Tahmooressi and the Border Issue

The latest battle between political parties and their followers and pundits is the issue of Borders, Securing those borders, Immigration and Amnesty. It has in the past few months become the most visible topic by candidates, commentators and political junkies alike. The story of ex-US Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi has reignited this issue and has left myself with more than enough questions to the idea of borders and the sincerity of either political party and their adherents to the motives of their stances. The idea of borders, definable lines arbitrarily drawn on maps and fought over, has consumed the airwaves.

As always, the issue is made to be seen as only two options. Pro Immigration and Anti Immigration or Pro-Amnesty and Anti-Amnesty. The first option is to allow amnesty to persons already in the country "illegally" and the second is to continue deportation and criminal charges against those living in the United States borders without having gone through the immigration process, the "legal" way as they call it. The line these two beliefs draws is apparent and approachable by yet other paths. The history of immigration into the United States is riddled with laws, regulation, restrictions, hate, fear, death and hypocrisy. Beginning the Idea of America on the act of Immigration, Genocide and Conquest doesn't lend well to the history of immigration into this country and the resulting years and decades since the first Illegal Alien stepped foot on American soil. If we were to respect borders of any countries our military armaments would rust and its soldiers be taken back to private employment. If one reduces this issue down to its base it is a belief that one person may have say over the movement of another, this is to say that one person holds rule over another, or that any government have the right to restrict travel in any way.

We have seen wars fought over land, deaths in foreign countries in the name of this land and a new breed of bigots and hypocrites arise from the simple act of movement and travel around the globe. The mainstream accepted idea on immigration is to subject other human beings to tests and health restrictions, to perform up to certain levels, to curtail freedom and to allow themselves to be robbed of wealth in the process. Every year hundreds of people die in an effort to reach "The Most Free and Most Prosperous Country in the World". They die in their attempt to reach a land that promises freedom and prosperity, they die for a lack of freedom to enjoy a better life, they die for a lack of freedom to move about the earth unhindered and uninhibited. The act of Legalized Immigration is an act of barbarity and exclusivity.


To say you believe in the closing of borders, demarcations of land used in exclusion by one government entity, You have not only barred any entering of outside persons but have also confined oneself to the same rule. You have created your own prison.

The economic theory behind the want of closed borders is this. As more and more immigrants come into this country they will, without fail, turn and send these American dollars outside of our borders. In a proper understanding of Economics this isn't seen as a negative as any country that bars it's currency from foreign circulation fails to have that currency to buy products from the foreign markets. If this theory were to hold water, countries would have difficulty acquiring goods from foreign markets for lack of foreign funds. Now one might say to convert these currencies would be the answer and to reduce trade to currency exchanges and money manipulation. There is also the prohibition of allowing workers into trades within a country. Lower skilled workers who enter into a foreign marker make much lower wages, while this is seen on its surface as a negative, is actually a positive. Lower wages equal out to lower costs and in effect lead to lower prices. "Let's look at the problem of immigration from another angle. There exists a market demand for low-skilled cheap labor. Part of this demand is being met by outsourcing of jobs overseas. The rest is met by vast numbers of immigrants coming to this country. Illegal immigration is the market supplying a demand. A demand is being met and satisfied. When viewed this way, how is this a problem? This triumph of the market is not in itself a problem." says Wade A. Mitchell

Now to the Hypocrisy Part.

Ex-US Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi sits in a jail cell in Mexico for this very act, and the hypocrites on every side of the political aisle are in fervor for his release and an escape from the very laws they seek to impose on their own borders. The Marine, who had been visiting friends had supposedly come upon a border crossing station and checkpoint run by the Mexican Federal Government. Tahmooressi alledges to have informed the guards that he had registered weapons in the vehicle and had just made a wrong turn. Enforcing their own laws the border agents arrested Tahmooressi and the ensuing battle over his release has brought a new wave of nationalistic border builders and wall wishers. Whether Tahmooressi had or had not meant to cross into Mexico and whether or not he informed them of his weaponry, the Mexican Border Agents did the job of upholding their national law. This law may not be agreeable to me but it is to those that wish to "secure" the US's borders in the same fashion. It is hypocritical to say that a man from America should be released from custody yet scream and push for the same actions from your own border agents and administration.  This is the real gap in reasoning I see in the issue.

The gap in this is the face of the issue, subjective value and nationalism. Nationalism, to believe that the nation of your residence is befitting a higher status and therefore more rule over any other. The Subjective Value to reduce a mans worth and the worth of all others to the geographical location of their birth. The happenstance of birth in any place of the world  does not predispose one to a higher place in the world or a higher rule over others. It should not be seen as a benefit or hindrance where one is placed on the earth and it should not be restricted or inhibited in any way to any place he wishes to travel.

The issue of borders can best be seen from afar. Space. In the pictures of earth from above there are no borders, there is only earth, all of us together, all of us combined in this experience.