Moral Case: Open borders would reduce deaths and suffering

The argument

Proponents of abolishing borders rest this argument on the human cost of the present system rather than on its economics. In 2017, they note, more than 6,000 deaths were officially recorded among people who died in the course of deliberately migrating towards a country other than their country of residence. Because deaths of this kind occur where no authority is reliably counting them, supporters treat the recorded figure as a floor rather than a measurement, and hold that the true number is likely to be considerably higher. The moral weight of the argument comes from the causal claim attached to that figure. On this view these deaths are not an incidental feature of migration itself but a direct product of border regulation. Where the law closes off lawful entry to people who intend to move regardless, it does not remove the movement; it displaces it onto routes chosen precisely because they are unmonitored, and a route that goes unmonitored by border authorities is generally unmonitored for safety as well. The lethality, supporters argue, is manufactured by the regulation rather than inherent in the journey. From those two claims the conclusion is held to follow directly. If the danger of migrating is a function of its illegality, then removing the illegality removes the danger: the same people making the same journeys could arrive through lawful crossings instead of dying on illegal ones. Proponents present this not as a marginal humanitarian adjustment to be traded against other policy aims but as the avoidable loss of thousands of lives a year, a toll that enforcement has not reduced and that only legal passage would end. On that basis they argue the moral case tells decisively against borders and in favour of abolishing them.

Context

Migrants undergo a lot of harship as a result of being forced to enter countries illegally. There are many cases of torture and robbery at the hands of people smugglers, arduous journeys across seas and deserts, abuse at the hands of police and citizens in their host countries amongst many other physical and mental hardships.There are many deaths.

Premises

Counter-arguments

It is also possible that open borders will increase the number of immigrants choosing to relocate, and that the number of crimes committed against them will increase. It is also likely that the people that are committing these crimes will also immigrate to the same countries, and commit crimes there, both against the vulnerable immigrants as well as the vulnerable citizens of origin. It is also possible that policing in the destination country will become over taxed, resulting in ineffective policing, and result in increase death and suffering to both immigrants and the citizens of origin.

Rejecting the premises

The premise contains at least one logical fallacy. People are not forced to immigrate, it is a choice. Open borders will not stop people from abusing vulnerable immigrants.