Borders and walls are artificial constructs created primarily as control systems for the population within them, rather than, as is popularly suggested to protect said population from without. Think about it for a second.
Who makes borders? Governments.
Where do governments get their economic ability to create force and restrict freedom? From collecting taxes.
Where do taxes come from? They come from the people who live inside the borders of a territory. Borders are nothing less than a system that allows for the use or threat of force against a population in order to extract a tax from that population – which is then used to beef up (secure borders), create regulations, and extract further tax in the form of tariffs, restrictions on migration, and – in general – population control.
Your first reaction might well be that the above is ridiculous – but give it a moment. It will become clear.
But what about protecting us from terrorists? Terrorists don’t recognize borders and the ones most likely to kill you already live within twenty miles of where you live. Statistically, your chances of being killed by a terrorist are close to zero – not because of borders, but because in all reality , you are not a person or in a place that fits a terrorist target. If you are killed by a terrorist, you will likely be killed by a terrorist who shares the same nationality as you. In the unlikely event that a foreign terrorist kills you, it is most likely that they will enter your country legally and the borders will not stop them. The 911 terrorists were all allowed to cross the border legally. They were all in the U.S. legally. Stricter borders would not have stopped them.
But what about protecting our jobs? Do you work in migrant agriculture? Are you a nanny or maid? In general, migrants take the jobs that you don’t want to do. If you want to be an apple picker, no one is stopping you. There is plenty of demand. The pay is terrible and the work is hard. It’s not at all likely that a migrant is going to take your job as an investment banker, a trucker, a teacher, a cop, or a barista. If they do, they probably navigated the immigration system to come here legally and then overcame the xenophobia present in most U.S. companies to get the job, which – frankly, shows that you were probably pretty bad at your job.
But….borders protect us from invasion, right? No. There are no armies waiting to march into your country unless you live in the Middle East or the former Soviet Union. Diplomacy and guns stop armies from invasion. Borders are to control citizens.
So, if borders don’t stop terrorists, don’t protect jobs, don’t protect from invasion – what are they for? They are for drawing circles around people and saying “These people belong to me (as a country) and I reserve the right to take a percentage of all of their labor, charge them a percentage on all they spend, and charge a duty (tariff) on any goods coming into this territory (thus driving up the price and increasing the sales tax at the same time). Borders are tax control systems. That is all they are.
They are the among the most inhumane, unnatural, and offensive inventions of humankind.