Border Proposals

by Jason Archer

Posted November 10, 2006

The Libertarian Party held official open-border advocacy as a platform plank until July 2006, when the Party in toto realized that libertarians can have differences of opinion regarding the issue of the US-Mexican Border. To answer the questions posed in the opening essay, I offer the following.

Open (or virtually-open) immigration might not be as disastrous as some would think.

The welfare system might not be sharply affected by the massive legal immigration that would come with opened borders. Most of those that come illegally now do not draw welfare, and if they did (which they probably would if they became legal) the system would simply be funded by increased borrowing, as it is now. The trick to reducing dependence on state-welfare by immigrants is to replace the government system of welfare with a private system of charity. Let's face it—poverty isn't going to magically disappear by scrapping welfare, and the last thing America needs is for millions of desperate poor people to lose their welfare lifeline; such people tend to look to “benevolent” dictators for badly needed economic help.

Regarding the job market, immigrants DO depress wages, but they also depress prices for goods and services. For example, there are shops in my hometown where you can buy a week's groceries for about $25. These shops are usually in the immigrant neighborhoods, where very few can afford to spend $100 on one visit to the supermarket. The fact is that although immigrants crash the price of labor, they also force businesses to sell their goods and services at lower prices so that low-paid immigrants can afford to buy them. This can actually result in small deflation, a welcome relief from nationwide inflation.

As for authoritarians coming to this country and demanding more laws, how is that substantially different from authoritarians born in this country demanding more laws? I fail to see how. The only way to combat immigrant authoritarianism is eternal vigilance, which is the same way to combat homegrown authoritarianism.

All that being said, open borders may be feasible one day, but not today. Right now, certain parts of the border have become havens for criminals—and worse. Regardless of the legality or morality of modern immigration, parts of the border have become war zones, just as deadly and desolate as parts of Iraq. No matter how benign massive immigration may truly be, what happens at the border right now is demented. Sadly, we need the National Guard and the Minutemen at the border, no matter how much we don't want to need them. Immigration is one thing, but the drug cartels and paramilitary forces on our southern border need to be dealt with, and we must be careful not to confuse the issue of border security with immigration, which too many politicians seem to do so well. Stopping MS13 should have no bearing on whether to allow foreign workers into this country.

Once we regain control of the border, however, near-open immigration becomes possible. After all, we can't open the gates if we don't control them! Once we do, some sort of Ellis Island-like system should be allowed to emerge, with formal points of entry open to anyone who 1) isn't Typhoid Mary, 2) isn't criminally insane, and 3) has the money to buy a visa. That's right, I said buy a visa. Instead of having the government issue a limited number of visas based on expensive and complicated examinations and forms, just sell them at a nominal fee for government revenue! It would shut up those who say immigrants contribute nothing. As for National ID, such is a red herring, and we need to expose it as such. If the several states keep using their own ID systems coupled with visa recognition, they can achieve the same result as a national ID (which itself would be expensive to implement and odious to the public, although it would help big-government nuts to get their programs across).

Hopefully, proposals like these are something that Libertarians can support regarding immigration.

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