Millions of people are moving from tyrannical, corrupt, and (consequently) poor countries into others that are still relatively prosperous –  because they are still relatively free: the open societies, most of which are welfare states.

The majority of these immigrants do not assimilate. They remain in enclaves where the customs and in some cases the laws of their native societies continue to bind them. They do not learn the language of the host country and are not educated, so they cannot find employment. They depend on welfare handouts provided by the host country.

To meet the additional expense of immigrants’ entitlements, governments of the host countries raise taxes. The combination of rising taxation and increasing welfare-demand weakens the economy. Private enterprise is handicapped, unemployment spreads, freedom is diminished, prosperity declines. Neither the host nation nor the newcomers benefit in the long term.

Finding themselves less contented than they had hoped, immigrant groups go from disobedience to violent insurgency. (Muslim riots in France are an example.) Civil unrest threatens the general order. But for all the augmented power of such governments, they find themselves unable to enforce their laws on the immigrant settlements. It was their policy to invite the immigrants in and sustain them on welfare: it is their policy neither to repress them when they riot, terrorize, and kill, nor to repatriate them; but instead to propitiate them, granting them ever more autonomy.

Such states are under existential threat, first from the “anti-nativist” (or “anti-discriminatory”, “anti-racist”, or “pro-diversity”) ideologues who attained political power and let the immigrants in, and then from the reality on the ground when the immigrants try to establish their own culture or nationalism on the host nation’s territory. Not just their integrity but their status as nation states is slipping away.

This is most clearly seen if the immigrants come in vast numbers from a neighboring country, as do Mexicans into the United States. The borders between the countries can become so porous that they effectively dissolve. Whether as a result or a cause or both,  the very idea of borders is under attack as an ideological anachronism and a “racist”, “imperialist” offense.

The David Horowitz Freedom Center has recently published a booklet titled Arizona’s Fight, America’s Fight. It consists of two essays, by Victor Davis  Hanson and Ralph Peters respectively, that discuss the problem of illegal immigration from Mexico into the United States.

Victor Hanson Davis, in his essay Why the Arizona Law – And Why Now?, gives examples of active efforts to abolish the southern border of the US:

[Mexican] consulates now advocate the inclusion of  Mexican textbooks in predominantly Hispanic American schools, as part of Mexico City’s vow to recognize that “the Mexican nation extends beyond its borders”. (page 18)

[T]oday a Mexican  national can live in America nearly as if he were in Mexico.  The host has lost confidence in its own values. The old notion of the desirability of the melting pot has long passed. (page 26)

And Ralph Peters, in Arizona’s Neighbor From Narco-insurgency To Narco-state?, observes the same disastrous trend. He writes:

Our southern border is no longer a fixed frontier, but merely a zone of transition. Border violations carry no serious penalties, while left-wing activists and the establishment media prefer indicting our border agents over enforcing our laws.  (page 34)

How will it be to live in a world where there are no frontiers, a world without nation states?

We’re thinking about it.