I want to make America super-great, using immigration
20 insights
What is super-greatness?
Super-greatness means human flourishing beyond anything previously achieved.
It means having more and better life experiences at less cost in time and money.
It requires the greatest application of human intelligence and labor yet exerted on planet Earth.
It needs the best minds and talents working together in the one place that has the best culture and legal system so that each person can achieve their highest potential.
That one place is America.
Returning America to mere greatness is not enough. We've already been there and done that. More is possible and more is what we want.
Immigration has always been the key to great achievements, and it still is today.
The best minds with the best motivation have always moved westward, escaping inhibitions and seeking the freedom to innovate and flourish.
Some of their names are famous, from Andrew Carnegie to Nikola Telsa to Sergei Brin, to Elon Musk, but there are a million more besides, big and small.
It can still be that way today.
I offer these 20 insights to pave the path to American super-greatness, using immigration.
THE LEGAL ISSUE:
The Constitution creates an enumerated power to control who can become a citizen, but none to control who can visit and reside here. Immigration controls violate the 9th and 10th Amendments.
THE HISTORICAL ISSUE:
Because Congress had no enumerated power to control who could visit and reside here, the United States had no immigration law until the 1880s, after which Congress decided to ignore the Constitution and pass one anyway.
The famous Ellis Island didn't open until ten years later, in the 1890s.
We had completely open borders for nearly one hundred years but somehow managed to survive and thrive.
When immigration laws were finally passed they were a reaction to the Chinese immigrants who built our railroads and did our laundry. Hand-wringers issued dire warnings about the Yellow Peril, just like those heard about the Irish before them and every immigrant group since. And yet...
The U.S. somehow survived and thrived.
It would be no different this time. Thinking otherwise inhibits super-greatness.
THE CULTURAL ISSUE:
American culture dominates the world.
American culture is strong, not weak.
America absorbs and incorporates the good from immigrant cultures. It does not succumb to them.
Prohibiting new cultural inputs inhibits super-greatness.
THE CAPACITY ISSUE:
America is mostly empty. It always has been. It always will be. Fly over it. Drive across it. Pay attention. You will see.
You could incorporate the entire world population at the density of New York City in just Texas, leaving the rest of the world vacant.
Meanwhile, the amount of farmland needed constantly drops.
There is no capacity deficit, except perhaps in our willingness to become super-great.
THE MORAL ISSUE:
Humans have an inalienable right to move freely through public spaces and to associate with whomever they choose, without needing permission from anyone else.
A public space is any area a person can travel across without violating property rights. This includes the roads citizens and immigrants fund through their gasoline taxes.
Our inalienable rights of movement and association do not suddenly become alienable just because majorities, politicians, or people with badges say so.
Immigrant deportations represent the crime of kidnapping, on a mass scale. This inhibits super-greatness.
THE ECONOMIC ISSUE:
The people ICE deports were mostly productive contributors to GDP. They were producers and customers. Both things are now lost to our economy. This inhibits super-greatness.
Most deportees are also young working-age people who were propping up Medicare and Social Security. They kept the debt crisis from becoming even worse. Losing them will make the debt crisis mushroom. That will inhibit super-greatness.
THE JOBS ISSUE:
The immigrant who takes a job by being better or cheaper also creates jobs by being a consumer.
Having better or cheaper labor lowers the cost of living.
The jobs issue is a non-issue, except that we have a labor shortage. Deportations make that problem worse. They inhibit super-greatness.
The labor shortage will prevent more factories from coming here, no matter how many tariffs President Trump raises. That too will inhibit super-greatness.
China's only advantage is its huge population. We should remove that advantage. We should get all the smart people with gumption to live here and make us rich.
THE TAX ISSUE:
Nearly every study I've seen shows that so-called illegal immigrants pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits. Their departure will make our debt problem worse, not better. This inhibits super-greatness.
THE WELFARE ISSUE:
Since immigrants pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits, welfare programs are not a problem.
Immigrant workers also prop up Medicare and Social Security.
It would be better to end tax-funded benefits for non-citizens, rather than control human movement and association. Doing self-destructive things instead of productive things inhibits super-greatness.
THE CRIME ISSUE:
Scary anecdotes aside, every study I've seen suggests that immigrants commit fewer crimes than natives.
THE HOUSING ISSUE:
Immigrants didn't cause this problem. They use housing, but they also build it.
