The debate on open boarders seem pretty one-sided to me. The cons greatly outweigh the pros and the problems associated with safety and funding cannot be ignored. I believe a policy supporting open borders would be dangerous and cause total chaos for the entire world. With open boarders across the globe it would be nearly impossible for the government to keep track of who was migrating through which country. Because of this lack of “keeping tabs” social programs such as health care and welfare would be out of control. Not only would it be extremely difficult for the government to issue welfare checks to migrants, the rules would be more strict and exhaustive. I believe the welfare system would collapse, leaving the people who truly need it with nothing at all. The best hospitals in the world would be overcrowded and unable to handle the masses of people seeking treatment. In countries where there is universal healthcare, where would the money for expensive medical surgeries come from? If people are essentially “citizens of the world” under an open border policy how are taxes assessed and collected? Security becomes a giant issue when discussing open borders. Alberto Carosa writes in a People Flow debate titles “Securing freedom: against uncontrolled immigration”: …curbing illegal immigration would both make life difficult for actual and potential terrorists and substantially curtail dangerous activities that illegal immigrants engage in. In a world with open borders terrorists from any country are basically given free reign to destroy any place they feel like. Without serious border checks 9/11 could literally happen anywhere at any time. No country is going to sacrifice the safety of their citizens for an open border policy. Law enforcement couldn’t control terrorism on a local level and the military would be pulled in too many directions on a national scale. It is simply too dangerous to let just anyone cross the borders at any time. America learned that lesson in 2001. The last point I would like to make concerns the issues of minimum wage. With an open border policy I believe people in countries with no minimum wage would end up migrating into countries that do. Those countries would have an influx of immigrant workers and not enough jobs. It would fall upon the government to take care of the unemployed, which goes back to the first point I made about welfare. I don’t believe open borders will ever be an issue that countries will ever really debate seriously about on a global scale. The risks are too great and the price it would cost governments is too high. If there were no guns, no military, no radicals, no religion, and no terrorism, open borders would be a really great thing to strive for. Unfortunately, today, that is not the case.