Immigration is an issue which divides the liberty movement. On the one
hand are those—mostly traditional conservatives—who believe that the
federal government should secure the borders and ensure that all who
come into the United States go through official government channels.
On the other hand are those—mainly libertarians—who believe that these
tasks are impossible, unwarranted, and, even if they could be construed
as positive, will lead to greater infringements on the liberties of all
Americans. As for me, I fall into the latter category.
While I
respect and admire many of the folks on the other side of this issue,
it seems to me that they have forgotten the warning issued by Thomas
Paine: “He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his
enemy from opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes a
precedent that will reach himself.” In other words, be careful what
you ask the government to do because it may do it to you.
It
is a wonder that during this economic calamity, illegal immigration is
still at the forefront for so many conservatives. Despite the rhetoric
by immigration warriors that illegal immigration was going to destroy
America, Pedro and Juan mowing your neighbor’s lawns haven’t had much
to do with it. Charles and Biff in the boardroom at Goldman Sachs, on
the other hand, as well as the dolts in Washington, DC—all of them
legal Americans—have done more to decimate America than any army of
illegal immigrants ever could.
I also find it curious that some
in the liberty movement gripe about the apathy of the average
American—supposedly too indifferent about their liberties to even go to
the voting booth, much less pick up a sign and protest—while at the
same time looking down with scorn at folks who literally risk death to
come here and make a better life for themselves. (
As
Lew Rockwell points out, however, fewer people are willing to take that
risk because of the economic downturn—a trend which does not bode well
for America.)
The fact that many conservatives advocate
enlarging the size and power of the federal government in order to
solve a problem reveals an inconsistency in their political
philosophy. After all, it was Ronald Reagan who said that “government
is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
(Unfortunately, the Gipper doubled the size of the problem when he was
president.)
Besides, it is the policies of the federal
government which have made illegal immigration a problem to begin
with. Maybe that’s why the Founders believed that immigration was an
issue that, like almost all others, should be dealt with at the state
level.
For most of the first century of American history,
immigration was considered a state matter. For instance, President
Ulysses S. Grant said in a letter to Congress that “responsibility over
immigration can only belong with the States since this is where the
Constitution kept the power.”
Texas even had its own Bureau of Immigration. It wasn’t until an activist Supreme Court decision in 1875,
Chy Lung v Freeman, that immigration was placed under federal purview.
If
Texas has a problem with immigration, why should the people of
Tennessee be taxed to help pay for it? In fact, why should those of us
for whom stopping illegal immigration is not a priority be forced to
pay the bill for those whom it is? While conservatives complain about
taxes when they are used to pay for things that conservatives oppose,
they happily jump on the tax bandwagon when it suits their purposes.
Taxes used to support welfare are bad, but taxation to deal with
illegal immigration is acceptable.
All
taxation is immoral and based on theft. It is not just the uses to
which tax money is put but the methods by which it is collected—force
and coercion—that we should consider.
Of course, many other
things that would normally be considered un-American are perfectly
acceptable when applied to immigration policy.
The trend
toward militarization of the police is extremely disturbing, but
militarizing the border is reasonable. Okay, but remember, those
machine-gun turrets can point inward as well. (By the way, I don’t
think that granting citizenship to immigrants as an enticement for
military service is a good idea, either. However, the Constitution
only allows Congress to fund the Army for two years at a time and the
Founders repeatedly warned about the dangers of a standing army. Thus,
the problem is not immigrants in the military, it is the fact that the
military is so large as to have room for immigrants to begin with).
National ID cards are an anathema, but the
E-verify program
is laudable. What is E-verify but another government database? And it
differs from other government databases in what way? Of course,
E-verify is primarily aimed at weeding out illegal immigrants. Yeah,
and your social security number will never be used as identification,
and only the rich will pay income tax. The truth is that E-verify is a
permit to work. Don’t you find that particularly creepy—that a
government bureaucrat can theoretically turn off your permit,
effectively leaving you unable to work? Right now, E-verify is
voluntary, but just wait, sooner or later all of us will participate
like it or not.
Ever government program expands. That is the
nature of the beast. One of the books which helped form my political
philosophy was Harry Browne’s
Why Government Doesn’t Work.
After years of reflection, I now realize that Harry’s book is misnamed;
government does work, just not in the ways we think and not for us.
