system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why are countries so hesitant on closing their borders and preventing mass immigration from crossing their borders.

Italy, for one. France.  Sweden. The U.S.  

Follow up:  Thanks for the responses.  I look at countries like Sweden that offer free education to everyone of England and its healthcare - so many non-citizens using those resources has to be taxing. 

Italy is swamped with refugees from the other side of the Med - how can any economy hold up to this. 

And then there's the cultural changes and I again bring up Sweden and the influx of Muslims. 

This is making for a volatile  situation and the politicians have to know citizens will only take so much.
gpt
A closed border is more than just a state of mind. It's armed military patrols, it's shooting unarmed civilians, it's an expensive program of detention and deportation that makes your country look ugly and authoritarian to people living within and without.

France is getting refugees from the war it started in Libya. They show up in a boat, and you have three choices.

1. Indefinite detention without trial.

2. Deportation to a definite death sentence.

3. Let them stay.

The solution to refugees in Europe does not come from the end of a gun, but from taking a serious look at the reasons why people risk their lives overloading boats to escape.