1. WHY WE NEED OPEN BORDERS Borders are violent The first argument for opening borders is simple: by doing so, we would end the violence of border controls. In November 2019 the British public were shocked by the discovery of the bodies of 39 Vietnamese migrants in a refrigerated lorry, who had paid traffickers to be smuggled into the UK. While this tragedy rightfully led to public shock and dismay, it is among thousands of cases of migrants dying while attempting dangerous journeys. Between 2014 and 2019 almost 20,000 people died in the Mediterranean while attempting to cross the EU’s external border with Turkey and North Africa. These deaths primarily occurred because border controls forced people to take dangerous routes, often via sea on ill-suited vessels. The situation deteriorated in 2016 following the EU-Turkey deal, in which Turkey agreed, in exchange for €6 billion, to seal its border with Greece to prevent migrants travelling into the EU. This led to an increase in the number of migrants who were driven to try and reach Europe by sea, significantly increasing the number of fatalities from sea crossings.1
Those attempting dangerous journeys are typically moving because of poverty, conflict or persecution. The UN refugee agency estimates that over 70 million people were forced to flee their homes in 2018 alone – the highest numbers on record. But in response to rising numbers of people attempting to move, around the world states have been clamping down on irregular migration. There are now over 50 border walls across the world, a phenomenon almost unheard of in the middle of the 20th century, and the sums being spent on border enforcement have surged in recent years.2 Mainstream reaction to the deaths of migrants on precarious journeys often points the finger at the callousness of smugglers.3 But this narrative is deeply flawed. It fails to acknowledge that if movement was unrestricted by border controls, people would not be forced to resort to such desperate measures. And when states impose greater barriers to movement, the resulting suffering is often made worse. This suffering is not merely caused by the dangerous routes migrants
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