By Perry Willis
Words: 4,531
Someone recently wrote me the following message, which I've edited to focus on the key points...
Dear Mr. Willis,
I think it's a government responsibility to address immigration both as to quantity and quality. I support small, merit-based legal immigration and active engagement to prevent illegal entry into the country.
In view of the current world population of almost 8 Billion, and the limited resources [carrying capacity] in any area, does the libertarian position on immigration approximate my own?
The article below will answer those questions, plus many more about the immigration issue. I intend to provide a comprehensive examination. I will address...
The moral and constitutional questions
The crucial difference between political borders and property boundaries
The important distinction between naturalization and immigration
The relevant U.S. history
The moral and legal self-contradictions many people bring to this issue
Practical considerations such as tax-funded benefits for immigrants, voting, unemployment, economic competition, crime, disease, emergency room overcrowding, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, overpopulation, national security, and vetting
I will also explore the role the ambulance-chasing media plays in manipulating opinions about this issue. In other words...
If you have a concern about immigration the chances are good that I address it below. The article is over 4,000 words long, but it packs a lot of information into a relatively small package. I think it's both comprehensive and concise. It could be one-stop shopping resource for you on this issue. It's also a chance for you to stress test your current views.
Of course, most people prefer to only interact with information they already agree with. If you find yourself feeling that way, I highly recommend this great cartoon presentation about the Backfire Effect. It explains why we conflate our beliefs with our sense of identity and the contortions we put ourselves through to avoid inconvenient facts. Learning about the Backfire Effect could change your life. It did mine.
Now, on with the show...
The fundamental libertarian view
Most libertarians buy the argument Thomas Jefferson made in the Declaration of Independence that all humans, regardless of their place of origin, have inalienable rights that governments cannot legitimately violate. These rights belong to everyone, not just Americans. Some of these rights include the freedom of association, and the right to move freely through public spaces.
To better understand how this applies to the immigration issue, please consider this example...
Two neighbors on the border
If two Americans own property side by side on the Mexican border, and one of them wants to host Mexican citizens and the other does not, both are completely within their rights to make these opposing choices. Said differently...
No American (including voters and politicians) has the right to tell any other American who he or she can or cannot associate with. Neither does any American have any obligation to seek permission from any other American (including voters and politicians) in order to interact with foreigners. This moral reality tells us something important about...
Political borders versus property boundaries
The simple example of two people with two different views about immigration living side by side on the border, instantly explodes the myth that political borders and property boundaries are the same thing. Political boundaries merely define areas of legal jurisdiction. They do not create a collective governmental super-ownership of all the land within those borders. Please notice...
In order to enforce immigration controls police must violate the property boundaries of the neighbor who likes to host Mexicans on his land. This is an act of criminal aggression, not defensive protection. It contradicts the whole purpose of legitimate governance.
Legitimate government only defends rights, it does not transgress them. It only serves, it does not rule. This is crucial to understand...
No one is the ruler of anyone else
No person has the right to rule any other person. And if an individual does not have that power then neither does a group of people. Not even a majority vote, or a 99.999% vote, can change this reality. Zero power times 330 million people is still zero power.
Not even the great god democracy can magically turn wrong into right, or to make any person or group the ruler over others. If something is wrong for an individual to do, then it is also wrong for a group to do, or a majority, even if those people have fancy titles, uniforms, or badges. All sovereignty is ultimately individual sovereignty!
Voters and politicians may think they have the right to impose their own immigration preferences on other Americans, but they do not.
Because the rights to free association and movement are inherent and inalienable, they are also pre-constitutional. These rights do not come from the government. They pre-exist any earthly government or written constitution. Thus, even if the Constitution itself tried to authorize immigration controls, that would still be both immoral and unlawful.
It's easy for people to become confused about this. They think laws are made by legislators who can do whatever they want. But, as the Nuremberg Trials made clear, not all written laws are legal laws.
The essential point I'm making here is so important, and so contrary to popular thinking, that it bears repeating...
The right of all people, American or foreign, to move freely through public spaces is inalienable. So is the right for Americans to associate with any foreigner they want, no matter what any other American thinks about it. This means there can be no legitimate laws controlling who can visit or reside here.
