An open border is a border that enables free movement of people between different jurisdictions with limited or no restrictions to movement. A border may be an open border due to intentional legislation allowing free movement of people across the border or a border may be an open border due to lack of adequate enforcement or adequate supervision of the border which allows the free movement of people across the border combined with inadequate detection and inadequate enforcement within the jurisdiction to ensure people have in fact entered through authorized border controls. An open territorial border allows free movement of people between two different countries or between a group of countries. An example of this is the opening of international borders between different member states of the European Union

European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

 which has allowed free movement with very few restrictions. An open civic border allows free movement of people within a country between different states or territories. An example of this is the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 where interstate borders are open with very limited restrictions on movement. The term "open borders" applies only to the flow of people, it does not refer to the flow of goods and services. An equivalent concept to open borders in relation for the free flow of goods and services is free trade

Free trade

Under a free trade policy, prices emerge from supply and demand, and are the sole determinant of resource allocation. 'Free' trade differs from other forms of trade policy where the allocation of goods and services among trading countries are determined by price strategies that may differ from...

. Generally where an open borders policy exist so does a free trade policy but the converse is not necessarily true, there are many examples of a free trade policy which is not accompanied by an open borders policy.

Different types of borders

In order to understand the arguments for and against open borders it is necessary to have a basic understanding of the other types of borders available. These are:

A conditionally open border is a border that allows movement of people across the border that meet a special set of conditions. This special set of conditions which limits the application of border controls that would normally otherwise apply could be defined by an international agreement or international law or the special conditions could be defined by a regulation or law of the jurisdiction that the people are claiming the right to enter. Conditionally open borders generally requires a claim to be submitted from the people who are proposing to enter the new jurisdiction stating the case why they meet the special conditions which allows entry into the new jurisdiction. The new jurisdiction may detain the people until their claim is approved for entry into the new jurisdiction or they may release them into the new jurisdiction while their claim is being processed. When ever a conditionally open border is allowed, considerable effort is often required to ensure that border controls do not break down to such an extent that it becomes an open border type situation. An example of a conditionally open border is a border of any country which allows movement of asylum seekers due either to application of the 1951 Refugee Convention or international law which allows people to cross a border to escape a situation where their lives are directly threatened or in significant danger.

A controlled border is a border that allows movement of people between different jurisdictions but places restrictions and sometimes significant restrictions on this movement. This type of border may require a person crossing this border to obtain a visa

Visa (document)

A visa is a document showing that a person is authorized to enter the territory for which it was issued, subject to permission of an immigration official at the time of actual entry. The authorization may be a document, but more commonly it is a stamp endorsed in the applicant's passport...

 or in some cases may allow a short period of Visa free travel in the new jurisdiction. A controlled border always has some method of documenting and recording people movements across the border for later tracking and checking compliance with any conditions associated with the Visa or any other border crossing conditions. A controlled border places limitations on what a person crossing the border can do in the new jurisdiction, this is usually manifested in limitations on employment and also it limits the length of time the person can legally remain in the new jurisdiction. A controlled border often requires some type of barrier, such as a river, ocean or fence to ensure that the border controls are not bypassed so that any people wishing to cross the border are directed to authorized border crossing points where any border crossing conditions can be properly monitored. Given the large scale movement of people today for work, holidays, study and other reasons a controlled border also requires internal checks and internal enforcement within the jurisdiction to ensure that any people who have entered the jurisdiction are in fact complying with any border crossing conditions and that they are not overstaying to reside illegally or as an undocumented resident . Most international borders are by legislative intent of the controlled border type. However when there is a lack of adequate internal enforcement or if the borders are land borders, often the border is only controlled on part of the border and other parts of the border may remain open to such an extent that, it may be considered as an open border due to lack of supervision and enforcement.

A closed border is a border that prevents movement of people between different jurisdictions with limited or no exceptions associated with this movement. These borders normally have fences or walls in which any gates or border crossings are closed and if these border gates are opened they generally only allow movement of people in exceptional circumstances. An example of a closed border is the border between South Korea and North Korea.

