this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2026
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It is interesting that you ask for sources and logic while relying heavily on a false equivalence. Using the specific geopolitical instability and porous borders of West Africa as a proxy for US immigration policy is a classic strawman. The administrative and security infrastructure of the US is not comparable to a region where groups like Boko Haram operate across vast, ungoverned territories, and suggesting the two situations are "objective" mirrors of one another ignores the vastly different historical and logistical realities at play. If we are going to apply actual logic to the concept of "harm to the country," we have to look at the data regarding who truly threatens American safety. Historically, the most devastating attacks on US soil were carried out by individuals who entered the country legally, such as the 9/11 hijackers. Furthermore, the most pressing threats to domestic stability in recent years have come from within, including the January 6th insurrection and the violence seen in the streets of Minneapolis. Even the most prolific human trafficking and abuse networks, such as the Epstein case, operated entirely within the legal and elite structures of the country rather than through people walking through the bush. This suggests that "knowing who comes and goes" is a superficial fix for a much deeper, often homegrown, security issue. Finally, it is logically inconsistent to discuss a migration crisis without acknowledging the role the US plays in creating the "push factors" that drive it. The instability in the nations these immigrants are fleeing is frequently a direct byproduct of American drug consumption, which fuels the cartels, and decades of US meddling in the governments of the Western Hemisphere. From the 1954 Guatemalan coup to the long history of the School of the Americas, the US has often been the primary architect of the chaos it now attempts to border itself against. If you want to talk about objective problems, you have to start with the fact that these people are at the doorstep of the very nation that destabilized their own.
First off, thanks for your reponse. We aren't going to agree on everything here, and I don't think there's any definitive "right" and "wrong" per se. I appreciate the willingness to discuss and share ideas openly.
However, I'm going to start with some pushback.
Except I'm not using it as a proxy or equivilence. I'm using it as a real-life example of open borders taken to the extreme. Specifically NOT equivilent or a proxy. We call that a "case study."
I think you're stretching the definition of "classic" and even strawman arguments here a bit. Because who else has ever used porous borders across Africa as an example of U.S. border control issues? I don't imagine I'm the first person ever, but it's certainly not common enough to call it "classic."
Epstein's trafficking network is by no means the most prolific in any sense other than money backing the perpetrators. It's just the only one you know about. Millions of people are trafficked every year. Modern slavery is on the order of 50 million people. Epstein was on the scale of hundreds, some picked from large-scale trafficking networks like Russia. I would encourage you to learn more about human trafficking before talking about it in such definitive terms.
https://www.walkfree.org/global-slavery-index/findings/global-findings/
For the record, what ends up happening is massive amounts of human trafficking, a pretty much unfettered drug corridor from South America to Europe that runs along the human trafficking routes. This ends up dropping large amounts of opiates and cocaine along the route as payments when cash runs short.
https://www.theafricareport.com/394071/cocaine-trafficking-through-west-africa-fuels-local-addiction/
https://globalinitiative.net/analysis/under-the-radar-western-balkans-cocaine-operations-in-west-africa/
But it looks like you don't want to consider a real-world example of basically open borders. OK, no problem. Let's look at the EU's Shengen-non-Shengen border mashup, because it's every bit the same level of humanitarian crisis as the US border. So let's take that link above connecting West Africa and the Balkans and head to the Balkans.
Because of the mashup of EU, Shengen zone, and neither, moving overland from Syria through Turkey to get to Serbia is the usual route. Then from there getting on a plane. Human trafficking routes, and drugs, all come along for the ride.
OK, so let's jump into this (briefly, this is long enough). In the US, yes, terrorism and mass casualty events are typically white supremacists. I wasn't talking about that, actually. Though even going back to the Obama administration, fentanyl routes that push the opioid crisis are precursors made in China shipped to Mexico, made into fentanyl, then smuggled into the US. So if you don't think that the opioid crisis harms the US....I'd love to hear why you think that.
In Europe, there are limited examples of undocumented migrants being part of terror attacks in mixed groups. But it’s a fair point that rarely are undocumented migrants incentivized to – and makes sense. Anyone deep enough into ideological reasons will be patient and seek legal status that allows for greater ease of movement. The evidence stands there, you're right and thanks for presenting it in a way where I had to dig through it for the US and EU.
That being said, harms to a country aren’t limited to splashy attacks meant to push ideologies. Since I’ve said I’m staying away from economic arguments, I won’t make any here, but widespread access to harmful opiates seems like a pretty solid harm to a country. Or undermining the legitimacy of government, as cartels have done. Sure, that's its own debate about liberal democracies, but it's worth thinking about at least.
Thanks for the conversation, it was very helpful.