All of the government’s wars on “insert term here” have been failures
in achieving their ostensible goals. But from the perspective of
expanding power and giving politicians and bureaucrats more control
over our lives, they have been spectacular successes.
For
instance, the TSA (an unconstitutional agency itself) is tasked with
keeping terrorists off of airplanes. Why then must every airline
passenger present positive government identification? In other words,
why does the TSA need to know who we are when it really only needs to
know who we aren’t? If you are not a terrorist—which could easily be
determined by comparing your face with a database of known
terrorists—get on the airplane, no questions asked. Instead, the
government must know who you are. Why? Because it wants to track and
trace our every move.
E-verify will end up being no different.
Eventually, it will be linked with some sort of national ID or it will
become one itself, giving the government access to all of your personal
information, including your financial information, and completely
destroying whatever remains of privacy. Oh well, at least illegals
will be prevented from working here as well.
But that’s right,
illegal immigrants are already supposed to be prevented from working
here. That’s what the $5 billion and the 17,000 federal agents that
work for ICE are supposed to do. I guess the answer is to increase the
funding and size of the agency. That seems to be the answer for every
other government failure.
Conservatives will argue against
government involvement in education and health care, but then turn
around and declare that illegal immigrants are destroying local
communities by taking advantage of these services without paying into
them. True, but the problem is not who is exploiting these services
but the fact that they are there to be exploited. Despite what
liberals may claim, no one, American citizen or otherwise, has a
“right” to “free” education or health care. It is the private sector,
whether for-profit or charity, that should be providing these services,
not the government at taxpayer expense.
Likewise, conservatives
argue that affirmative action is an insult to minorities because it
implies that individuals within these groups cannot fairly compete with
whites. These same folks, however, will then argue that Americans in
generally cannot fairly compete with Mexican villagers and that
“American” jobs must be protected.
There is no such thing as an
“American” job. If one believes in economic freedom, one must believe
that the job is the property of the employer, not the employee. (And,
indeed, this is the case. For proof, here’s a simple thought
experiment. Say you wish to hire someone for a job. If the person you
hire to fill the job dies, your need still exists; you will find
someone else to fill the job. If, on the other hand, you die, the job
is destroyed as well. Thus, the job a part of you and is your
property.) The employer, the person providing the job, should be able
to hire whomever he wishes to fill the position. If he cannot, he is
not free. Yet, all this goes out the window when dealing with
immigration.
Somehow, ICE agents kicking down employer’s doors
to ensure that they are complying with federal employment mandates does
not jibe with my concept of a free market.
Employers compete
with one another to provide the best services at the lowest prices. In
order to keep costs low, they may hire low cost labor. As consumers,
we benefit from these lower prices; we have more money to spend on
other desirable products. Socialists do not see the benefit. To
socialists, entrepreneurs in search of a profit are greedy.
Unfortunately, many conservatives think the same way when employers use
illegal immigrants to keep costs low. Then the employers are engaging
in unfair, illegal tactics.
Instead of seeing the benefits to
consumers, immigration warriors only see jobs which are not filled by
Americans. However, often the reason that Americans do not fill these
jobs is because the jobs do not pay the state mandated minimum wage.
In addition, if the labor cost rose, the consumer would no longer be
willing to pay for the product and the job would be destroyed anyway.
Thus, it is the consumer, and not the employer, who ultimately
determines the price of a product, and, therefore, the acceptable input
costs to the producer;
a process Ludwig von Mises called "consumer sovereignty".
There
are legitimate concerns when it comes to illegal immigration, but as
with every other issue, government policies are the problem; not the
solution. An arduous government process discourages productive
individuals from immigrating to America through official channels. It
took a friend of mine 5 years and $10,000 and an immigration attorney
to finally secure a green card. At the same time, the welfare state
beckons to the non-productive to feed at the government’s trough at
taxpayer expense. Meanwhile government intervention in the economy
skews conditions in favor of undocumented workers in the form of
minimum wage.
Eliminate these programs and interventions and you
eliminate the problem. Giving government more power to deal with
illegal immigration will only expand the police state and further
socialize the economy. The government will never be able to stop
illegal immigration, but it can use illegal immigration as an excuse to
infringe upon the liberties of us all.