Arguments against open borders

Controlled borders restrict migration by non-citizens. Several arguments for controlled borders and against open borders are as follows:

1. That controlled borders encourage responsible policies in relation to population and birth rates for countries by preventing high population and high birth rate countries from disgorging their people onto other low population and low birth rate countries. This is critical in an over populated world that is struggling to feed itself. Open borders essentially punishes those groups of people who are exercising birth/population control to reduce their impact on their local environment and potentially rewards high population growth by allowing people to move from over populated areas to less stressed areas where people may be protecting their environment by controlling their population.
2. That open borders can be a threat to security and public safety. Open borders assumes that people will have the best of intentions towards an areas existing people and will continue to have the best of intentions. The threats to security and public safety can sometimes manifest themselves many decades after the initial immigration.
3. That open borders encourage poor and unskilled immigration that is good in the short term for businesses as a source of cheap labor but bad in the medium & longer term for the taxpayer as these people require costly government services and require expensive infrastructure to be built to sustain them, neither of which the new immigrants can afford to pay for. If this infrastructure is not built, which is increasingly the case due to its expense, then it can result in the creation of slums and ghettos which consists of much of the illegal immigration and also people displaced from the society by the new immigrants.
4. That controlled borders are likely to encourage good management of the environment and more sustainable use of resources. If a countries people are allowed to trash their own country by destroying their own environment, perhaps through over population, then are free to move unhindered onto another country to trash the new country, then this hardly encouraging good environmental management nor is it encouraging sustainable use of resources.
5. That conditionally open borders based on environmental conditions, i.e environmental refugee, will discourage a country from conservatively assessing environmental risks and will also discourage a country from taking the necessary steps to ensure that their population and resource usage are within the constraints of those environmental risks. An example of this is climate change, science is clearly showing what conditions have previously been present on different parts of the planet due to natural variations in climate and it is reasonable to expect governments to assess these past conditions for population carrying capacity and make changes to their population policies to ensure that they can manage these changes without creating a large number of environmental refugees for other countries to absorb. For example, Bangladesh has already requested that other countries be prepared to accept Bangladeshi environmental refugees, despite a rapidly growing population.
6. That conditionally open borders for people fleeing conflict, i.e asylum seekers, based on the rights afford by different UN conventions and international laws has created a route for people to flow from low income developing countries to higher income developed countries, bypassing the usual border controls. This has created many problems associated with people smuggling, such as debt bondage and many other forms of personnel abuse as people move across the globe to select countries which offer the greatest benefits. In fact people have often moved in such numbers to the developing world that structured assessment processes have broken down and that the conditionally open border that was intended has come to resemble more of an unconditional open border.
7. That controlled borders can be used to protect the domestic culture(s) and encourage the integration of new people to the domestic culture. For example as a condition of crossing a border people may be required to learn to speak a new language, to learn new values, to learn new customs and to participate in the existing domestic cultures.
8. That controlled borders help to prevent criminals from smuggling drugs, guns and other illegal items in quantities across the border.
9. That controlled borders make it more difficult to smuggle people across a country's border for the purpose of slavery, prostitution and similar criminal activities.
10. That controlled borders can be used to protect a country from problems outside its border and it can be used to limit the number of people who require government welfare, government services, government provided health care, government provided housing and/or charity that move across the border. In this way a government can limit the impact on its budgets of the cost of people moving across a border and it can also ensure that most government welfare and charity is directed towards a countries existing poor people.
11. That open borders are unnecessary in countries with legal avenues for immigration.
12. That large scale migration across open borders can result in demographic changes that can result in demographic shifts that change a countries political power structures in favor of the new demographic and against the existing people of a region or country. It is common place for an ethnic and cultural group to lobby politically for further immigration from its particular ethnic and cultural group. Further it is well known that they are likely to assist any irregular migrants from their particular ethnic and cultural group to maintain themselves within the community and avoid detection from immigration officials. A bad start/experience to immigration for a particular ethnic and cultural group once established can be difficult to redeem. A key factor in the successful integration of a particular ethnic and cultural groups is careful selection of candidates for immigration and a numerically limit on numbers of immigrants both of which are facilitated by controlled border.
13. That open borders can lead to infrastructure deficit in a country. This occurs when large scale migration occurs but the infrastructure to support that migration does not get built.
14. That controlled borders can be used to ensure that new immigrants can afford suitable housing without disadvantaging the existing local population, that they can afford to significantly contribute to the additional infrastructure they will require and that they will be unlikely to become a burden on the taxpayer.

