Ex-Foreign Service Officer Warns against Open Borders
04/24/2017
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Tucker Carlson had something of an Earth Day message during a Friday show segment, when he interviewed a former foreign service officer, David Seminara, who screened thousands of visa applications as part of his job. Seminara had recently written a cautionary piece for the Wall Street Journal (Opening Our Borders Would Overwhelm America), opining that a more liberal immigration policy would be disastrous for America. Both agreed that hundreds of millions of foreigners would like to move to a country like the United States, but the environmental limits of what the land can support must be a central part of the calculus.

Interestingly, the “B” word — Billion — was curiously avoided even though there are surely billions on earth who would move to the prosperous first world if allowed. In fact, Seminara mentioned in his article that a 2008 Gallup poll found one in four people in 82 countries would immigrate if they had the opportunity.

Below, California’s Lake Oroville in September 2014. The state just emerged this year from a harsh several-year drought with a record-breaking rainy season. Leaders in government had no plan of what to do if millions of residents ran out of water. One strategy, trucking it in to individual users, doesn’t seem practical for large communities.

Nobody bothers with trying to fix their own country any more. That’s not a good trend when the world population is around 7 1/2 billion people. The dissatisfied billions on earth cannot all relocate to the US and Europe.

Anyway, isn’t it racist to assume the diverse people need to be rescued by admittance to the white nations? If escape were not made so easy, many more would push for political and social reform at home which would be advantageous for all concerned.

TUCKER CARLSON: What’s going on in Oakland right now shows the idea of opening America’s borders to anyone who wants to come here — anyone — is increasingly popular. Within a few years the concept of open borders may even become part of left-wing orthodoxy, in fact it basically already is. But what would that look like if we had open borders? Dave Seminara is a journalist and former diplomat he just wrote a piece on that exact question and he joins us tonight. Dave, thanks a lot for coming on the show.

DAVE SEMINARA: Thanks for having me on the show, Tucker.

TUCKER CARLSON: So you say in this piece that you’re not anti-immigrant, like almost every other American. You like immigrants; I think we all do.

SEMINARA: Of course not. I have immigrants in my own family

CARLSON: You raised the question of what would happen if we actually did what many on the left are calling for, and I pose that question to you — what would happen?

SEMINARA: Well it’d be a really unfortunate situation, especially for working-class America, Tucker, I mean I think as Americans we forget how lucky we are to be born in a country like this and unfortunately you know for every one United States or UK or Germany there are ten Uzbekistans, Venezuelas and Somalias. Unfortunately there’s just very very many countries in the world that are absolutely dysfunctional and poor and corrupt that people are looking to get out of and there’s really only 20 or 30 countries, rich countries like ours, that people want to go to, so it’s a problem of supply and demand.

CARLSON: Right that’s exactly right. That’s an interesting conversation but it’s been stopped in its tracks intentionally by the left throwing around stuff about white supremacy and racism. Is it inherently racist to say I control who comes into my country?

SEMINARA Of course not, but it’s been a very effective tool actually to basically silence dissent, and anyone who says that we need to limit immigration — and no matter the fact that we’re talking about limiting it from white countries, black countries, brown countries, yellow countries — is labeled a xenophobe and a racist, and it’s a very effective way to silence dissent. Unfortunately our president has said some incendiary things about immigrants, and that’s really played right into the left hands in this matter that he’s allowed, I think, the left to sort of equate limiting immigration — which is a very reasonable topic as what we need to do — with racism and xenophobia. It’s it’s been very effective for them, but it’s very unfortunate because it’s not an honest debate, and American people aren’t informed based upon it.

CARLSON: What I find so confusing is that the left traditionally has stood for a pristine environment, conservation, keeping the outdoors beautiful, and I’m for those things by the way. What would happen to the environment if you would open borders?

SEMINARA That’s right, I mean I hate to even think about it, but imagine the air quality in a city like Los Angeles — you’re from California I believe — imagine what the traffic and the air quality — and you know the water shortage situation — would be in a chronic drought area like Southern California if we completely opened the borders. I mean, look, environmental groups 10, 20 years ago used to be willing to admit that we needed to limit immigration, but no longer. And now the left is essentially on message, and anyone who wants to limit immigration is essentially a xenophobe.

We don’t want to talk about what would this country look like with 500 million people, what would it look like with 700 million people. I mean look, there’s hundreds of millions of people around the world who would like to move to a country like the United States, and as much as we might even like to let them in — look most immigrants I think are good people — and I don’t blame them for wanting to come. Look, who wouldn’t want to come to the United States? If I was born in Somalia or Venezuela or Syria would I want to come here? Of course I would. You can’t blame them for wanting to come, but look we need to look out for our own interests and our our interests aren’t in being a country of 500, 700, 900 million people, they just aren’t.

CARLSON: So the left is pushing policies that will wreck the environment and shaft the working class. This is not the liberal group I grew up with at all. Dave, thanks for pointing it out.

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