Abolish the U.S.-Mexican border? Practical in this day and age?

[CynicalIdealist]

Hey Revleft.

I think borders are incredibly stupid things. With that said, I don't know what to tell people when I debate immigration with them when discussing my views of the U.S.-Mexican border. I want to just say, "To hell with the border," but I recognize the fact that merely making the transition to a no border policy will create an extreme influx of Mexicans coming to the United States, thereby depopulating Mexico.

But then again, the idea that "more people=worse for the economy" is a myth, right? Do states just draw borders to protect capitalist profits?

Help me reason with anti-immigrant bigots comrades.

[Veg_Athei_Socialist]

I can understand your frustration. When ever discussing it in my social studies class I just wanna say "Fuck The Border!" and proceed to the next topic.

The only possible reasons I could ever think of why the US would have a border are because of racism and to protect profits. Since the US has a minimum wage, that means the capitalists have to pay that many workers a certain amount of pay. If there wasn't a border and workers could flood into the country to claim jobs the capitalists would have to pay even more workers that minimum wage amount of money and they would lose profits.

In communism anyone could get a job. Jobs would be given according to need and not to a limited amount of people so the capitalists can profit.

[Dimentio]

I can understand your frustration. When ever discussing it in my social studies class I just wanna say "Fuck The Border!" and proceed to the next topic.

The only possible reasons I could ever think of why the US would have a border are because of racism and to protect profits. Since the US has a minimum wage, that means the capitalists have to pay that many workers a certain amount of pay. If there wasn't a border and workers could flood into the country to claim jobs the capitalists would have to pay even more workers that minimum wage amount of money and they would lose profits.

In communism anyone could get a job. Jobs would be given according to need and not to a limited amount of people so the capitalists can profit.

Under capitalism, neither the capitalists nor the state have an obligation to keep people employed.

[Luís Henrique]

The only way the US-Mexico border could be abolished now would be if Mexico was integrated as the 51st state. This would of course liberate the flow of Mexican workers towards the North, but I doubt it very much it would mean that they would be better paid.

Needless to say, the annexation of Mexico would create hundreds of other problems, and would be seen as an act of expansionism.

Perhaps what you are asking about is not the "abolition of the border", but the abolition of immigration controls? That would be much easier to argue for. If so, ask those who oppose it why is it that American capital is free to enter Mexico (and if Mexico dared to put limits to such flow it would be an international scandal) but Mexican workers aren't allowed to freely enter the United States. Or, if you prefer sarcasm, tell them that Mexico should do like Cuba, and forbid emigration - this way the United States would probably make a point that Mexicans should be free to emigrate, and consider those who cross the border freedom fighters...

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Under capitalism, neither the capitalists nor the state have an obligation to keep people employed.

Well, this depends on whether you define the Soviet Union as "state capitalism", isn't it?

Luís Henrique

[Dimentio]

Well, this depends on whether you define the Soviet Union as "state capitalism", isn't it?

Luís Henrique

I define it as an industrial palace economy.

[hatzel]

Let's remember that NAFTA alone was enough to raise a few eyebrows in Mexico. I wonder if the Mexican people would want to further strengthen the relationship between Mexico and America. I mean, if the border were to be opened between the two countries, we could expect the US to dramatically increase its involvement in Mexican affairs. Much like we see in the EU today, where the poorer countries in Eastern Europe are effectively under the thumb of the Germans, French and British. Not least because the free trade and open border arrangements mean that those in Western Europe actually have an active interest in which companies are going to be allowed to set themselves up in Romania, and, to bring it to this discussion, which people would be given citizenship. Because, of course, somebody with Romanian citizenship can freely travel to and work in Germany or France, or anywhere else, so these richer states will strive to level everything out, and make sure that Romania only allows 'approved' business to establish themselves, and make sure that the immigration controls are the same. Opening the border between Mexico and America would presumably result in America imposing its immigration policy on the Mexicans, amongst other things. Whilst there ae benefits on the American side when it comes to saving money spent on controlling the border so intently, perhaps eventually even leading to a border like that between the US and Canada, it's easy to see how there could be some issues coming up when it comes to Mexican autonomy, which has already been somewhat reduced with the NAFTA agreement. Whilst such agreements may work between states on a relatively level pegging, like the US and Canada, introducing a clearly less developed state, like Mexico, and having entirely open borders for both people and trade, is just inviting abuse...in my humble opinion...

[Luís Henrique]

I define it as an industrial palace economy.

Well, then I suppose an industrial palace economy is not a capitalist economy. What is it, a kind of socialism, or a third, different kind of society, neither capitalist nor socialist?

Luís Henrique

[FreeFocus]

Under the current arrangement, you have the free flow of capital and goods (NAFTA), which ended up destroying the means of subsistence for the poorest Mexicans, but not the free flow of people - immigration controls. I don't think I support abolishing this particular border more than any others and I don't think Mexico should be incorporated into the US (a dream of earlier American imperialists, actually). I would just point out to people that borders are illogical socioeconomic constructions to divide people. You don't see these arbitrary borders that are drawn on maps on pictures of Earth from space (unless extremists start building walls, of course).

[scarletghoul]

Needless to say, the annexation of Mexico would create hundreds of other problems, and would be seen as an act of expansionism.you mean the annexation of the rest of Mexico

[gorillafuck]

you mean the annexation of the rest of Mexico
He means the annexation of modern Mexico.

