One of the Democrats running for president is campaigning on open borders. Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro called for the decriminalization of unauthorized border crossing.

From The Hill:

Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro called for the decriminalization of border crossings Tuesday as part of his 2020 presidential platform on immigration.

Castro, who announced his Democratic White House bid in January, wrote in a blog post that “the truth is, immigrants seeking refuge in our country aren’t a threat to national security.”

“Migration shouldn’t be a criminal justice issue.”

Castro called for the removal of Section 1325, the law which has made illegal entry a federal misdemeanor since 1929, arguing that the rule has been weaponized to target immigrants.

“These laws got a new life in 2005, when the Bush administration decided to charge those that crossed the border with criminal violations, rather than civil ones,” the former San Antonio, Texas, mayor explained.

“This shift to criminalize immigration is at the core of many of this administration’s most egregious immigration policies - from family separation to indiscriminate [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] ICE raids to targeting asylum seekers.”

Castro has also outlined other provisions designed to weaken immigration enforcement. He wants to remove ICE’s immigration enforcement functions and make immigration courts more independent of the executive branch. Finally, he wants to throw a bunch of American taxpayer money at Central America.

Many of our more libertarian readers are thinking, this is a good thing. After all, we should have open borders because it would make America and the world more wealthy.

Well, that’s not necessarily and there are good arguments that suggest that immigration, especially illegal immigration, has costs to the nation. In addition, if we have open borders there will be no way to screen out bad guys like the illegal alien arrested for child porn yesterday in Jefferson Parish.

Finally, at least 147 million people around the world would like to immigrate to the United States. That’s going to be around one potential immigrant for every two Americans. That number would place a severe burden on social services, increase costs of basic necessities of everything from food to housing, and drive down the wages of Americans. Having open borders means we have to let all these people in and decriminalizing unauthorized entry would essentially create open borders.

Immigration has to benefit natives and citizens first and foremost. Castro’s plan for open borders instead puts foreigners first. Voters should remember that.