The Case Against Open Borders
April 29, 2026 · Frisian News
Open border policies strain local wages, housing, and public services while benefiting wealthy employers and multinational corporations. Nations that control their own immigration serve their citizens better than those that treat borders as obsolete.
In parts of Denmark, construction wages fell significantly in recent years. Workers traced the decline directly to an influx of labor from Eastern Europe willing to work for less. The local union could not stop it. Denmark did not have open borders in the strict sense, but years of loose EU labor migration rules produced the same result: working people lost bargaining power. This story repeats in towns across the continent wherever skilled employers can import cheaper hands.
Open border advocates claim that movement of people creates economic growth and that fear of immigrants rests on xenophobia. They point to studies showing immigrants start businesses at higher rates than natives and fill labor shortages. These claims contain fragments of truth. Large corporations and construction firms do benefit from wage suppression. But those gains flow upward. A Polish electrician earning less undercuts a Dutch electrician earning more. The Polish worker may be better off than at home. The Dutch worker's family loses income. That trade produces growth for employers, not for workers.
Nations with strong borders and controlled immigration have not collapsed. Switzerland keeps borders tight and maintains high wages, good housing, and thriving towns. Australia selects immigrants by skill and need, not ideology. Japan restricts foreign labor yet ranks among the world's wealthiest and most stable nations. These countries did not embrace open borders out of cowardice or backwardness. They made deliberate choices to serve their own people first. The European Union and North America have drifted toward open movement as a quasi-religious belief, not because evidence demands it.
The housing crisis in London, Amsterdam, and Dublin did not happen by accident. Demand from immigration outpaced new construction. Landlords and developers benefited from higher prices and rents. Young families priced out of their own towns gained nothing. Schools and hospitals in high-immigration areas struggle with funding gaps. Yet politicians and business groups call anyone who notices this "nationalist" or "discriminatory." Such language closes debate rather than opening it. It protects the interests of those who profit from mass movement while blaming ordinary people for wanting home security.
A sovereign nation has the right to decide who lives within its borders. That principle does not rest on hatred. It rests on democracy. When Brussels bureaucrats or Washington technocrats override local wishes on migration, they weaken the bond between citizens and their representatives. Communities that control their own borders can build futures suited to their own needs and values. Those that do not become service stations for global capital, their wages suppressed, their housing expensive, their schools and hospitals strained, their identity diluted by forces they did not choose.
Published April 29, 2026 · Frisian News