The territories gained during the Mexican American war aren't Mexico anymore, even though they used to be. To say that they are Mexico is playing to Mexican nationalism.

[Os Cangaceiros]

He means the annexation of modern Mexico.

The territories gained during the Mexican American war aren't Mexico anymore, even though they used to be. To say that they are Mexico is playing to Mexican nationalism.

Yeah.

I mean, the annexation of Mexico's territory to the north during the Mexican American War was prefaced by an illegal border crossing into disputed territory by U.S. soldiers, and was obviously an act of naked expansionism/imperialism, but that doesn't really change the fact that Mexico itself was a settler state with a very strong racial hierarchy even after it's independence...that land never really was rightfully Mexico's to begin with. If you want a good idea of how Mexico treated the people who probably have the best claim to the land, look into the Mayan insurrections in the country.

[syndicat]

there is actually some elite committee in the U.S. that is thinking in terms of an open border. they fear that the WTO will drive down the U.S. economy eventually, and that it will be necessary to build a tariff wall around the NAFTA countries...Mexico, Canada, USA. their proposal would be for a customs union, like the former European Community. the EU currently has open borders between its member states. a customs union would work best with a common currency, like the euro in the EU.

the important point at present is to understand why there has been a large wave of migration from Mexico to the U.S. this happened due to the destructive effects of neo-liberal reforms, even before NAFTA, but especially since. the dumping of low price corn into Mexico has driven hundreds of thousands of farmers off the land. also, many jobs in Mexican industry were lost, and the maquila industries along the border pay lower than standard Mexican industrial wages, and are protected by corrupt thug unions and government intervention against independent unions.
so reforms that benefitted only the wealthy elite on both sides of the border have been very destructive to the Mexican economy and driven huge numbers of people from Mexico to cross the border in search of work. If the U.S. & Mexico are allowing free flow of capital, why not free flow of labor?

[Magón]

Man, there's some bad information floating around this thread. And I can see it squarely in the OP's post first.

Though it may surprise some of you, or all of you, I don't know, but a lot of Mexican "illegal aliens" do not haul their whole family up here from Mexico, nor do they think to most of the time. In actuality, most Mexicans who come up to the US for work, only seek out the work, and are quite happy where they live in Mexico. It's just that in Mexico, the jobs are either A) Work for shit; or B) Work for some drug cartel in the north. So most workers choose A, and since A is not something that's beneficial to Mexicans in their country, they choose A as in the US of A.

If you got rid of the border, sure you might see a large number of Mexicans come flooding into the US States, maybe, but it wouldn't be as drastic of a number, (which would probably be over looked by media outlets, etc.) as the number of Mexicans who actually choose to stay in Mexico and live their lives there. The mothers and/or fathers might come to the US for work, but their children would likely stay in Mexico, in their nice little homes. (If you haven't actually been in a Mexican home, in Mexico, they're actually a lot tidier and nice looking there, than the media or others would otherwise say.)

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think the best way to argue about the border is to expose the "priorities of the border". The border doesn't exist in the abstract, treating all things equally like some "out of bounds" line in a game - money and jobs can cross freely and even keep the laws of their home nation to trump the laws of other nations while at the same time the border is used by governments to control populations. On top of that, border enforcement is different for different groups of people (and at different historical periods) - migrants brought in by companies directly are ok, certain Europeans from Ireland or Eastern Europe are allowed in the US (at least now they are), but most Latinos and most Asians have more hoops to jump and have to prove that they are well-off and skilled in order to work in the US.

So the border is really only a political entity but in most mainstream discourse it is treated as this magical ideal entity. "What part of "illegal" don't you understand" scream the bigots - themselves not knowing that there is no law against stepping across this invisible line, the law is against working without the proper legal papers. So pointing out what the priories of the border are: freedom of money and profits to move on the one hand and restrictions for populations movements on the other takes the debate back into real territory where maybe you can score some points with people you are arguing with.

However, I think "abolish the border" is a much more long-term demand than an actual short-term reform because really it would require an end to nation-states as political entities organized by minority ruling classes and that would take a working class revolution IMO. "Abolish the border" is a useful slogan for propaganda and when you want to counter really absurd claims and slogans from anti-immigrant bigots (because that slogan is the ideological equivalent of throwing napalm on those nuts), but I think I agree that "end immigration restrictions" or "no one is illegal" is a much more useful short-term reform/slogan because it allows us to focus on the immediate issues that can be organized around (neo-liberal trade-agreements, worker's rights and the "juan-crowing" of migrant - particularly Latino - workers, etc). If we can build movements against unjust trade agreements or immigration restrictions, then the larger ideological issues of the border will come out naturally as non-radicals grapple with the questions that we, as radicals, have the answers to.

On a side note, the idea that Mexican workers are just waiting for the chance to get into the US, and only being stopped by the border laws is ridiculous. It the same argument used to justify police and counter-terrorism: "don't like crime, eh well just think how bad it would be if there were no cops - you'd be murdered and raped 4 times a day!":lol:. Really cops don't physically prevent or stop 99.9% of illegal crimes - they only respond to them. It's the same with the border - militarizing the border only helps people who exploit migrant labor, and pushes populations to other places. So border or no, people would only come here for jobs anyway and the fact that immigrant rates have gone down lately has everything to do with 20% unemployment, a poor US economy, collapse of construction labor opportunities (an industry that generally relied on contractors hiring undocumented workers) and little to nothing to do with troops and that idiotic wall at the border.