Serious answers please : why exactly do we have closed borders in the US? ?

Question

My daughter asked me tonight why we don't just let people come to the US without having to make illegal crossings, and I really didn't know what to say. Is it just because we don't collect taxes from those people?

Also, why don't people take the money they pay the coyotes (human smugglers) and apply it to the cost to become a legal citizen?

I am not asking sarcastically - I just don't really know what to tell her.

NO HATEFUL OR RACIST ANSWERS, PLEASE.

The ONLY people here in the US who are NOT illegal immigrants are Native Americans - they didn't give it to us, we took it.

Answer 1

We do not have closed borders, we have controlled borders (at least that's what they tell us.)

Tell your daughter that allowing people to just come and go without checking who is coming, what they are bringing and what they have to offer to the U.S., all the things she likes about America would be gone in a flash.

Also, why don't people take the money they pay the coyotes (human smugglers) and apply it to the cost to become a legal citizen?  That is a very good question I don't have the answers too, but would like to know myself.  My best guess is they don't feel they should have to wait to come to the U.S., it's a sense of entitlement that many have and its rather pathetic.

Answer 2

First, it's for our protection.   Undesirables may come in and hurt our citizens.  We need to monitor who comes in.  Second, it's economic.  If we allow everyone to come in that wants to we would have excess labor, and corporation could mistreat employees m unemployment would rise, and inflation would skyrocket due to shortages like in housing , food and water.   Third, it's a health issue.  If we allow people to come in with out checking for disease , we might encourage and epidemic.  This is aggravated by overpopulation caused by uncontrolled immigration.    

Answer 3

Just tell the child that anyone who enters the United States illegally is breaking the law therefore a criminal. What makes crossing the border illegally any different than breaking any other law? Once they get here they keep breaking laws,theres no way around it,they have to steal ID to work and provide feak documents or else do things illegal,like drive,rent a place to stay ect.People want legal proof of who you are so they dont get ripped off.

Answer 4

Actually, collecting taxes is just a very, very small part of having border laws.

It's more about protecting America, Americas, a way of life and the American dream for the non-criminals who want to come here.

Every nation has immigration laws and a border, that's just the way it is.

Answer 5

The Native Americans never had any form of immigration or government when the Europeans arrived. I love the people constantly complaining about Europeans coming here "illegally" in the 16th and 17th centuries.  I suppose that everyone here in the Americas not of Native ancestry (Mexico, Central America, and South America) should return to Europe?  Just remember, Mexicans are also of European ancestry and would have to return to Espana.  One major reason why the US has a government is to control immigration and because very bad things can happen when we don't know who is coming into the country.

Answer 6

Our borders are not closed,they're controlled. If we were to have open borders,we would no longer have sovereignty and our citizens would suffer. In no time, our nation would fall.

As for the coyote question, the illegals should be using that money to make a better life for themselves in their own country. They are here to take from what we've already built, they're not here for a better life,that's BS.

In regards to the NA comment,this country was not a country until the Europeans made it so. The land belonged to no one at that point in time.

Answer 7

Our country has fought wars for sovierenity against terrorist ect, yet we allow illegals to walk right in,how do you know if some of them mean us harm? We might have a large number of terrorists in this country right now . Do you know 1/3 of the 20 million illegals in this country have committed multiple crimes? They do not want to be legal and have to pay for anything,they want to get away with murder and take advantage of government assistance for their anchor babies. This country does not have the resources for the rapid growth of illegals.They cost taxpayers billions of dollars.

"The ONLY people here in the US who are NOT illegal immigrants are Native Americans - they didn't give it to us, we took it." Wrong,anyone who took anything is dead now,most citizens in America now were born here,or immigrated the LEGAL way.Except for the 20 million parisites.

edit: dmaud56 ,people here to work have what is called a work visa,you get them mixed up with illegal aliens,also it is a fact that only 3% of illegals do any type of agriculture. Also the natives killed each other off ,dont blame this all on "whites". And by the way,the Spanish killed the Aztecs. Not sure where you got all your history from,but its incorrect.

Answer 8

Sounds to me like the people who have the mentality regarding natives are basically saying "might makes right."  They are also wrong; studies from journals written by Spanish and French explorers, written long before Jamestown, clearly told of very large native communities.  Also when disease reduced their numbers, they numbered around 3 million people across north america, many in settled communities with rules and laws.  Only a small handful of native tribes were nomadic, not all of them were.

Is it right, for example, to rape a 5 year old girl?  After all, she doesn't have a concept of "ownership" regarding her body so, by the logic of the racist turds here, who is to stop anybody?  Go on people, you with a problem against natives; go out and do it.  By the logic you have with the natives.

