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News Link • Citizenship

Is There a Libertarian Position on Citizenship?

• Mises Wire - Ryan McMaken

Try an internet search of the phrase "libertarian position on naturalization and citizenship"—or some similar variation of those words. What you will find is a wide array of articles on immigration from the usual "libertarian" sources. But, that hardly answers our question since immigration and naturalization are two very different things. These articles often mention the words "citizenship" and "naturalization" in passing. But they never explain why, based on libertarian principles, we should be restrictionist or expansionist on granting citizenship to migrants.

Consider, for example the recent rash of articles on birthright citizenship at Reason. Every single article that I've seen is simply an article using legal positivist claims to support the status quo. See here, here, and here, for example. The "debate" is little more than lawyers stating what they think the written law says with the implied conclusion that birthright citizenship—and, presumably expanded naturalization—is good because the US Constitution says so. This is far cry from arguing in favor of expanded naturalization based on actual libertarian principles. The US Constitution is many things, but it's certainly not a proxy for laissez-faire and libertarianism.