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The United States had no immigration restrictions whatsoever until the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and none besides excluding Chinese until WWI. That was with more or less rapid mass overseas transportation for the last half century or so of that policy - which, if you're an American is likely when most of your family came over. In other words, except for Chinese the United States had a full-bore open borders policy from the first settlers up until only a century ago - counting from the revolution, well over a century of open borders, much of it with transportation technology that enabled mass migration on a scale that has yet to be exceeded today.
I'm sure the restrictionist Americans here are wondering how their country survived such an assault .
As for border control, passport and visa requirements were dropped with the advent of the railroad in the mid 19th century in the entirety of the (for lack of a better term) civilized world, meaning those Western countries west of the backward dictatorships of Russia and Turkey, who still treated law-abiding people that wanted to cross from one jurisdiction into another like prisoners. As recently as the 1900s one could travel from as far west as Nome to as far east as Lviv without being required to present any documents whatsoever.
Oh, yes, and national sovereignty was considered an inviolable fundamental principle of international law according to pretty much everybody at the time; modern notions of supranational bureaucracies and humanitarian warfare were alien to every state's foreign policy, demonstrating that the freedom of travel and the freedom of migration is fully compatible with a (compared to today) very expansive view of national sovereignty. It also demonstrates that international bureaucracies are completely superfluous to freedom of movement and migration; free travel and immigration can be guaranteed without them. Indeed, in the historical record the last time we had free travel and immigration it coexisted with a complete absence of supranational bureaucracies making policy.
In other words, the open borders policy worked brilliantly then, it would work brilliantly today, and it is not only fully compatible with a far more expansive level of national sovereignty than nations enjoy today, it may work better that way.
The United States had no immigration restrictions whatsoever until the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and none besides excluding Chinese until WWI. That was with more or less rapid mass overseas transportation for the last half century or so of that policy - which, if you're an American is likely when most of your family came over. In other words, except for Chinese the United States had a full-bore open borders policy from the first settlers up until only a century ago - counting from the revolution, well over a century of open borders, much of it with transportation technology that enabled mass migration on a scale that has yet to be exceeded today.
I'm sure the restrictionist Americans here are wondering how their country survived such an assault .
As for border control, passport and visa requirements were dropped with the advent of the railroad in the mid 19th century in the entirety of the (for lack of a better term) civilized world, meaning those Western countries west of the backward dictatorships of Russia and Turkey, who still treated law-abiding people that wanted to cross from one jurisdiction into another like prisoners. As recently as the 1900s one could travel from as far west as Nome to as far east as Lviv without being required to present any documents whatsoever.
Oh, yes, and national sovereignty was considered an inviolable fundamental principle of international law according to pretty much everybody at the time; modern notions of supranational bureaucracies and humanitarian warfare were alien to every state's foreign policy, demonstrating that the freedom of travel and the freedom of migration is fully compatible with a (compared to today) very expansive view of national sovereignty. It also demonstrates that international bureaucracies are completely superfluous to freedom of movement and migration; free travel and immigration can be guaranteed without them. Indeed, in the historical record the last time we had free travel and immigration it coexisted with a complete absence of supranational bureaucracies making policy.
In other words, the open borders policy worked brilliantly then, it would work brilliantly today, and it is not only fully compatible with a far more expansive level of national sovereignty than nations enjoy today, it may work better that way.
As to your last paragraph, all I can say is "oh"my". Yeah, let's have open borders for all the terrorists and criminals to go anywhere at will. Let's have a free for all with everyone vying for scarce jobs and resources so we can become a Third World everywhere. It's a race to the bottom with no uniqueness or identities of cultures within countries (since they wouldn't exist anymore) and since there would be no borders distinguishing them. Who's going to govern all of this? Just when you think you have heard it all........
Location: Live:Downtown Phoenix, AZ/Work:Greater Los Angeles, CA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Oldglory
As to your last paragraph, all I can say is "oh"my". Yeah, let's have open borders for all the terrorists and criminals to go anywhere at will. Let's have a free for all with everyone vying for scarce jobs and resources so we can become a Third World everywhere. It's a race to the bottom with no uniqueness or identities of cultures within countries (since they wouldn't exist anymore) and since there would be no borders distinguishing them. Who's going to govern all of this? Just when you think you have heard it all........
Some immigrants do actually create businesses, they aren't all working class
My remark was in response to a poster that wants open borders.
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