Countries with controlled borders

• United States
  United States
  The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
  
   and Mexico
  Mexico
  The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
  
   share a controlled border near major population centers at the boundary between these two countries.
• India
  India
  India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
  
   and Bangladesh
  Bangladesh
  Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
  
   share a border with which India is in the process of turning into a controlled border via the completion of a full border fence between the two countries to control the flow of people between the two countries and prevent illegal migration. Large scale illegal Bangladeshi immigration in the past across the open border has entered India creating Bangladeshi slums on the outskirts of many India cities. The Bangladeshi people are expected to soon form the majority of people in India in areas close to the India Bangladeshi border largely as a result of the past and continuing illegal immigration.

Arguments for open borders

Advocates for open borders argue for Open Borders on grounds such as the following:

1. From a human rights perspective, free migration may be seen to complement Article 13 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights: (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
2. Preventing freedom of movement is a moral violation of human rights and discriminates on the basis of nationality. As all human beings are equal, regardless of education, skills or knowledge and any discrimination causes immense human suffering it is morally untenable.
3. Nation-states and closed borders are a relatively recent development in human history, and serve primarily to protect the interests of ruling elites.
4. In an era when capital can move freely across all borders, restricting the movement of labor is both unfair to workers and also an impediment to the most efficient possible operation of the market. In an ideal free market, both capital and labor are free to move anywhere.
5. Since human beings migrate regardless of border policies, closed borders and barriers simply force them to migrate under more difficult conditions, resulting in increased injuries and deaths during migration.
6. Increased mobility of people can reduce racism and ethnic tension and produce vibrant new forms of cultural hybridity.
7. Opening borders allows people to more easily move back and forth between their place of birth and new opportunities, which means people are no longer required to be separated for extremely long periods of time from their families and social networks.
8. Opening borders would eliminate the wasteful, extremely costly, and ultimately ineffective expense of policing borders.
9. Open borders are required under international law for people fleeing directly from persecution or warfare. Opening borders would negate the need for the very expensive and time consuming processing requirements and legal proceedings that result from processing refugee applications.
10. That open borders are logically unrelated to security and public safety. For example, how do open borders between EU countries or US states threaten security and public safety?
11. That immigration operates according to the laws of supply and demand of jobs, wages, and opportunity, and that human beings have always found ways to migrate to places with more jobs, higher wages, and opportunity, regardless of borders.
12. The idea of "protecting domestic culture" is naive, since it assumes a (fictional) unitary domestic culture; essentialist, since it imagines culture as a fixed "thing" rather than a living and always changing set of practices; and at worst, racist, since it fears racial, ethnic, and national "others".

American bioethicist Jacob M. Appel

Jacob M. Appel

Jacob M. Appel is an American author, bioethicist and social critic. He is best known for his short stories, his work as a playwright, and his writing in the fields of reproductive ethics, organ donation, neuroethics and euthanasia....

 has argued that "treating human beings differently, simply because they were born on the opposite side of a national boundary," is inherently unethical. According to Appel, such "birthrights" are only defensible if they serve "useful and meaningful social purposes" (such as inheritance rights, which encourage mothers and fathers to work and save for their children), but the "birthright of nationality" does not do so.

It has been proposed that borders between the North American Free Trade Agreement

North American Free Trade Agreement

The North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA is an agreement signed by the governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, creating a trilateral trade bloc in North America. The agreement came into force on January 1, 1994. It superseded the Canada – United States Free Trade Agreement...

 (NAFTA) countries be opened.

Countries with open borders

• European Union
  European Union
  The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
  
   (EU) nations mostly share Open Borders as part of the Schengen Agreement, allowing free flow of people between the member countries. Travel documents are required for travel between the United Kingdom
  United Kingdom
  The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
  
   and other countries, and there are entry restrictions on people who are not either EU citizens or residents in the country being entered.
• United Kingdom
  United Kingdom
  The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
  
   and Ireland
  Republic of Ireland
  Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
  
   share open borders under the Common Travel Agreement
  Common Travel Area
  The Common Travel Area is a passport-free zone that comprises the islands of Ireland, Great Britain, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. The area's internal borders are subject to minimal or non-existent border controls and can normally be crossed by Irish and British citizens with only...
  
   since 1923, allowing their citizens unrestricted freedom of movement in both countries with minimal identity documents.
• Citizens of South American countries party to the Mercosur
  Mercosur
  Mercosur or Mercosul is an economic and political agreement among Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Founded in 1991 by the Treaty of Asunción, which was later amended and updated by the 1994 Treaty of Ouro Preto. Its purpose is to promote free trade and the fluid movement of goods, people,...
  
