At a minimum I demand we all be as free to move around the world as the products, money and material that our labor creates.
this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2026
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I lived in Germany for a couple years, about 30 minutes from the French border. Every once in a while, my wife and I would cross the border to buy some French wines.
The border didn't even stop us. There were buildings off to one side, but the highway was wide open, no barriers or checkpoints or anything. Didn't even need to slow down. It was like crossing state lines in the US.
America is so used to being isolated from the rest of the world, with oceans on either side, that we make a big deal about the two countries that actually touch our border. I feel it just exacerbates our fear of foreign threats, because we're not 100% secure on all sides.
And of course, a lot of Canadians mostly look and sound like white Americans, so we don't think twice about them, but Mexicans look and sound different, so it's easy to rile people up about the "invading foreign culture" that will "destroy America." It's dumb racist gaslighting, but it's sadly effective against Americans who have never left the country or lived anywhere near either of our borders. Which is most of the population.
And of course, a lot of Canadians mostly look and sound like white Americans, so we don’t think twice about them, but Mexicans look and sound different, so it’s easy to rile people up about the “invading foreign culture” that will “destroy America.”
The echo of America's original sin still dwells in the heart of every American. Deep down, there's some primal fear that what we did to others will be done to us.
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The EU trade/travel model was a good one, even if the ECB is a moral abomination.
it’s baffling to me how the idea that "being born here does not make me entitled to services more than someone who wasn’t born here" is controversial among "leftists"
we all need food, we all need housing… why should it matter that my birth coordinates happen to be within an arbitrary drawing on the map ffs
is controversial among “leftists”
I haven't noticed any leftists who consider that idea controversial. Mostly just Liberals/Democrats
Many state communists oppose open borders. The USSR, China, and Cuba all had/have citizenship privileges and controlled migration, and generally people that support those governments are also called "leftist".
The same goes for many social democrats and socialist reformists. Even unionists often oppose migration because migrants are imported by the capitalist order to use as scabs (see "guest workers" in 1970s West Germany).
All basically want a walled garden in which leftist ways of living can flourish, usually with the idea to export them later.
But especially in activist and discourse spaces, people tend to be in a pretty narrow band from pop liberalism to anarchocommunism. Socialists, socdems, and unionists tend to be busy with their job, because that is what their praxis calls for. And state communists tend to walk away exasperated when people condemn genocide.
But anarchocommunist praxis is for a large part prefigurative sharing of information, ideas, and tentative structures. So we're relatively loud and as unemployed as we can get away with.
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Easiest way to get rid of undocumented immigrants is to grant them all citizenship. Problem solved.
Bada bing bada boom
Rather than the "Easiest way", how about a good way...
How about we make a nice world to bring folks to. Y'know... end manufactured scarcity, stop using people as pawns on the grand chessboard, stop conjuring precarity to cull and terrorise people by, and so on. Y'know? How about have a neat world for kids to come to? ... no more economic migrants under duress... Everybody happy.
"Let's figure out this food/air deal, OK? 'K. I'm just weird, you know? How about have a neat world for kids to come to?" ~Bill Hicks
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Having a sub class of folks who are not citizens is definitely a problem. We need immigration reform. Having illegal immigrants who are willing to work for less than minimum wage is definitely a problem.
Even Bernie has said as much.
With immigration reform we can set the path for these folks to get citizenship which will raise wages for everyone.
I have zero faith in congress’ ability to do this though.
ICE definitely needs to be abolished. Open borders is probably a bad starting point though… but I like that idea more than having ICE.
The fact that immigration is even a thing here makes me chuckle. We literally killed the people who lived here, planned a flag and said that's ours now. It's such a laughably ridiculous concept. Every one of us here is a descendants of immigrants who came here looking for a better life.
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I have zero faith in congress’ ability to do this though.
This is the crux of the problem. Nobody has faith in Congress' ability to do anything.
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The convenient thing is that "Abolish ICE" is valid whether you want closed borders, open borders, or no borders.
The main predecessor to ICE was Immigration and Naturalization Service. Notice the difference in tone between Service and Enforcement? But even if you don't don't support immigration, ICE has morphed into a paramilitary secret police to do Trump's bidding and has been attacking and deporting natural born citizens. If you only oppose "illegal" immigration, ICE has been targeting and deporting deporting people with all their paperwork in order.
Literally the only two reasons to support keeping ICE is that you support fascism and/or White Supremacy
Morphed? It was established to be a redundant paramilitary organization with less oversight and more jingoist blind loyalty than its predecessor or law enforcement in general. That it could be turned directly against Americans was an original design specification.
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I vote for no borders.
Trump agrees. That's why he "arrested" Maduro for breaking a US law
Monkey's Paw.
We should have open borders. The only thing needed to get in should be a background check. But anyone who hasn't committed violent crimes should be able to live and work in the country.
No. I'm not worried about being swamped by a flood of people from poorer countries. Why? Because no one wants to leave their family and entire home behind just to move to a wealthy country to live on the street as a homeless person. We will only ever attract as many immigrants as there are jobs to support them.
Of course, I would want reciprocity. I would support signing mutual open border agreements with poorer countries. They can send workers in need of work here. We can send retirees in need of low cost of living places there. The flow in both directions is kept in check by market forces, the same way we regulate the production of every good and service in our economies.
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I wasn't saying open borders before, but I am now. Picking primary candidates who support it too. We need the EU model. Fuck whatever broken system we have now.
European here. You do realize that the EU is still quite picky about who gets in, right?
Within the EU itself it's very easy to move around, I can drive through several countries without seeing a single border checkpoint. Actually getting into the EU if you're from a "less desirable" nation? I hear it's not all that easy.
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The EU is notorious for its brutal and heavy-handed immigration enforcement. This is one rare case where the answer is in the past; America didn't even have laws restricting immigration for about a hundred years.
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Don't let perfection be the enemy of progress. We can move toward inevitable or destructive. I choose logically-forward, personally. Doesn't matter my personal opinions
The moderate position is stop giving money to the gestapo. The people who want to give them money do not represent progress.
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I don't want open borders, I want abolished borders, big difference.
I don't give a rats ass who comes over the border. But we do need customs enforcement if for no other reason then to staunch the flow of illegal firearms into Mexico and Canada. Having said that I trust no one in ICE right now to do that (also they aren't).
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WORLDWIDE SCHENGEN 🥺👉👈
The US immigration "policy" is just as stupid as it is inhumane. At this point it's easier to imagine it being orchestrated by rivals that think long term, rather than being just from the ever-present conservative hate and ignorance.
Our economy is built with an infinite growth mindset, moreso than most. ALL developed nations are seeing population growth slow down and even reverse -- that's just what happens when populations get educated and wealthy.
So what are we doing? Violently kicking out tons of lower paid workers while also scaring away some of the most highly educated and specialized Ph.Ds.
But hey, at least we're consistent and also make conditions horrible for natural born citizens to raise USian children!
The leeches are not the immigrants, unless they happen to be an oligarch immigrant like Elon.
Yes, Open borders is the desirable outcome. The fact that people were saying they don't want open borders shows they're a lib and therefore not a real leftist.
It is not immigrants who are the cause of any problems in America, it is the right-fascists and oligarchs who shit this garbage out their mouths.
The counter to right-wing extremism isn't right-wing liberalism, it is real leftism, the thing they are trying to dismiss.
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