The problem was created by NIMBYs, environmental extremists, and politicians, who have made construction illegal.
The correct solution is not to curtail human movement and the freedom of association but to legalize housing construction. That would foster super-greatness.
If you want to deport someone, deport the NIMBYs. They deserve it.
THE HEALTHCARE ISSUE:
Immigrants have no more ability to transmit diseases than do the millions of tourists who come here each year, or the millions of American citizens who visit other places and then return home.
Meanwhile, more people leave the country to seek healthcare than enter it.
Many immigrants will become doctors, nurses, and researchers, not just patients.
We will need young immigrant healthcare professionals to serve our aging native population.
The money that smugglers earn to bring people in could instead buy health insurance. That would foster super-greatness.
THE ISLAMIC VIOLENCE ISSUE:
It makes more sense to imprison or deport specific Muslims who commit or advocate violence than to curtail human movement and the freedom of association.
THE WALL ISSUE:
Most so-called illegals (see the constitutional and moral Issues above for why they are only so-called) get here by overstaying their tourist visas, not by hiking or swimming across the border.
A wall can do nothing to address that method of entry. You could only do that by ending all tourism.
Even the most expensive wall can be tunneled under, climbed over, flown over, or bypassed to land on a beach.
Border guards can be bribed the same way prison guards are bribed to smuggle drugs.
Do you want to spend money on a wall and guards and constant deportations, or to sustain Medicare and Social Security?
THE VETTING ISSUE:
This one sounds essential but collapses instantly.
Who will provide the vetting information? The immigrant will lie as needed to gain entry. The country of origin will lie to lose the bad people and keep the good people.
Even if those realities weren't true, only the good people will submit to the vetting. The bad people will avoid it, the same way bad people ignore booze, drug, and gun prohibitions.
THE NATIONAL SECURITY ISSUE:
A family seeking a better life is not a military unit intending to invade and subdue.
The 9-11 terrorists came here as legal tourists.
There is no intersection between immigration controls and national security, however much there may seem to be at first glance. There is a connection between constraining immigration and inhibiting super-greatness.
THE DRUG ISSUE:
Drug prohibition doesn't work any better than booze or gun prohibition.
People-prohibition (immigration controls) cannot make drug prohibition finally succeed.
People-prohibition just magnifies the prohibitionist error.
All forms of prohibition inhibit super-greatness.
THE SEX TRAFFICKING ISSUE:
Why kidnap sex workers who can run away when there are so many willing sex workers?
Why traffic children when finding customers is so hard and dangerous?
In reality, cross-border sex trafficking is largely a myth, as The Honest Courtesan and the Reason Foundation have extensively documented.
We can continue to frighten ourselves with lurid fantasies or we can spend our time and money fostering super-greatness.
THE BORDER ISSUE:
If a political border was the same as a property boundary you would need permission to cross from Arizona to California, but you don't, because it isn't.
A border is simply a jurisdiction marker, showing what institutions and laws govern within those lines.
If two people reside side by side on the southern U.S. border and one person wants to host Mexicans and the other does not, both are within their moral and constitutional rights regardless of what anyone else might want.
THE SPEED ISSUE:
If you're worried about people coming faster than we can absorb them, then slow the flow by charging for entry. That could pay down the debt, reduce interest payments, and foster super-greatness.
THE OPPORTUNITY ISSUE:
Do you want your full Medicare and Social Security benefits? Then you need more immigrants.
Do you want fewer tax dollars consumed by interest payments on the national debt? Then you need more immigrants.
Do you want increased American manufacturing? Then you need more immigrants.
If being an American is so valuable then sell green cards and citizenships to pay down the national debt. Americans should get the money, not smugglers.
Do you want more productivity and customers? Then you need more immigrants.
Do you want the American Century to extend through the 21st and beyond? Then get all the people with brains and gumption to come here.
Do you want America to become super-great, then you need more immigrants!
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Copyright © Perry Willis 2025
Perry Willis is the co-founder of Downsize DC and the Zero Aggression Project. He co-created, with Jim Babka, the Read the Bills Act, the One Subject at a Time Act, and the Write the Laws Act, all of which have been introduced in Congress. He is a past Executive Director of the national Libertarian Party and was the campaign manager for Harry Browne for President in 2000.
Excellent points, Perry, most seldom touched on. The populace is responding currently to the political methods used recently to import masses of immigrants. The pendulum should shift back as some of the problems with closed borders that you've outlined become evident.