Presidents sans frontieres

"Borders? We don't need no stinkin' borders." - Barack Obama 2014.

Okay, it's not an actual quote. But it should be clear to everyone by now that an unsecured Southern border - in addition to being a great plot element for an American disaster film - is not much of a concern for our sitting President. Actually, the list of people that aren't concerned about America's borders seems depressingly long. For the past several years it has been pretty common to hear people use words like "de-facto" when describing the open border policies of the United States. I think the pretense can now be dropped.

At what point do we stop considering the imaginary boundary between the United States and Mexico, or the customs desk at points of entry, or the walls of a U.S. consulate, to represent borders of a sovereign nation? We are faced with the bitter reality that the interests and concerns of American citizens weigh no more heavily on the minds of many U.S. government officials than the interests and concerns of the citizens of other nations. Even more unfortunate, the leaders of the branch of government responsible for controlling America's borders are of one mind about keeping them wide open.

It's easy to blame politics on the ongoing refusal to stem the flow of illegal immigration. From George W Bush's bizarre comments that immigration reform was necessary to help fund social security, to broad political interests in keeping wages down, to the democrat efforts to recruit future voters from beyond our borders, elements of both Parties have demonstrated conflicts of interest in serious border security. There has always been a troubling inconsistency between government acknowledgement of the very real threat of islamic extremism and an obsessive insistence on tolerating ridiculous amounts of illegal immigration. The response to the Ebola outbreak provides yet another lens through which to view the issue.

To most of the American people it is clear that restricting non-aid related travel out of the Ebola zone would be prudent. The response to such assertions by numerous government officials has been nothing short of strange. The dismissive, condescending, attitudes with which the director of the CDC flatly rejects any notion of travel restrictions has been startling. We can say with 100% certainty that Nina Pham would not now be fighting for her life in Dallas if travel from Liberia had been restricted months ago - as it should have been. Yet we are expected to accept daily stories of hazmat teams boarding airplanes, or urgent care centers being locked down, as the new normal (to say nothing of scabies, TB, EV-d68, etc. flowing across the southern border).

There are people in the government that are good at math. The fact that they understand the potential threats of the Ebola outbreak just makes the response that much more surreal. The projections out of Africa are alarming. It is possible for the situation to be brought under control before the more nightmarish predictions have a chance to come to pass, but this isn't the type of thing a crisis manager banks on when planning a response. In light of the predictions, it is the height of understatement to call the current state of the Ebola response "inadequate". If the outbreak continues to ramp through the end of the year, there is zero chance that it will not jump to other areas of the world - giving the virus new paths into the United States through uncontrolled land, sea and air routes.

Is the U.S. border nothing more than a line around a geographical area in which an arbitrary set of people live, or is it the demarcation of a unique and valuable culture? If we look to our President for answers to that question we look to a man that has publicly dismissed the concept of American exceptionalism, a man who's first act as President was to apologize to the world for American arrogance, a man who turned his back on traditional friends of America and offered "flexibility" to others, a man who promised to fundamentally transform America. The meaning and value of a border depends on one's opinion of what lies within it or beyond it.

If one believes that what lies beyond his borders is better than what lies within, then the border becomes an obstacle to excellence. If one believes that what lies within his borders represents the plunder of victim nations, then the border becomes an obstacle to justice. Obama's inability to acknowledge American exceptionalism says something profound about his view of the nation's place in the world, the value of our borders, and the purpose of immigration policy. When a President can't distinguish between his obligation to Americans and his obligation to the people of the world, protecting Nina Pham is no higher priority than making sure that Thomas Duncan has access to American health care. 

When Reagan referred to America as a "shining city on a hill" he was not talking about the geography of the United States. He was talking about the idea of America. Reagan recognized America's unique value as an example and source of encouragement for the world.  He recognized the idea of America as something worth protecting, and exporting. The borders of the United States must be first, foremost, about protecting the idea of America as the founders delivered it. It is not an accident that the idea of America is the first victim of an open border immigration policy.

Over time we have seen the borders of the United States come to have more to do with the geography they circumscribe, and less to do with the culture, heritage, and exceptionalism contained within. Considering the fundamental transformation that was promised begs the question if there is any more fundamental transformation than taking the idea of America and transforming it into dirt.