Ask Lemmy

At least in the US, I actually do support open boarders unironically. People like to use "you're standing on stolen land" as an empty platitude. But I actually internalize it.

I live on stolen land that was given to my ancestors after a genocide. I didn't personally commit such an act. I don't feel a moral responsibility for things that happened before I was born. But still, I do benefit from it today. Morally, we probably should give the land back to the natives. There's no statute of limitations on returning stolen property. As a practical matter, however, we simply can't just give all the land back to the Native Americans, regardless of the morality of it. You can't just make 300 million people stateless. We can't undue the Native American genocide. We can't even give all the land back. There's no way to give that much land back without creating a humanitarian disaster on the scale of the original Native American genocide.

Giving the land back is impossible. But at the same time, I realize that I as a white person living in the US have fuck-all right to tell anyone they can't move here. My ancestors had no right to come here, and they did anyway. What right do I have to tell someone from another country they can't come here? Fuck anyone lamenting the loss of "American culture" and "the American way of life." Unless you're Navajo, you can fuck right off with that. The native people can complain about the loss of a way of life. The rest of us are just a bunch of illegal immigrants squatting on native land.

I think we in the US should be "the nation of the world." It should be a place where literally anyone, anywhere, has a right to come here. What better use for a land conquered by genocide? We should have open borders, or as close to open boarders as practically possible. You can't take in a hundred million people over the course of a single year. But the only limits on the number of immigrants we take in should be logistical ones. But as long as we can keep growing enough food and building enough housing for the new arrivals? We should have effectively open borders.

I don't even think this is a losing issue. Democrats have been trying for years to move further and further right on immigration, and it hasn't worked. Biden deported more people than Trump did in his first term. But when the Democrats move right to try to appeal to Republican immigration voters, the Republican party just moves even further to the right. There's no actual immigration policy that the right won't portray as open borders. The Democrats fell into a trap.

Instead, Democrats should go hard the other way. They say we want open borders? No Democrat has ever actually publicly campaigned on that. But fuck it, maybe we should. You're damn right I want open borders! What right do I, a squatter living on stolen land, have to tell someone else they can't squat here as well?

This is why Democrats have been stuck with empty platitudes. They decry the cruelty of Trump's immigration policies. But their actual policy proposals aren't that different - they're just less performatively cruel. They have no interest in dismantling ICE. If MAGA loses in 2028, Democrats will maintain most of the same policies as Trump, just with fewer ICE thugs brazenly harassing people in the streets.

Democrats don't actually have a response on immigration, which is why they've lost so much ground on it. Maybe the answer instead is to revive the American tradition of viewing itself as a beacon and refuge to the world. It was carved onto Lady Liberty for a damn good reason.