No concept of ownership doesn't change the fact that rape is rape, and theft is theft.  By the native's moral standards whites were not stealing anything, but by the moral standards whites themselves claimed they followed, they stole this land.  That makes the crime even worse.

Here is a little tidbit, some of you posters may not have known; a tribe of Navaho in I believe Arizona, a reservation located on the Mexican border, has been complaining about illegal border crossers since the 1970's.  Yet the federal government has not given them a dime.  It gets even better; you know that border fence?  It does not run along the southern borders of the Navaho reservation.  Uncle Sam hasn't given them any money.

States with wealthy white people on the other hand, get plenty of money to control the border, little something to think about.  I'm sorry but, if a Navaho is telling a Mexican "get the h**l out" I think those words, coming from them, carry considerably more weight than even the word of the best dressed Supreme court justice.  It is true that native americans were here first, also true that most Mexican border crossers are native american, or predominantly so but see, these are tribal lands of north american tribes, most Mexicans are desended from tribes victimized by the now extinct Aztecs.

Indeed, the great majority of southern Mexicans, either belong to the majority Mashica tribe that surrounded the Aztecs, who also spoke Nahuatl, or, from the Maya if they are closer to Guatemala, meaning the native American in most Mexicans is either Mashica, or Mayan, but not Aztec.  This is significant, because Mexican's tribal lands are indeed south of the border, not here.

Problem is, its white people who "rule" this land, not the true owners.  All the c**p I read here about the natives is based on 1950's Hollywood stereotypes not based on facts, but the beliefs of bigoted whites who descended from settlers, I'd be shocked if any of the turds had ever even MET a north american native american!

Also it doesn't really boil down to economics its all racism; does anyone honestly think the people at Ellis island way back when had the time to check the legitimacy of the immigration papers of the incoming Europeans fresh off the boat?  Come on now, lets have a little more sense than that....

By America's own laws, most white people's forebears came here illegally, while black people we all know were brought here against their will illegally.  Okay scratch that, it was legal back then, but it was a barbaric law.  The border between the U.S. and Canada for example isn't closed.  Canadians in fact, travel back and forth all the time.  Ask anybody in the east coast who lives close to Canada.

Yet you will not see any questioning for INS papers, you won't see any cops tearing down doors, none of those things and yeah, IT IS possible to tell Canadians and Americans apart.  Also, the media is acting as if Mexicans are a bunch of weak, stupid, undesirable people that just cross the border to p**s everybody off.  That IS the general impression isn't it?

Yeah, they come here completely uninvited, with absolutely no promise of money from big corporate land owners needing cheap labor, yeah, everyone here is right, and the media is right, Mexicans are just aware how ugly white people think they are so they come here to p**s everybody off and soil the glorious pressence of whites everywhere, when I get off the computer I'll be sure to bow to one of you.

give me a break people.....

You want to yell at someone, yell at the people who do the inviting, not the Mexicans.  Go yell at them, and tell them to keep American labor jobs at home, and to respect wage laws.  If Mexicans STILL come here, even after you have done that then, hey..... yell at them all you like.  THEN, and only then, would have cause to.

I'm out, this answer is pissing me off.

Answer 9

I am Native American...Choctaw. I do not feel that American citizens are not entitled to be citizens when born here or naturalized. I do believe that as a nation, we should all support defense of our sovereignty.

All nations have immigration laws and border controls. Our border is regulated, not closed and much more lax than many other nations.

Mexico was not a 'nation' prior to the Spanish exploration. There was no Canada. No South or Central American nations. Go back further in history, there were no nations in Europe long ago.

But, these nations all exist now and their priority should be to take care of their own people first and foremost. Therefore, border regulation and control as well as immigration law must be in place and enforced.

Answer 10

If you want to cut to the chase, dmaud56 states the cold hard facts. If you want a REAL answer to give your daughter, put dmaud's statements into child-friendly terms and serve on a silver platter.  

Answer 11

i think u already received several good answers but i would like to explains some stuff :

1 ) there is control because there needs to be control .

2 ) Illegal immigration its actually being controlled and has always been controlled otherwise the undocumented would not be here whether they like it or not .

3 ) every undocumented which works in the fields is working there because the American government allows them to do so simply because when they have done anything against them nobody else shows to work a 99 percent of the time . By the way that group in particular would be the easiest to get since they are all at the view of anyone , yet the results of doing anything against them would be fatal for the nation . most farmers do not qualify to get the kind of workers needed for that kind of jobs by the way because of their shorts seasons which don't allow them to request that kind of visas .

