More on Immigration

(A follow-up ~ The Paleo Blog: "The Problems of Pro-Trespassing Libertarians")

Being Practical: Imagine a Deadly Situation

It seems that it is reasonable that a case can be made that the idea of “open borders” is incompatible with libertarianism. Trespassing is against libertarian values. It must be by invitation. But libertarians sometimes forget more practical issues. The social problems connected with mass immigration are an example.

Here is an extreme example. God forbid this should happen, but what would open border libertarians say if it did: Imagine some very bad sickness spread in Mexico. While private individuals can do their best to try to avoid potential people that have this deadly virus, there is so much government property it would be very difficult to do so completely. The answer would be clear: control the border. But would “open border” libertarians reject this because of their principles?

Welfare to Illegals

Why make the distinction at all? That is, between illegal and legal immigrants when it comes to welfare? Even libertarians that are open borders typically make the diction. While they might be against welfare in general, they still make the distinction.

Free Trade & Immigration

Those that favor free trade can also oppose “open borders.” In free trade there is a sender and a receiver. In much of today’s immigration there is not this kind of relationship.

Hans Hoppe mentions that those that do not want to see all of this immigration should support genuine free trade. The incentive to for immigrants to immigrate to America will than lessen. (However, it is also possible, he mentions, that if we adopted genuine free trade this could have a negligible effect on the number of immigrants because it may make the U.S. even more attractive to live in.)

Expanding Government Objection

One thing that I am very much sympathetic with, is the objection by some libertarians that increasing government would have to occur one way or another with real border enforcement. Not all open borders libertarians are unreasonable and do understand the practical issues and dangers of open borders, but still hesitate because of this.

But why does the national government have to be the enforcer? Why not push people and the movements that want to slow down immigration to decentralize the issue? Why not the states affected deal with it?

Yes, problems can creep up with government doing its job at the borders. But that is to be expected in our statist world. That’s why I say that the message needs to get out decentralizing this issue as much as possible. Forget about the national government.

“Couldn’t border security not only keep un-welcomed people out, but keep us in?”

Again, there is always that risk with government (a coercive monopoly compared to a free market) in charge. Let me use my example from the previous immigration blog entry: If someone breaks in my house, who am I cam going to call? I can only call the state. If, God forbid, a murder took place, I can only look to the government to catch the bad guy. There is nothing, that I can see, that is un-libertarian of me that would say, given the current context of the world, the state police should do what they are supposedly designed to do in terms of private crime that violate libertarian ethics.

Other Objections

"If immigration should be by invitation only and enforced by the government, then so must newborn babies."

I saw a couple of libertarians saying this. I do not understand how this analogy holds water. It seems, in my humble opinion, very silly. Of course new born babies (leaving aside issues like rape) are invited. They have a place of living. The parents are providing for it in all ways. Etc.

Utilitarianism

Arguments of a utilitarian nature must be rejected. Even if the utilitarian cases proves (and this is an if) that no border enforcement increases economic prosperity, it does not disprove the case for immigration by invitation only. People can prefer lower living standards to higher ones because they prefer, for example, dissociating themselves with someone. People can value things more than money. Austrians, of all people, should know this.