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WHAT TRUMP IS FORGETTING: AMERICAN NATIONS HAVE A LONG HISTORY OF
OPEN BORDERS  
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Daniel Mendiola
January 26, 2026
The Guardian
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_ The US cites the ‘wisdom’ of historical immigration policy. But
nation states in the Americas have spent more time with open borders
than closed _

‘The true historical deviation of “past decades” has not been
open borders.’, José Luis González/Reuters

 

Late last year, Donald Trump’s White House published a new National
Security Strategy
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(NSS) outlining its vision for the world. At the time, the plan raised
alarm for dismissing European alliances
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(now largely confirmed after Trump threatened Nato allies
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over Greenland
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previewing interventions in Latin America
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(also largely confirmed by recent military action in Venezuela
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and aligning closely with the priorities of the Kremlin
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The document also demonizes immigrants
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In one widely cited passage, it even claims that “unchecked
migration” has gotten so out of control that Europe is facing
imminent “civilizational erasure
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On these grounds, the plan makes ending “The Era of Mass
Migration” a top priority for the US.

 
It is one of the great marvels of our time that, in a world where
governments spend more on border security
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than ever before, build more miles of border fencing
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ever before, deploy more military-grade technology
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to stop migration than ever before, spend more on detention and
deportation
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ever before, and knowingly cause thousands of preventable deaths
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every year by cutting off safe routes to migrate, people in power can
look at the disastrous consequences of this system and unironically
proclaim: “You know what our problem is? Open borders!”

This is essentially what the NSS is saying, though, to be fair, it did
not originate this marvel of modern absurdity. During the Biden
administration, for example, after arrests at the border
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record highs, deportations spiked
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and record numbers of asylum seekers
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into overcrowded shelters and hotels (de facto detention centers since
they were not allowed to legally work
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otherwise participate freely into society), a Republican senator from
my home state of Texas whined that all of this amounted to a
“radical experiment in open borders
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Not to be outdone, his Democratic opponent
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at the time made similar claims.

The NSS still distinguishes itself, however, by applying this inverted
way of thinking far beyond the Biden years, even to the point of
making sweeping generalizations about the history of nations. As a
historian of border policy, I find this part of the NSS particularly
noteworthy.

You can find the passage in question
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at the bottom of page 11, where the NSS blames “unchecked”
migration for a host of social problems including: straining domestic
resources, distorting labor markets, increasing crime, weakening
social cohesion, and undermining national security. Rather than
attempt to explain how immigration causes these problems, however, the
argument looks for evidence in a curious reinterpretation of the past.
To quote: “Throughout history, sovereign nations prohibited
uncontrolled migration and granted citizenship only rarely to
foreigners, who also had to meet demanding criteria. The West’s
experience over the past decades vindicates this enduring wisdom.”

 
To be clear, this version of history is nonsensical. My own research
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how nation states in the Americas have actually spent more time with
open borders than with closed. In Latin America, many countries passed
affirmative declarations protecting the right to immigrate, often
going as far as to enshrine these rights in constitutions. In Central
America, for example, the constitution of 1824 declared the entire
region a “Sacred Asylum for all”. Far from viewing unimpeded
migration as a threat to the national project, Central American
policymakers proudly used open borders as a way to demonstrate the
sovereignty of the newly formed government.

In the US, open borders were more of a default policy born out of the
absence of legal restrictions, but this was still the case for nearly
the first 150 years the country’s existence. Immigrants were by
default presumed admissible, and the federal government did not
implement immigration restrictions at all until until the late 19th
century when it singled out Chinese immigrants for exclusion, though
borders remained open otherwise, and even many Chinese were able to
evade these laws by naturalizing in other countries first, such as
Mexico. It was not until the 1920s that federal lawmakers experimented
with a fully closed-border system (defined as a system in which any
immigrant is presumed inadmissible until they demonstrate that they
fit into one of the restricted, previously defined categories that
would make one admissible and have that admissibility officially
recognized by the state). This was a massive expansion of federal
powers, and under this clunky new system, some decades saw heavier
enforcement than others – especially for racialized groups such as
Mexicans
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Haitians
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even as late as the 1980s, closed borders were flexible enough that a
large-scale amnesty program
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could pass with relatively little controversy.

The true historical deviation of “past decades”, therefore, has
NOT been open borders. In fact, the real experiment has been making
them militantly closed: a trend that accelerated in 1990s
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the Clinton administration and intensified even more after 9/11
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In sum, I actually agree with the NSS that our immigration system has
been disastrous in the last few decades. I also agree that, in trying
to envision a better future, it’s not a bad idea to take some
inspiration from how early nations managed borders.

Of course, that would mean embracing the “enduring wisdom” of open
borders.

It also worth noting that, according to a large body of corroborating
evidence, the problems attributed to open borders by the NSS are
actually caused by closed borders. Overwhelming evidence shows that
immigrants do not cost
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the government in resources any more than citizens cost. What is
costly, however, is arbitrarily rounding them up, detaining them and
deporting them. Opening borders would actually alleviate resource
strains.

Closed borders also distort labor markets. With closed borders,
workers lack the freedom to move around looking for the best job, yet
multinational corporations are free to shop around for the
“cheapest” trapped labor pool. As I have written before
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this is a massive grift, hurting workers on all sides of the border.
Opening borders would alleviate these distortions.

 
Still more, closed borders create optimal conditions for organized
crime. Even though immigration itself does not increase crime –
studies in the US, for example, have consistently shown that, on
average, immigrants commit fewer crimes
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the native-born population – the fact that vulnerable people around
the world need to move for their livelihoods, yet are not allowed to
do so legally, has incentivized cartels
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to capitalize on the situation. Opening borders would reduce organized
crime.

There is also a case to be made that closed borders – or perhaps
more specifically, the rhetoric calling for closed borders –
actually weakens social cohesion. Studies show that people who have
personal relationships
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or other forms of positive contact
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with immigrants are less likely to hold negative views toward
unauthorized immigration. On the other hand, for people who lack these
types of interactions, media images tend to matter more. And in the
US, we are bombarded with a steady stream of defamatory news
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calling immigration a crisis, even from politically “neutral”
outlets. Accordingly, it’s not a huge stretch to hypothesize that
replacing divisive rhetoric with informed discussions on the benefits
of open borders might actually strengthen social cohesion.

Finally, we are at this very moment watching closed borders undermine
national security by subjecting otherwise peaceful communities to the
biggest security threat of all: the state itself. When closed-border
zeal causes swarms of heavily armed
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agents to storm into communities
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separate families
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detain people in dangerously deplorable conditions
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and deploy increasingly unrestrained violence against people who
object
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no one is safer.

Given this evidence, it is all the more vexing that people in power
can so easily attribute the failures of our immigration system to the
specter of “open borders”. The sheer audacity of blaming something
that doesn’t exist is already pretty mind-boggling. But the whole
thing is even more absurd considering that closed borders are causing
these problems. I have been doing my best to explain this in academic
terms for quite some time, though lately I find myself turning to
surrealist fiction
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express how absurd this really is. The logic of our immigration system
is backwards! How are policymakers getting away with this?

It is worth noting, however, that as of late they seem to be getting
away with it a lot less. Even before the killing of Renee Good set off
protests in Minneapolis
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several major cities
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saw mass protests in favor of immigrant protections, and countless
smaller towns
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across the country had likewise mobilized. Ultimately, these actions
tell me that we are ready to have a serious conversation about the
root of the problem: our failing experiment with closed borders.

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Daniel Mendiola is a professor of Latin American history and migration
studies at Vassar College

* American Border Policy; US immigration; History of Immigration;
Open Borders;
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