Because you burn carbon, you exacerbate the climate crisis, which causes rising seas and more disasters. The US is responsible for more total carbon emissions than any other country, creating refugees and increasing migration globally. Maybe you neither know nor care about people in other countries, but your carbon emissions are driving migrants to the US. Nicaragua alone has over 100,000 climate refugees due to increasingly violent hurricanes and severe drought wiping out crops and cattle. These problems increase poverty and weaken their government, causing many to flee to other countries, especially the US. If you don’t want a lot more immigrants in the US, then you should stop burning carbon and vote for carbon reduction policies.

Understand that the unprecedented scale of these disasters is man-made, climate-driven and increasing at a rate that humanity has never faced. The problem is not just the disasters we are seeing now. The problem is that we are continuing to make even more disasters even worse every year. Carbon pollution makes disasters more deadly, driving dramatic diasporas and magnifying violent conflict, which causes wars and even more refugees. Wars burn even more carbon. Burning carbon increases border insecurity globally, so the underlying problems are accelerating.

Already, there are tens of millions of climate refugees globally, in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and South America. Extreme heat and drought drive violent conflicts in Somalia, Sudan, Syria & Yemen. But in 15 years, the number of countries with similarly extreme climate crises is expected to rise from 10 to 65. Flooding has already displaced millions of refugees in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Many of the countries currently hosing refugees are already suffering or will suffer severe climate consequences themselves soon, including millions already displaced in China and the Philippines. As the climate crisis continues to worsen and intensify, the total number of refugees globally will increase dramatically.

Whether you care about the human suffering or not, more and more climate migrants will continue trying to reach the US every year. Increasing border security is extremely expensive. Last year the US allocated an additional $170 billion for more border fencing, Customs and Border Patrol, ICE, new detention facilities, surveillance, etc. Given that the global climate refugee problem is accelerating exponentially, future costs will continue rising even more rapidly. Spending more on solar and wind would lower both energy costs and future costs of dealing with climate refugees. Fixing the climate crisis is the most direct way to reduce the disasters that drive migrants here.

Refusing refugees is cruel. Desperate people historically have also found many ways to enter the country, including flying and overstaying their legal visas. Deporting long term residents to countries that they haven’t seen since infancy is also cruel and can be quite expensive with airfare and legal costs. Spending more on relief programs like USAID both saves lives and reduces the future costs of dealing with climate refugees. And of course, it is not moral to refuse assistance to hundreds of millions of our fellow human beings who will be displaced by our cumulative carbon emissions.

January is National Trafficking Month, and refugees are among the most vulnerable populations forced into human trafficking operations. So choosing to reduce carbon emissions is choosing to reduce human trafficking. Politicians may talk tough on border security, but if they deny the climate crisis, they may be worsening rather than fixing the problem. You may consider yourself anti-crime, but if you vote for people who call climate change a hoax, encourage cryptocurrencies and have personal history with sex-traffickers, then you are contributing to human trafficking on multiple fronts.

So don’t tell me you care about border security, prove it. Stop burning carbon, and vote for climate justice. Fix the climate crisis to increase global border security and human safety.