The Eternal Problem of Borders
A house needs walls, but also doors
Without borders, a nation cannot end or begin.
When citizenship is difficult to define, and laws are hard to enforce, authority may vanish. Borders are akin to personal boundaries, but on a societal scale. Once they are removed, a country can no longer say no in good faith.
Simultaneously, it is unwise to enforce rigid borders. Many things abroad may enrich your nation, and it is foolish to shut everything out.
So where should the line be drawn?
Countries need borders
They are preconditions to their existence. Well-adjusted individuals keep boundaries. Well-adjusted nations keep borders.
The function of both is to preserve integrity against intruders.
Without borders, this is left vulnerable. Jurisdiction (and therefore accountability) becomes unclear. Then, governance itself weakens.
A country that wishes to preserve itself would be wise to draw borders.
They draw the essential line between inside and outside
This determines who is subject to the law and who is not. That is necessary for law (and citizenship) to exist. Without it, legal responsibility cannot be allocated.
To govern, governments must determine who their citizens are.
Good borders do not bar all things from entering.
They just regulate the process. Good governments filter the outflow of people, goods, and capital to ensure it serves the country. This promotes viability.
Regulated borders are not just a source of stability, but a growth tool.
A permeable border can be desirable.
Productive newcomers may be great assets. But only if the integrity of the country is maintained. This requires screening.
Are these people coming to contribute or exploit? That is the intuitive question underneath the border debate.
And it is not always easy to discern.
It begins with the legal process. Illegal entry is triggering because it implies newcomers are unwilling to submit to the laws of the land. Although many illegal aliens integrate well, if the first thing your new countryman does is break the law, it does seem he failed the first test.
There are other qualifiers, however. Lawful conduct is important, but productive capacity and cultural alignment also increase the likelihood of being welcome.
Still, the state can only infer so much from these signals.
The predicament is somewhat similar to deciding who to let into your home.
Those who enter illegally are simply breaking in. They demonstrate a disregard for authority. That implies a risk.
Legal entry is different. It is more like a knock on the door.
The latter respects the consent of the host; the former does not.
Compassion is key.
But it should always be bound by capacity.
If human beings have an obligation to help others in need, then so do the states they build. There is a limit to this duty, however. Great or small, any state has a bandwidth for hosting outsiders, and it cannot exceed it.
Individual human beings best serve others from a position of strength. The same is true for governments.
Both must find a balance between altruism and self-preservation.
Those in need should be sheltered. But the shelter itself must continue to exist. To the interest of newcomers, the security of the host nation must be guaranteed.
That requires borders.
There is a tragic element to this whole theme.
Individuals must tend to their own survival before they help others. Nations must do the same, or risk collapse. It is a moral quandary, but a fact of life.
This is why migration leads to such heated debate.
But borders do not subdue compassion.
They enable its perseverance. Without them, helping foreigners would be impossible. A house with no walls cannot serve as a shelter.
The true question is not whether there should be a border, but what should come and go through it. And that is an issue of circumstance.
The saint should be welcomed; the villain averted - that is the eternal predicament.