Tag Archives: open borders

International news

Open borders? Really?

When I hear and read the term “open borders,” I conjure up a definition of, well, totally open borders.

They are borders without guards carrying weapons, without any surveillance, without any restrictions for those seeking to cross them.

Yet the political climate has been poisoned by rhetoric that alleges Democrats across our country favor “open borders.” The Republican demagogue in chief, Donald Trump, is leading the chants against Democratic Party loyalists, contending they favor no restrictions on immigration.

So help me, I haven’t heard a serious politician say anything approaching what Trump and other demagogues are suggesting. They aren’t saying that we take down the Border Patrol stations, letting anyone walk into this country unrestricted.

What these so-called “open border” proponents are saying is they don’t want to build a wall along our nation’s 2,000-mile southern border. They contend it is too expensive, too unwieldy, too fraught with legal difficulty as the government seeks to condemn private land.

They aren’t favoring “open borders.” I am one who opposes the wall but supports strengthening border security using lots measures available to us: more Border Patrol personnel, more drone aircraft, greater surveillance technology, more support for state and local law enforcement agencies, rapid deportation policies.

Open borders? That’s the stuff of demagogues.

local news, State news

‘Open borders’: the stuff of demagogues

I am weary in the extreme of Donald John “Demagogue in Chief” Trump’s assertion that opposition to building a wall along our nation’s southern border means a favoring of “open borders.”

Trump wants to build that damn wall. Others don’t want it. I am one who opposes the wall. The nation is full of politicians who oppose construction of a wall, too.

Trump said initially Mexico would pay for it. Mexico responded, um, no we won’t. Now the president wants to stick U.S. taxpayers with the bill.

He’s planning to come to Texas soon to campaign for “Lyin’ Ted” Cruz (which is Trump’s one-time epithet for the Republican U.S. senator). Cruz favors the wall. His Democratic foe, Beto O’Rourke, opposes it. Trump will declare at some undisclosed political rally location that O’Rourke favors “open borders.” He’ll draw cheers, whoops and hollering from the crowd.

It’s a lie. Donald Trump knows it’s a lie, but he’ll say it time and again anyway.

I have grown weary of the demagoguery that keeps flowing from the president’s pie hole. This “open borders” canard is just one statement that I cannot let stand.

For the record, I favor stronger border security measures along our borders — south and north. I mean, if we’re going to insist on cracking down on illegal immigrants who try to sneak in along our southern border, then let’s devote more emphasis and energy along our northern border with Canada.

Walling off this nation from a neighbor with whom we share a 2,000-mile-long border is utterly un-American on its face. That doesn’t bother Trump, who took office without an understanding at any level of what this nation has stood for since its creation in the 18th century.

Does any reasonable American favor an “open border” where we don’t enforce immigration laws? Of course not!

Yet that doesn’t stop the demagogue who sits behind the big desk in the Oval Office from uttering the disgraceful rhetoric that suggests otherwise.

I grew sick of it long ago.

International news

Open borders? How does the EU survive with them?

A social media friend of mine made an interesting point about an editorial that appeared in today’s Amarillo (Texas) Globe-News; thus, I won’t take credit for this observation, but merely want to flesh it out just a bit.

He said the editorial, which commented on the heated national discussion about separating children from their parents who seek illegal entry into the United States, brought up the “open border” canard that conservatives often cite when seeking stricter immigration policies.

My friend writes, in part: Open borders are in use in several countries of the EU, where citizens of one country can freely enter another country.

We don’t have an “open border” with Mexico or Canada these days; 9/11 ended that policy.

But as my friend noted, the European Union does have open borders between several of its member nations.

In September 2016, my wife and I traveled to Germany. We spent several days in Nuremberg visiting friends. We had planned to take the train to Amsterdam, The Netherlands, to visit more friends.

We purchased our train tickets in Nuremberg, boarded the train and rode for six hours to Amsterdam. We crossed from one EU country into another. We got off the train, met our friend, who then took his to his home, where we spent a few days visiting him and his wife and small daughter.

When our trip to The Netherlands ended, we went back to the train station in Amsterdam, boarded the train and went back to Nuremberg. Our return trip had a slightly different wrinkle: We changed trains in Hannover, Germany to connect to Nuremberg.

At no point did anyone in authority — German or Dutch — ask for our passports; no one asked us a single question about why we were traveling aboard the train; no one inquired about our nationality.

Do we want that kind of openness between the United States and the two nations that border us north and south? No. But this hysteria we’re hearing about “open borders” — particularly where it concerns our southern boundary — should remind us that our borders are not nearly as open as they are in much of Europe.