And guess what, our Constitution actually conforms to this analysis!
The Constitution
The Framers mostly understood the philosophical arguments I've made above. This understanding is reflected in the Bill of Rights, and especially in the 9th and 10th Amendments.
The 9th Amendment protects a general right to freedom. That means we have a great many rights that are not specifically listed in the Bill of Rights. Two of these are the freedom of association and the freedom to move through public spaces.
The 10th Amendment limits the federal government to only those powers and functions specifically listed in the Constitution. There is no enumerated power for Congress to control who can travel or reside here, or what kind of people Americans can host and interact with. Thus, all immigration statutes are inherently unconstitutional, and therefore illegal.
It may be objected that these rights only apply to American citizens, but this claim forgets or ignores all the arguments made above about the principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence. Let me repeat them yet again so you don't lose track of them...
Rights are inalienable and pre-constitutional. They do not come from governments. They pre-exist governments and constitutions. They belong to everyone, not just citizens.
For example, foreigners do not lose the right to life, liberty, and property just because they are not American citizens. If you, as an American citizen, murder, kidnap, or rob a visiting foreigner, you will be prosecuted. The same is true for all other rights. Groups of voters, politicians (and other criminals), may do things to violate rights, but they cannot make rights disappear. And again, the Constitution conforms to this.
It will be helpful if you understand precisely what the Constitution does and does not say about naturalization (citizenship) versus immigration (the act of visiting a place and/or residing there).
Naturalization versus immigration
The Constitution does authorize legislation that deals with naturalization. This is the question of who can become a citizen. It does this in Article 1, Section 8, clause 4. But there is no similar authority to control immigration. Indeed...
One of the first laws Congress passed was a naturalization law. However, no laws restricting immigration were passed until 1882. And the famous Ellis Island did not open until ten years later.
Up until that time people came and went as they pleased, with no problem. In fact, the U.S. had completely open borders for the first one hundred years of its existence. Contrary to the fears promoted by nativists, America somehow managed to become the wealthiest country on planet earth during precisely that period. I would argue that America achieved its exalted status largely because it allowed open immigration.
The flood of immigration laws that followed 1882 were all driven by racist fear-mongering and lurid predictions that later proved to be untrue. In reality, we benefited from the Chinese, Irish, Italian, and Eastern European immigrants whom the nativists claimed would destroy or subvert our supposedly vulnerable culture. (If a culture is strong, it needs no protection. But if a culture is truly weak, why not replace it with something more stout?)
The anti-immigration forces of today will even agree that all those previous waves of immigration were helpful, but will hasten to add that modern Mexican immigration is somehow different and dangerous.
In reality, all the immigration laws passed since 1882 have been unconstitutional, immoral, and bigoted. In moral and Constitutional terms...
There is no such thing as an illegal alien, there are only illegal immigration laws.
Inconsistency
Sadly, people only support morality and the Constitution when it doesn't conflict with their personal preferences. They believe there are practical reasons for making the exceptions they advocate, but they ignore the fact that other constitutional violations they oppose have been defended on similar grounds.
Even so, let's take the excuse-making seriously and see if it holds any weight...
Are there any strong practical arguments against free immigration?
I will examine the following issues: tax-funded benefits for immigrants, voting, unemployment, economic competition, crime, disease, emergency room overcrowding, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, overpopulation, national security, and vetting.
Tax-funded benefits
Will immigrants get tax-funded support? If so, this could be an argument for restricting such support to citizens, but it provides no argument for violating our inalienable rights to free association and free human movement through public spaces.
In other words, you could ask your representatives to restrict tax-funded benefits to citizens only, but it would be immoral and unconstitutional to request immigration prohibitions.
It should also be noted that immigrants start paying taxes the moment they start earning money, so the idea that immigrants are net tax consumers needs to be challenged.
Many refugees and undocumented immigrants use false identities to pay tax withholding, including Social Security taxes. But this means they’ll receive no future Social Security benefits. In other words, even so-called “illegal” immigrants help keep Social Security and Medicare solvent, without any ability to benefit personally.
