The Enduring Relevance of National Sovereignty and Borders
April 30, 2024
Pawel Styrna
Senior Researcher
“No border, no security.” That simple common-sense point was made by historian Marek Chodakiewicz as he opened up a conference on “U.S. Sovereignty: The Border Challenges” at the Institute of World Politics (IWP) in Washington, D.C., earlier this month. Given that the overarching theme of the conference was the importance of national sovereignty and the manifold security threats posed by open borders, the graduate school of statecraft, national security, and international affairs was an appropriate venue to host such an event. Speakers included Matt O’Brien – current Director of Investigations at the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) and a former immigration judge and FAIR research director – and Mark Morgan, a one-time senior fellow at FAIR, Border Patrol chief, and Acting Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Below are a few highlights from the conference (with each presentation hyperlinked in the relevant paragraph).
Professor Chodakiewicz, a legal immigrant from Poland, pointed out how essential national borders are for our security. He noted that border security is particularly important in light of communist China’s exploitation of porous borders under the current administration to wage a de facto war on America by working with brutal Mexican cartels to smuggle drugs into the U.S. The fact that the current political establishment allows this to happen and does nothing, he concluded sadly, stems from a disregard for Americans in so-called “flyover country.”
S. Marshall Wilson – a veteran U.S. Army infantry officer, Christian missionary to Peru, and former West Virginia state delegate – stressed how masses of illegal aliens suddenly showing up across the U.S. puts a strain on local communities throughout the American heartland. This is particularly true in economically depressed areas such as Wilson’s native West Virginia.
https://www.fairus.org/blog/2024/04/30/enduring-relevance-national-sovereignty-and-borders
