saying that in today’s diverse society this would be an impossible mission (and an absurd one too).
The case for more open borders becomes particularly relevant in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Borders seem to be tightening with limitations on international travel, though some countries’ internal policies are allowing free circulation. By Jaworski’s logic, if international travel is being restricted, then local travel should be restricted as well. Regardless if free immigration is still too radical of a concept for you, we must recognize that the pandemic’s tight borders will contribute to the increase in income inequality across the globe. For instance, some countries are currently hoarding vaccines, which could create even larger disparities between nations that have the resources to invest in scientific development and countries with less human capital. Now is the time more than ever to be having this debate as we walk out from a global health crisis into a humanitarian one.
Ana Pereira, May 2021