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The federal government didn't close the state borders in Australia, the state governments did. Australia is a federation just like the USA.

aksss 6y ago
GTK, I didn’t appreciate the level of independence possessed by the Australian states. Unsure of how AUS states locked down - nonetheless, getting six states to agree on something is easier than 50. Point stands that the US could not lock down travel between the states, and it would be impossible to get the states to agree on mutual border closures.
- boatmansloth 6y ago
  The states didn't agree on anything - when a state had an outbreak other states independently chose to close the border to them and administered border passes until the outbreak subsided.
jandrewrogers 6y ago
In the US, the States are explicitly prohibited from closing their borders as a matter of Constitutional law. For different reasons, neither the States nor the Federal government are allowed to prohibit free travel between the States. This has been to the Supreme Court many times, it is mostly settled law at this point. The right to travel within the US, like free speech, is near absolute. The due process hurdles to temporarily remove that right from an individual are very high; you can't do it with an edict nor de facto travel restrictions by abusing regulatory power (which has also been tested in the US Supreme Court). Australia has significantly weaker individual freedoms than the US. This is one of those cases where those differences become apparent. Everyone asserting that the US should restrict travel like everyone else is ignoring that it is expressly illegal for the government to mandate such at thing in the US. No one in the US government is interested in dealing with the backlash such an attempt would elicit.
- boatmansloth 6y ago
  > In the US, the States are explicitly prohibited from closing their borders as a matter of Constitutional law This appears to be wrong: https://www.justsecurity.org/69770/can-governors-close-their-borders-to-pandemic-risks/ https://www.justsecurity.org/69770/can-governors-close-their...
  - jandrewrogers 6y ago
    No, that is selective quoting of case law in support of a narrative. There are significant due process hurdles and evidentiary standards of "threat to public safety" in this same case law that are ignored here because they are inconvenient to the argument but nonetheless part of that same judicial precedent. A thorough reading of that case law makes it plain that the proposals with respect to COVID would never pass judicial muster. In fact, there is considerable case law where attempts at such prohibitions were rejected outright but little curiosity in the above link as to the conditions and circumstances that caused the courts to throw them out. The government knows that the courts won't allow them to cherrypick and selectively quote case law. It isn't an accident that every State in the US, across the entire political spectrum, came to the same policy conclusion regarding freedom of travel.
    - boatmansloth 6y ago
      I dunno dude, the guy is a law professor. Do you have something more compelling for me to read instead? No insult to you but right now I'm running in to the 'guy on the internet has opinions problem' I hope you'll understand. This guy from Yale thinks the same as the first one I linked: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-18/in-a-pandemic-like-coronavirus-state-travel-bans-would-be-legal https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-18/in-a-p...
      - creato 6y ago
        Even if we assume you are right, how do you think this would work out in practice? Many police in the US won't even enforce mask mandates, you think they'll enforce travel restrictions on literally thousands of state border crossings? Most of these border crossings barely even have a sign indicating them.

aksss 6y ago

GTK, I didn’t appreciate the level of independence possessed by the Australian states. Unsure of how AUS states locked down - nonetheless, getting six states to agree on something is easier than 50. Point stands that the US could not lock down travel between the states, and it would be impossible to get the states to agree on mutual border closures.

boatmansloth 6y ago
The states didn't agree on anything - when a state had an outbreak other states independently chose to close the border to them and administered border passes until the outbreak subsided.

jandrewrogers 6y ago

In the US, the States are explicitly prohibited from closing their borders as a matter of Constitutional law. For different reasons, neither the States nor the Federal government are allowed to prohibit free travel between the States. This has been to the Supreme Court many times, it is mostly settled law at this point. The right to travel within the US, like free speech, is near absolute. The due process hurdles to temporarily remove that right from an individual are very high; you can't do it with an edict nor de facto travel restrictions by abusing regulatory power (which has also been tested in the US Supreme Court). Australia has significantly weaker individual freedoms than the US. This is one of those cases where those differences become apparent. Everyone asserting that the US should restrict travel like everyone else is ignoring that it is expressly illegal for the government to mandate such at thing in the US. No one in the US government is interested in dealing with the backlash such an attempt would elicit.

boatmansloth 6y ago
> In the US, the States are explicitly prohibited from closing their borders as a matter of Constitutional law This appears to be wrong: https://www.justsecurity.org/69770/can-governors-close-their-borders-to-pandemic-risks/ https://www.justsecurity.org/69770/can-governors-close-their...
- jandrewrogers 6y ago
  No, that is selective quoting of case law in support of a narrative. There are significant due process hurdles and evidentiary standards of "threat to public safety" in this same case law that are ignored here because they are inconvenient to the argument but nonetheless part of that same judicial precedent. A thorough reading of that case law makes it plain that the proposals with respect to COVID would never pass judicial muster. In fact, there is considerable case law where attempts at such prohibitions were rejected outright but little curiosity in the above link as to the conditions and circumstances that caused the courts to throw them out. The government knows that the courts won't allow them to cherrypick and selectively quote case law. It isn't an accident that every State in the US, across the entire political spectrum, came to the same policy conclusion regarding freedom of travel.
  - boatmansloth 6y ago
    I dunno dude, the guy is a law professor. Do you have something more compelling for me to read instead? No insult to you but right now I'm running in to the 'guy on the internet has opinions problem' I hope you'll understand. This guy from Yale thinks the same as the first one I linked: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-18/in-a-pandemic-like-coronavirus-state-travel-bans-would-be-legal https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-18/in-a-p...
    - creato 6y ago
      Even if we assume you are right, how do you think this would work out in practice? Many police in the US won't even enforce mask mandates, you think they'll enforce travel restrictions on literally thousands of state border crossings? Most of these border crossings barely even have a sign indicating them.