Open borders will endanger citizens' safety

The argument

This argument holds that advocates of open borders cannot set aside the security consequences of removing controls, and it makes two claims: that the flows involved are associated with higher crime, and that the routes involved have been used by terrorists. On crime, the figures offered are that in 2018 undocumented immigrants made up 26% of the federal prison population in the United States. The Swedish case is presented with a demographic qualification built in: migrants there do tend to commit more criminal activity, but the argument attributes this to the fact that these migrants are young and male rather than to anything about their origin. That qualification does not soften the conclusion, because the demography is itself a feature of the flow. According to Pew Research Center in 2016, 73% of migrants to Europe are young males — the group the argument identifies as driving the higher crime figures. Open borders would make it easier for young male immigrants to enter, and so, the argument runs, would raise crime and endanger the citizens already living there. On terrorism, the claim is that terrorists take advantage of refugee and asylum-seeker flows into European countries. In November 2015, terrorists linked to Islamic State killed 130 people and injured 368 across Paris, and those attackers were able to conceal themselves along the migrant routes running between Syria and Europe. The point being drawn is about concealment: on this account the movement of people along those routes provided cover the attackers could not otherwise have had. Since open borders would make such routes easier to cross, the argument concludes that attacks of this kind would become more frequent rather than less. Both strands lead to the same place: opening borders would endanger citizens' safety, and so borders should be kept.

Context

Though many people migrate to a new country for better economic opportunities or to escape violence and war, we cannot ignore migrants who are criminals and terrorists seeking to take advantage of wealthier societies or disrupt the countries they migrate to.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Border controls do not necessarily and cannot prevent all national security threats. A vetting process for immigrants, such as a background check, can still exist with open borders. Maintaining a vetting process while lessening immigration restrictions can still help countries prevent national security threats.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The prison figure is misleading in a specific and well-known way. US federal prisons are where immigration offences are prosecuted, so unlawful entry and re-entry inflate the federal share directly; the overwhelming majority of American prisoners are held in state facilities, where the picture is different. Research using state-level data — most extensively in Texas, which records immigration status at arrest — has generally found lower offending rates among undocumented residents than among native-born citizens. The premise also concedes its own defeater in noting that the Swedish pattern tracks age and sex rather than migration. [Rejecting P2] The Paris example does not support the premise. Most of the attackers were French and Belgian nationals who could move freely within the Schengen area as citizens, so border controls on migrants were not the constraint the argument supposes. [Rejecting P3] The counter-argument on record notes that vetting and open movement are not alternatives: background checks, watchlists and intelligence sharing operate independently of whether entry is numerically restricted, and can be maintained alongside a more open regime. [Rejecting C] Border enforcement also does not prevent all threats, as the argument's own example shows — so the comparison it needs is between the marginal security gain and the costs of restriction, which it does not attempt.

Framing

People will take advantage of resources in richer countries if they can, even if it means infringing on those countries' national sovereignty.