[ComposedPattern]

> it was really difficult to travel anywhere except maybe between neighboring countries.

Yet most of the inhabitants of the United States are descended from people who immigrated during the time period you're talking about. Why was it ok for them but not for people immigrating today?

> Do you want criminals from other countries coming to your country?

Do you want criminals from other towns/counties/states coming to yours? No, but that doesn't justify banning everyone from coming to your town. The normal standard is that to stop someone on the basis that they might be a criminal, law enforcement has to have some reasonable cause for suspicion. But for some reason, in the case of national borders (and not state, province, etc), the burden of proof is reversed. Everyone is guilty by default and has to prove to the state's satisfaction that they aren't dangerous. Why? If open borders work between Washington and Oregon, why don't they work between Washington and Canada?

> We also have the issue of economic migrants. No country really wants to be inundated with millions of poor people from some other country; in the era of modern social services, countries don't have the resources to provide for them.

Immigrants pay taxes, and the state doesn't need to pay for their education. It's not clear that the mean additional immigrant under an open-borders policy would have a higher net cost to the state than a native citizen. But whatever, let's just assume they would. Instead of banning them, why not just let them come but make them ineligible for social services? That's cruel, but it's way crueler to not even offer them that.

[ShrigmaMale]

they work much less well washington -> ca because the regulatory diff is larger.

and it was more okay for prior immigrants because we had systems like sponsorship. you couldn't show up and get on the dole. this has changed, which is why central american refugees will skip mexico (a closer country they MUST instead stay in to be legitimate refugees) and come through to here.

there are hordes of people who would come here and take advantage of social programs if we let them. those programs effectively keep people here - you can't argue for supply and demand if you tip things such that people are never forced to go elsewhere to look for work, support a family.

[midoridensha]

>Yet most of the inhabitants of the United States are descended from people who immigrated during the time period you're talking about. Why was it ok for them but not for people immigrating today?

Why do you think it was OK back then? Have you talked to any Native Americans about the effects of uncontrolled migration on their tribes? Plainly put, it was an unmitigated disaster and a genocide. They used to control the whole continent (but divided between various tribes of course, that sometimes didn't get along); now their numbers are puny and they're corralled in some shitty reservations.

>Do you want criminals from other towns/counties/states coming to yours? >If open borders work between Washington and Oregon, why don't they work between Washington and Canada?

Within a country, it's easy: people have criminal records, and can't just skip town and go to the next town and assume a new identity. (Centuries ago, however, they did.) Between countries, it's not so easy: countries don't share their criminal data that easily. That's why we have passports: it's an identification document that shows the destination country that the person is not a criminal and is allowed to travel (since they agreed together not to give these out to serious criminals).

>Immigrants pay taxes

Some do, some don't. Some go to Germany expecting a free ride, passing through all the poorer countries along the way.

>Instead of banning them, why not just let them come but make them ineligible for social services? That's cruel

Why is that cruel? If 100M people suddenly decided to move into Andorra, how exactly do you think the country is going to pay for social services for them?

[ComposedPattern]

> Why do you think it was OK back then? Have you talked to any Native Americans about the effects of uncontrolled migration on their tribes? Plainly put, it was an unmitigated disaster and a genocide. They used to control the whole continent (but divided between various tribes of course, that sometimes didn't get along); now their numbers are puny and they're corralled in some shitty reservations.

In 1776, the population of the United States was mostly British. Most of the population of the United States today is descended from non-British European immigrants. But they didn't wipe out the existing British population – they just assimilated into it. The genocide of indigenous people was not a consequence of "immigration," it was a consequence of conquest. I'm against immigrants waging war against and driving out existing populations of the countries they come to, but that is not what is being discussed.

> Within a country, it's easy: people have criminal records, and can't just skip town and go to the next town and assume a new identity. (Centuries ago, however, they did.) Between countries, it's not so easy: countries don't share their criminal data that easily.

Ok, so then countries should work to start sharing criminal records and then they can have open borders, right?

> That's why we have passports: it's an identification document that shows the destination country that the person is not a criminal and is allowed to travel

A passport effectively only allows you to travel if you come from a rich country. If you come from a poor country, you need to apply for a visa. But in either case, you still need to go through a controlled border, and you're only allowed in the country for a limited time. If the concern is really about letting in criminals, and a passport or visa alleviates that, why is it so limited? And why aren't countries working to share criminal records so they don't have to do this song and dance? Hint: it's not really about crime.

> Why is that cruel? If 100M people suddenly decided to move into Andorra, how exactly do you think the country is going to pay for social services for them?

Andorra is part of the Schengen Area – there's no reason why they would all stick around in Andorra. If 100 million people came into the Schengen Area, they would get jobs and pay taxes to fund social services just like everyone else. But you ignored my main point – if you're convinced that immigrants will consume more social services than they pay taxes, why not just let them in but make them ineligible for social services? It's not really about social services either.

The reason that first-worlders don't want third-worlders coming to their countries is because (a) they don't like their skin color, (b) they don't like their culture, and (c) they'd rather have people live in extreme poverty far away than in a reduced level of poverty where they can see it, the same reason they're against building affordable housing in their own neighborhoods. When Western countries started implementing immigration controls, they were very open about this, but since the 1960s it's become fashionable for them to pretend otherwise.

Now, you might object: if that's the reason, why don't all the rich Western countries have open borders with each other? I mean, most of them do (Schengen), but still, why doesn't the USA have open borders with Canada? And the answer is: there's no reason at all. I can't think of any argument against open borders with Canada. The only reason it's not the case is because if all the white countries had open borders with each other, they wouldn't be able to lie about the reason anymore.

[Shaanie]

Or you know, D) they'd rather keep their own quality of life than significantly reduce it. They wouldn't be able to keep their mostly crime-free, large safety net high trust society with open borders, it's just not possible. There's already significant struggles in some European countries due to refugee immigration, and that's with fairly strict borders. It's a bit absurd that you're phrasing it as if the only sacrifice would be seeing poor people tbh.

But yes, the core reason is obviously selfish, but also understandable.

[ShrigmaMale]

i do not trust foreigners and their governments with my information. i don't even trust our own government, but we can at least not hand that over to others.

most of the people entering America right now are not doing so under passports or visas.

and actually i have no problem with opening up immigration contingent on ineligibility for all social services. that way, people will be forced to leave if there is no work and can easily come if there are open jobs.

that said, i think practically this would harm our quality of life. our cities are already breaking. look at how poorly the yankees handled the few thousand illegals we shipped to their "sanctuary cities".