4 ) there is other sectors which need the undocumented simply because there is not enough Americans to fill menial jobs positions even if many Americans could be considered unskilled or have work in unskilled work ... this group in particular is also important because they compliment work teams in which young people work at , if u had a business u would know than u cannot completely trust in teenagers , u cannot leave them all by themselves and depend in what they might do or may not do and u would know than they usually leave as soon as they are able to leave leaving your business with having to deal with training more people which is highly expensive , so therefor u would know than having a few undocumented working with u will ensure people who are usually a bit older than them and will stay longer with u saving u many complications and which can be used as a combination with those teenagers ( most other older people would not do those jobs or just aren't enough and this is a fact ) .

5 ) everyone in this nation pay Taxes and most of the Taxes everyone pays come from the sale Taxes not from the IRS , therefor even when around 40 percent of the undocumented are not paying IRS taxes they are still paying most of the Taxes they are suppose to pay . the 60 percent which pays usually do not gets their money back .

6 ) the undocumented will be legalized sooner or later and everyone needs to get that straight and i could explain several things more but i think this is enough .

Answer 12

The Natives couldn't "give" us land they didn't own.  You can't steel land that isn't owned or settled, that's a fact.  And how do you call something illegal when there is no law against it, and no way to enforce them. You snooze, you lose.

And we don't really car how many of your family served, that's irrelevant to anything and doesn't prove or disprove someone being hypocritical for stating facts.

It's 2008, please join us.

Answer 13

There has to be some control.  Without it, disease we have eradicated would run rampant.  A lot of 3rd world countries have problems with disease we haven't seen in generations.  In fact, even with the tight controls we have, the southern border states have rates of tuberculosis higher than a lot of 3rd world countries.  Mostly in the hispanic/illegal communities.  The "anchor baby" law puts a tremendous strain on individual states' economies.  An illegal has a child in this country and the mom and dad (at least) get a free pass.  Now most of these people do not have insurance so the state (me, you and all other tax payers) picks up the bill.  California is in extreme dire straights in this matter.

Another reason to have control on our borders is to keep out the criminals in other countries.  If we opened our borders there would be no control over the criminal element trying to get into this country.  Again, even with the strict control, these bad guys still get in.  According to the FBI. about 2000 American citizens are murdered each year who is here illegally.  If we could keep them out, that would be 2000 less funerals a year.  

One final reason is that they don't pay taxes.  Illegals use the "System" but pay nothing into it.  The more illegals in the country, the more it strains the system.  This also leads to illegals getting taken advantage of by unscrupulous employers.  The illegals are prime for abuse because they do not want to get deported.

As for your last sentence yes, we took this country.  I will not begin to address that issue but it happened and we are here now.  What ever you believe one thing is for certain.  If this great land had been left alone by the original settlers, we'd likely be speaking russian or german and our free society would not be so free.  Oh, and the natives would have likely been slaughtered out of existance.  

Answer 14

My husband came to the US 14 years with the help of a Coyote. Most people who choose to come this way are not the ones paying this fee. It is usually family or friends who are already in the US who pay it to help them get here. When they arrive, they start working and eventually pay this debt back in some way. Only a certain number of visas are allowed each fiscal year under each application type. The Government makes it so hard to even file. Most people who do file are granted a passport and temporary visa, and eventually overstay. I have been married to my husband 13 years and until a couple of years ago had not filed any papers for him. I just wanted to make sure he married me for me and not papers. We have 3 children together and after 13 years I figured if he could put up with me he deserved them anyway. :)

Answer 15

Why don't people take the money they pay the coyotes (human smugglers) and apply it to the cost to become a legal citizen?

Because becoming a legal citizen is not about money. You must have a reason that entitles you to the right to apply for citizenship... either because you married an US citizen, or you are the dad/mom/daughter/son of an US citizen, or you have an expertise in an area that makes you attractive  to the US for being their citizen... money by itself won't give you citizenship.  

Answer 16

Because white people are racist and think they can do whatever they want and that they can claim land that wasnt theirs to begin with it. It was the NATIVE americans first of all. They just want money and  dont want HUMAN BEINGS (the "immigrants") to take all the jobs. So basically the reason why is because people are greedy.

NO HUMAN BEING IS ILLEGAL. we need to share the earth that is not even ours to claim and say who can and cant live on it

Answer 17

"The ONLY people here in the US who are NOT illegal immigrants are Native Americans - they didn't give it to us, we took it."

Wrong, that's about as wrong as it gets, sorry, just had to call you out on that bull.

Sorry dude,

no laws=no illegal immigration

simple concept maybe your family who served should have taught you. Native never "owned" the land, this isn't' who was here first 3rd grade mentality, if it was, the natives should give the land back to the indigenous people. It's about who "settled" the land and not wanting it to be ruined, that's not hypocratic, that's called using your brain.