The Europeans Have the Final Solution to the Republicans' Mexican Problem

When author, pacifist and social critic Victor Hugo proposed in 1870 that the nations of Europe form a union based on principles of free commerce, peace and universal justice, the idea was ridiculed as naive, preposterous and economically undesirable. Now we have a healthy and growing European Union with the world's most vigorous currency.

Customs and passport checkpoints have been abolished at most national borders, resulting in a peaceful and free democratic zone for travel, work and investment. There are 20 official European languages spoken by a total of 460,000,000 souls, roughly the population of North America.

Of course, the EU is not paradise, but that isn't my point. If you (like the critics of Victor Hugo) think an American Hemisphere without borders is utopian, consider the problems of the border policy we are now planning; a 2000-mile wall with armed guards, an ultra-militarized barbed-wire border zone, and a ghettoized Mexican labor force who are potential criminals anywhere north of the border.

This system is a throwback to an age of runaway slaves or Jewish escapees. It is impractical. It is immoral. It is expensive and unsustainable. Mexicans arrive in our country - legally or not - as economic refugees looking for work, organically following the job market as it moves north. They are here because corporate US employers have put up several million Help Wanted signs and because NAFTA devoured any job opportunities they once had back home.

Open borders seem to work for Europe. Why not for America?