On: Canada's Toughest Border Crossing

[labster]

I don't see how any of those things relate to open borders. Having different cultures doesn't preclude an open border; see Scotland and England for reference. Can you please clarify?

It's funny. I asked a friend of mine if she would oppose open borders with Canada, and she said that the US couldn't afford to deal with all of the Canadians that would flood into the United States. So which is it? I feel like this is a reflexive conservative argument that all of these X are going to come to our country and change our culture and take our stuff. Why is the first one bad, and is there even any evidence for the second?

Meanwhile, we're all leaving money on the table because of our fears: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17382400

[amscanne → labster]

Scotland and England are not really different countries, despite what people there might say. They’re just local political divisions, less significant than a Canadian province.

I assume that the theoretical open borders policy you’re describing would still leave in place immigration restrictions, so I don’t see why the rush of Canadians would overwhelm the U.S. (since they can’t work legally).

I see at least a couple big road blocks though. First, both Canada and the U.S. impose selective tariffs and restrictions on imported products from across the world. An open border would effectively allow venue shopping, as products imported to Canada would find themselves in the U.S. and vice versa. Even for local products, Canada standards for e.g. cheese seem like they would be much harder to enforce. Second, both Canada and the U.S. choose who to admit to the county based on their own polices (criminal backgrounds, specific blacklists, etc.). These would have the same problem with an open border.

An open border would effectively require a lot of these policies to be unified for Canada and the U.S., much like the E.U. While there are benefits, that’s a lot of autonomy to give up.