Even those who work “under the table” still pay gasoline taxes to fund the roads they drive on, sales taxes when they buy something, and property taxes through their rent. Taken altogether, as the net of taxes paid versus benefits received, so-called illegal immigrants may actually be among the most heavily taxed workers in the American economy.
If you want to deny immigrants access to tax-funded welfare programs, THEN DO THAT! Tell your representatives to restrict such programs to citizens. That’s a lot easier to achieve than preventing people from coming here. It’s also more moral.
Voting
The same goes for voting. If you worry that immigrants will vote for the wrong party, then work to pass a law that will delay citizenship. The Constitution’s naturalization clause provides the authority to do this. But there is no moral or constitutional authority to restrict immigration.
In addition, it will be much easier to control who votes than it is to control human movement.
Unemployment and economic competition
Will immigrants cause unemployment among American citizens? This idea is commonly believed, but it's completely illogical. Every immigrant who works also becomes a consumer who creates jobs for others.
Will immigrants undercut American wages? If so, this will lower the cost of living. That will free up money for Americans to buy things they couldn't afford before. Lower prices are like a wage increase through different means.
All of this is basic economic logic. Concerns about economic competition are self-destructive. Such competition always makes everyone more affluent, immigrants and citizens alike.
Crime
Immigrants commit fewer crimes than natives. More importantly...
America does not harm the innocent in a clumsy effort to punish the guilty. The fact that one immigrant may commit a crime provides no moral or legal justification to deport other immigrants who did nothing wrong.
The presumption of innocence is a basic American value. Those who oppose immigration are the enemies of this value. They are dangerous not only to the immigrants but to American freedom in general.
Disease
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.
To be consistent those who oppose immigration because of irrational fears about disease, should also oppose all tourism, both coming and going. They do not do so because the disease argument is dishonest. It exploits people's emotions. It is opportunistic and manipulative, not real.
The recent covid hysteria only confirms this argument. A strong case can be made that travel restrictions did little or nothing to slow or limit the contagion's spread. In this regard, the supposed aggressive cure was actually worse than the disease.
It must also be added that immigrants help our economy even more than tourists do. They achieve this by adding their production, which is something tourists don't do. Tourists only consume, but immigrants work!
Emergency room overcrowding
You could solve the emergency room problem by allowing hospitals to set their own admittance policies. Absent legally mandated ER admittance immigrants would be more likely to buy health insurance. They would also have more money to do that if they didn’t have to pay huge sums for “coyotes” to smuggle them across the border.
Indeed, if immigration opponents were reasonable, they might make proof of health insurance the only requirement for border crossing, rather than trying to erect a wall that is more symbolic than effective.
Besides, the flow of medical tourism is mostly the other way. Mexico offers high-quality medical care at lower prices. More and more Americans are going there to escape the high prices and low quality of America's social-fascist Big Pharma medical insurance complex. But please notice something...
These American medical tourists elevate healthcare costs for Mexicans above what they would otherwise be. Does that mean Mexicans should build a wall or restrict visas to keep American medical tourists out? Remember...
What you can do to others, others can do to you.
Drugs
Drug trafficking provides no justification to restrict immigration. Indeed, drug prohibition should be ended. It doesn’t work any better than alcohol prohibition or gun prohibition, so it certainly shouldn't be used as an excuse to enact “people prohibition.”
We need to learn the lesson history teaches us - all forms of prohibition fail. They make things worse. Alcohol prohibition, drug prohibition, gun prohibition, and people prohibition are all wrong.
Sex trafficking
Sex trafficking is mostly a myth. If it was a real problem we would see lots of trials making big headlines, but that doesn’t happen because actual sex trafficking is rare or non-existent. The reason for this is fairly obvious once you start thinking about it more deeply.
It makes no sense to kidnap people to do sex work when they can escape so easily, the penalties for kidnapping are so high, and, most importantly, willing sex workers are readily available. In other words...
Why kidnap someone and hold them against their will, when you can just hire someone instead? That way you don't have to worry about them escaping and turning you in. Kidnapping people to work in the sex trade makes no sense, and because it makes no sense it hardly ever happens in the real world.
