Let’s face it. Immigration controls just don’t work.
When you’re trying to control the rate at which people enter the country, that’s trying to fight supply and demand. And Supply and Demand always win. Try to fight it, and you create black markets, or worse. That’s how we end up with human trafficking and modern day slavery.
Walls and barbed wire fences? First, you’re inviting people to try and get around them. In some places you’re even putting barbed wire down through the center of a town. And frankly, barbed wire and walls are a more appropriate look for totalitarian dictatorships than free people. Think East Berlin before the Berlin Wall fell, or North Korea along the DMZ. Is that really what we want?
Instead, here’s my crazy idea. We start with the Ellis Island model: Check people at the door, but once they get in, they’re on their own.
But we go a step beyond that, in a way that only America can. Follow the model that made the 1984 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles so wildly successful: Branding and sponsorship. We could replace the existing ugly, DMV-style border stations with “welcome centers” sponsored by iconic American brands. McDonalds, Coca Cola, Levi’s Jeans! Out of brand pride, each center would naturally compete to make itself the best, the most welcoming, to draw the most people in! Why cross a desert when you can stop in and get a refreshing drink at the Budweiser Welcome Center?
Or if you’re travelling with the kids, make sure you stop by the World of Immigration By Disney™! Because It Really Is A Small World After All!
Sure, it seems a little bit silly to think about, but wouldn’t it be great to turn a problem into an opportunity?