   agreement are allowed to freely travel, live, and work in other Mercosur
  Mercosur
  Mercosur or Mercosul is an economic and political agreement among Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Founded in 1991 by the Treaty of Asunción, which was later amended and updated by the 1994 Treaty of Ouro Preto. Its purpose is to promote free trade and the fluid movement of goods, people,...
  
   countries. This creates open borders between Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and several other South American countries.
• India
  India
  India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
  
   and Nepal
  Nepal
  Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
  
   share open borders, allowing their citizens unrestricted freedom of movement in both countries.
• Though Australia
  Australia
  Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
  
   and New Zealand
  New Zealand
  New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
  
   do not share a land border, they allow each other's citizens to travel, live, and work freely in either country without any restrictions, except the requirement to demonstrate citizenship, under the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement
  Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement
  The Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement is an informal agreement between Australia and New Zealand to allow for the free movement of citizens of one nation to the other.- Treaty history :...
  
  .
• United States
  United States
  The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
  
   and Mexico
  Mexico
  The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
  
   share Open Borders along significant portions of the boundary between the two countries, particularly outside major population centers. At these locations it is not considered practical nor cost effective to provide the necessary border supervision and enforcement to prevent the free movement of people between the two countries. A lack of suitable internal enforcement within the US is also identified as a key contributing factor.

Countries with closed borders

• North Korea
  North Korea
  The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
  
  has a completely sealed border, and does not allow free movement across its borders.

Further reading

• ACME. 2003. Vol. 2.2, themed issue: "Engagements: Borders and Immigration.
• Abizadeh, Arash. 2008. "Democratic Theory and Border Coercion: No Right to Unilaterally Control Your Own Borders." Political Theory 35.1: 37-65.
• Bader, Veit. 2005. "The Ethics of Immigration." Constellations 12.3: 331-61.
• Barry, Brian, and Robert E. Goodin, eds. 1992. Free Movement: Ethical Issues in the Transnational Migration of People and of Money. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
• Bauder, Harald. 2003. "Equality, Justice, and the Problem of International Borders." ACME 2.2: 165-182.
• Blake, Michael. 2003. "Immigration." In A Companion to Applied Ethics, ed. R. G. Frey and C. H. Wellman. Oxford: Blackwell.
• Bosniak, Linda. 2006. The Citizen and the Alien: Dilemmas of Contemporary Membership. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Brubaker, W. R, ed. 1989. Immigration and the Politics of Citizenship in Europe and North America. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
• Carens, Joseph H. 1987. "Aliens and Citizens: The Case for Open Borders." The Review of Politics 49.2: 251-73.
• Chang, Howard F. 1997. "Liberalized Immigration as Free Trade: Economic Welfare and the Optimal Immigration Policy." University of Pennsylvania Law Review 145.5: 1147-244.
• Cole, Phillip. 2000. Philosophies of Exclusion: Liberal Political Theory and Immigration. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
• Dauvergne, Catherine. 2008. Making People Illegal: What Globalization Means for Migration and Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Dummett, Michael. 2001. On Immigration and Refugees. London: Routledge.
• Ethics and Economics. 2006. Volume 4.1. Special issue on immigration.
• Gibney, Mark, ed. 1988. Open Borders? Closed Societies? The Ethical and Political Issues. New York: Greenwood Press.
• Heath, Joseph. 1997. "Immigration, Multiculturalism, and the Social Contract." Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 10.2: 343-61.
• Miller, David, and Sohail Hashmi, eds. 2001. Boundaries and Justice: Diverse Ethical Perspectives. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Miller, David. 2005. "Immigration: The Case for Limits." In Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics, ed. A. I. Cohen and C. H. Wellman. Oxford: Blackwell.
• Schwartz, Warren F., ed. 1995. Justice in Immigration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Swain, Carol M., ed. 2007. Debating Immigration. New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Torpey, John. 2000. The Invention of the Passport: Surveillance, Citizenship, and the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Walzer, Michael. 1983. Spheres of Justice: A Defence of Pluralism and Equality. Oxford: Blackwell.
• Wellman, Christopher Heath. 2008. "Immigration and Freedom of Association." Ethics 119: 109-141.