The same is true for trafficking children. It hardly ever happens because the search for customers is so risky. Any person you solicit to buy the child you kidnapped is likely to turn you in, assuming they don't beat you to a bloody pulp right then and there. There's no safe way for kidnappers to discover who the pedos are. The pedos can't even risk trying to discover other pedos. There are no neighborhood pedo-bars that supposed child traffickers can visit to find pedo customers. So kidnapping and selling children is just not a good business model. It makes no sense.
Maggie McNeill, a retired sex worker, has assembled a vast amount of information about the sex trafficking myth, which you would do well to study if the issue concerns you. Reason magazine also offers a number of good articles about this subject.
The sex trafficking myth is an example of mass hysteria akin to what happened with the Salem witch trials. Some people have scared themselves into believing a delusion, and they tend to become even more hysterical when someone questions that delusion. Sadly, ignorance is often invincible.
Overpopulation
China supports a population three times as large as ours on a landmass the same size as the U.S. And China is still rich in beautiful natural landscapes despite its vast population.
In addition, you could fit the entire population of the world in just the state of Texas, at a population density equal to New York City. That would leave the rest of the planet empty. Of course, additional land would still be needed for farming and industry, but please grasp the key point - we are not short of space. Plus, the amount of land being used for agriculture has been steadily shrinking as farming techniques have improved.
Neither are we short of resources. Wealth is increasing everywhere and population growth is actually slowing as affluence spreads. There are also strong reasons to believe the world's population will soon decline. Plus, we will soon start mining the asteroids, which contain more resources than humans have so far extracted on Earth during the entire course of human civilization. Meanwhile, we are constantly learning how to do more and more using less and less. In short, the future will be more abundant, not less.
Finally, the question of local carrying capacity is completely irrelevant. Places like Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and Switzerland have been able to support large affluent populations with almost no local resources. Trade compensates for what any given area lacks, and free association and free human movement foster such trade. This means...
The over-population concern is yet another delusion. If anything, we Americans need a larger population to compete with China, and more young people to keep Social Security and Medicare afloat.
National Security
American nativists like to use the words invasion and invaders, as if somehow an army is assaulting our borders seeking conquest. But that is a deceptive abuse of language. Families seeking a better life are not the same thing as a soldier carrying a machine gun with orders to destroy and subdue.
But what about terrorism? Well, unless you're going to end all tourism then nothing in past or proposed immigration legislation would or could do anything to prevent something like 9-11. The impotence of immigration controls to curtail terrorism can be better understood once we consider our next subject...
Vetting
Shouldn't we at least vet all the people who come here? Well, we don't do that for tourists, and most of the so-called illegals currently residing here didn't arrive by sneaking across the border - they got here by overstaying their tourist visas. (By the way, this is a big reason why a border wall is completely useless.) But there's an even bigger problem...
Where would the vetting information come from? It would have to come from the countries of origin, but those governments have no incentive to cooperate. Indeed, they have an incentive to lie.
If the applicant is a good person then the nation of origin may want to say he or she is bad, in order to retain them.
On the other hand, if the would-be immigrant is a bad person, then the original country may claim he or she is virtuous, to get rid of them.
Or, if the person is a refugee fleeing persecution, the country of origin may lie to get them back so they can continue the oppression. Just imagine what someone like Vladimir Putin would do to get immigrated enemies back in his clutches.
But the problems with vetting don't end there...
If a person is bad he or she will simply evade your vetting process. Only the good people will participate, making it pointless.
This logic is easily understood when it comes to issues like gun prohibition and drug prohibition. If you outlaw guns only the criminals will be armed. And when you try to close the border to drug trafficking the smugglers simply go under, around, or over your supposed controls. Or they bribe the border guards. The same thing will happen with vetting. But somehow this logic is forgotten when it comes to immigration.
Vetting is one of those ideas that sounds good, but that does not stand up to close scrutiny.
But what about...
If you already support expanded immigration then maybe I've persuaded you we should go even further, to full open immigration. Perhaps you can see how America would benefit from allowing people to come and go as they please, until or unless they actually do something wrong.
But, if you opposed expanded immigration before you probably still oppose it now. Believe me, I actually have sympathy with you. It's hard to change intensely felt opinions, especially when people you hate in the other political party hold a (slightly) different view.
But change becomes even more difficult when we subject ourselves to a daily onslaught of TV news. The dramatic breathless coverage TV news favors will flood us with supposed reasons to confirm our current fearful opinions, whether the subject is supposed WMDs in Iraq, killer viruses, or dangerous brown people on the southern border.
In that case you will respond to all of my arguments by saying, "But what about this example or that example of something bad happening because of immigration?" And even if I moved you a little bit with my arguments above, you will soon rubber-band back to your old stances, especially given that they virtue signal to your preferred political tribe. This is why I want to draw your attention to something I suspect you agree with...
The media is not your friend
The media does not really report the news. The media invents the news. It misreports and distorts reality in order to manipulate. You already know this on a host of subjects, but it's true about immigration too. Here's why...
The media is in the entertainment business. They live on ratings. This means they thrive on drama and conflict, just like Hollywood. They also create fictions, just like Hollywood.
The media wants to make you emote. They know this will capture your attention and boost their ratings. They will provoke your emotions by creating conflicts where none exist, and by exaggerating dangers where the risk is small. They will also favor bad news over good news. If it bleeds it leads! All of this distorts reality in order to manipulate.
They want to make you afraid like a horror movie, and hate like a revenge movie.
This is true not only of the media sources you despise, but also the media sources you like or even love. It's true of MSNBC and CNN and FoxNews in nearly equal measure.
The media is full of skillful liars. They can make people believe that a non-existent attack in the Gulf of Tonkin justified an expanded war in Vietnam, or that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that warranted war in Iraq. They can make people believe that a virus that's dangerous to only a few people, who could be protected directly, merits shutting down all of society. They can start out being for something but then pivot to be against it, if that's the direction where the drama is. They can even make you think that immigration is a serious threat. But ask yourself this...
How many times in your life have you had a bad experience with someone who was here illegally? I bet that for 99.999% of the people reading this article, the answer is NEVER. This strongly suggests that the "but what about this" examples you hear on the news are distortions and manipulations designed to capture and exploit your emotions and your attention.
Resist this. Pause. Think. Question. Challenge. Be skeptical about what the media tells you. Much of what you hear from them will be brain-poison created by skilled con artists.
The media is not your friend, and the dramatic stories they spew forth on a daily basis are neither a balanced depiction of reality, nor a good reason to violate inalienable human rights.
Conclusion
In reality, we have always had, and always will have, open borders.
This is true because people prohibition doesn't work any better than alcohol, drug, or gun prohibition.
People will always get in, the same way booze, drugs, and guns always get in. Hell, we can't even keep drugs out of our prisons, so we're not going to keep out people who are seeking the same American Dream that you enjoy.
But even though immigration laws cannot work, they can hurt innocent people who have done nothing to harm anyone. Indeed, immigration laws are more likely to harm the innocent than the guilty, for that has been the nature of all prohibition laws.
It cannot be escaped - immigration laws are immoral, illegal, and impractical. They are harmful to human prosperity and happiness. They reflect weakness rather than strength. The impulses that drive them are fearful, primitive, tribalistic, illogical, and mean-spirited. Sometimes they are even bigoted. We can and should do better.
Libertarians figured this out long ago, just like we figured out drug prohibition, gun prohibition, gay marriage, inflation, economic depressions, and a host of other subjects where it's taken the rest of America decades to catch up with us. People have called us crazy or dangerous, before finally coming around to our view. It will be the same with the immigration issue. We know we will be attacked before we are embraced, and that's okay. We're willing to pay that price if it leads humanity to a better future.
Embrace this vision -- America should always be the supreme defender of free movement and association. We need to live up to our proud boast that we are the land of the free and the home of the brave. Help make this happen. Make America strong! Make America bigger and better. Support free immigration!
Perry Willis was the Executive Director of the national Libertarian Party and has managed or worked on six Libertarian Party presidential campaigns. He is the co-founder of Downsize DC and the Zero Aggression Project. He also co-created the One Subject at a Time Act, the Read the Bills Act, and the Write the Laws Act, all of which have been introduced in Congress.