Borders versus the Boarders

These days we regularly hear about the porous nature of our southern border.  Far more so than in history and the reasons are fairly simple to understand, but before we talk about them we should consider some of that history.  I know, I know, no one likes to consider what was as we talk about what is, but bear with me on this.

When we became a nation, we had the British colony of Canada to the north, one really big ocean (and the Gulf of Mexico) and a whole lot of land to the west filled with the natives we had not yet met or displaced.  True – there were a bunch of French guys running around trading with the natives and France and Spain kept swapping the land back and forth, but it was mostly empty so it wasn’t that big a deal for a nation trying to figure out what being a nation meant.

Then we began to expand, and Tommy J heard Napoleon wanted some cash to invade England and was looking to sell off the land he’d just gotten back from Spain.  Tommy J saw this as a win-win, so for the bargain basement price of around 5.5 cents a square mile we got land that formed most of what are now 13 states.  Of course, no one asked the natives how they felt about this, but that is another story.  At the end of the day we still had the pesky British to the north, an ocean to the east and south, only now the land to the west was claimed by Spain.

At the time the only people migrating anywhere was us.  By us I mean the U.S.  We were welcoming people arriving by boat from Europe, still had people arriving from Africa (although not voluntarily), and had large families seeking new lands for their homesteads so we began to push west.  At the time the only people concerned with immigration were the British and Spanish as they tried to keep us from invading their holdings in North America.  Interestingly we fought additional wars with both of them over this whole manifest destiny and U.S. rights thing.  First the British in 1812, and then Mexico in 1846.  (Of course, Texas had its own war with Mexico, but that too is another story.)  After the Mexico thing, we got to thinking about actually defining our borders, so we and everyone else (except the native Americans) finally settled on them by 1850.  (I know there were interim agreements along the way, but it wasn’t until after the Mexican-American war that we actually sat down with the English to sort out the northern border all the way to the Pacific.)

Since we had all this land, not so many people, and the government didn’t give too much thought about drugs and whiskey (other than for tax purposes), the whole idea of border security was pretty much confined to the folks along the border.  Once we got that whole thing with the 49^th parallel sorted out we didn’t worry too much about the British (Canadians), and except for the Rio Grande occasionally shifting its path the Mexico thing was pretty stable as well.  Then we had a civil war and the issues of border security raised its ugly head as we in the North tried to make sure the South didn’t get any outside help.  “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” came from one of those efforts as Davy Farragut attempted to close down the port of Mobile, Alabama.

After the war, we all pretty well agreed on the idea that while borders were important, ours were pretty safe since it didn’t look like either the Canadians or Mexicans were all the anxious to invade us.  We put some big guns up along the coast just in case the pesky Europeans got some idea we were easy, but we controlled the European and Asian immigration through the major seaports of the east and west coasts.  This seemed to work pretty well for the next hundred years or so and then air travel came around and we had to add a bunch of immigration control to the major airports.  But the borders with Canada and Mexico remained pretty much as it had been with entry points every so often and agents mostly looking for contraband going in both directions. 

As an aside, Prohibition had pointed out the porous nature of our borders, but when we repealed the amendment we went back to everything was okay.  Both the Democrats and the Republicans pretty much agreed “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” or “we have better things to do.”

Then we declared a war on drugs and all the unlearned lessons of Prohibition and smuggling came back into play.  Along the way, slavery made a reappearance primarily in the sex trade, but also in some other areas like housekeeping for the rich people in the big cities.  With each new revelation, Congress did what it does and threw money at the problem, trying to figure out how to keep up with the entrepreneurs who were making millions in moving people and drugs from South America to meet the demands in North America.

One day fairly recently, the Democrats and their party looked around and noticed their historical base was disappearing as they moved further and further left in their socio-economic positions.  This meant they had to either change those positions or find a new base.  They’ve chosen to find a new base – people who’ve come to this country without following the legal process.  Republican’s call these people illegal aliens.  Democrats call them unregistered voters.  This fall it will be interesting to see what the majority of voters call them.

President Trump came into the 2016 election playing to the economic concerns of the average middle-class voter, promising to improve the economy, restore pride in the country, and build a wall to stem the migration of people from South and Central America.  So far, he’s done a pretty reasonable job of improving the economy, the pride question is still up for debate since ½ the country seems to be deranged in their hatred of him as a human being let alone as President, and the wall remains on his to-do list.

For what it’s worth -- I think building a wall will do next to nothing to stop the migration of people from the South.  The only way that happens is if the economic picture for Central America and Mexico improves so there are fewer reasons for the people to leave.  That, unfortunately, is a problem we can’t fix, and it doesn’t seem the authorities in the affected countries are all that eager to change the status quo.

So, for the foreseeable future, we will get millions of new boarders here in the land of opportunity.  If the democratic party gets its way they will all vote.  The question is will they vote democratic, or will they see other options as providing a better chance of improving their economic prospects?