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In 3807 BC, the Neolithic Britons of the Brue Valley came together to construct an elevated, single-plank walkway over a reed swamp. Stretching nearly two kilometres, it would have provided a vital link for communities on the Somerset Levels, and is the second-oldest timber trackway discovered in the British Isles.

The track was a walkway consisting mainly of planks of oak laid end-to-end, supported by crossed pegs of ash, oak, and lime, driven into the underlying peat; the length, straightness, and lack of forks or branches in the pegs suggest that they were taken from coppiced woodland—one that they appear to have been managing for at least 120 years.

The "border crisis" is a manufactured emergency. Yes, people are fleeing to the US and Europe from wars, oppressive regimes, and disaster zones—and both capitalism in general and US foreign policy in particular contribute to creating those. But the same billionaires and politicians who are wringing their hands about undocumented immigration are also bewailing declining birth rates, fearing that those will diminish their access to cheap labor.

Over 12 million people in the US are undocumented. Calls for tighter border controls are chiefly about increasing the pressure on these vulnerable workers in order to exploit them more aggressively. What's at stake is how much violence they face, not whether the economy can do without them.

Capitalists have no intention of paying a cent more for labor. The function of political posturing about the "border crisis" is to distract us from capitalist profiteering and to create a rationale for more state violence that will target more and more of us, not just the undocumented.

The solution to our problems is not xenophobia. It is solidarity across the lines of citizenship and privilege. If we do not stand up for the humanity of those who are excluded and oppressed today, we will find ourselves on the wrong side of the walls of tomorrow.

For more on how borders function to divide and oppress: