New at Reason

Brian Doherty makes the case for letting in people who want to work.

Comments

Ruthless | September 14, 2004, 3:54pm | #

Just as money is the root of all evil, borders are the roots of terrorism.
Down with all borders!
Abolish the Coast Guard! Abolish border agents!
more grumbling and shouting...

The Lonewacko Blog | September 14, 2004, 4:09pm | #

I don't know where to begin.

But, here's a pointer: don't try to build your article on Asa Hutchinson's false choice argument. Of course there are millions of illegal aliens in the U.S. The Bush administration - and previous administrations - have encouraged them to come and to stay.

In the first five months of this year, just one company in the whole U.S. was fined for immigration violations. Doherty might want to decide whether to quote as an authority someone who's clearly not doing his job.

I doubt whether Doherty has read the 9/11 Commission Staff Report. That provides some shocking details on how various terrorists have gamed our immigration system. And, I doubt whether he's read this round-up of all the chatter about al Qaeda infiltrating via our southern border. If he had, I doubt whether he'd be so sanguine about terrorists infiltrating the U.S.

All the government has to do is recognize that if someone wants to work here to better themselves, and someone else wants to hire them to do so, that's not a federal issue. That's America.

Flooding the U.S. with cheap foreign labor is hardly the American way.

Here's a better idea, courtesy of the late Barbara Jordan:

"The Commission decries hostility and discrimination against immigrants as antithetical to the traditions and interests of this country. At the same time, we disagree with those who would label efforts to control immigration as being inherently anti-immigrant. Rather, it is both a right and a responsibility of a democratic society to manage immigration so that it serves the national interest."

The vast majority of Americans want stricter immigration controls and an end to illegal immigration. They don't want to end illegal immigration by declaring Open Borders.

Check out my Immigration category for much more.

xray | September 14, 2004, 4:20pm | #

Protectionism is hardly the American way.

thoreau | September 14, 2004, 4:24pm | #

Let's just think, for a moment, about the national security objections to open immigration. Now, obviously there are other objections, and any solution I come up with for the national security objection might still pose other problems. Having made all of those caveats, just for a moment let's focus on a single objection and see what we come up with.

From a national security standpoint, there would be nothing wrong with Jose Schmoe (the Mexican version of Joe Schmoe) coming here to work. (Yes, there may be plenty of other problems, but as I said, let's take a single issue for a moment.) Well, unless you buy the theory that there are MEChA sleeper cells preparing a Reconquista. But I digress.

So, from a national security standpoint there would be no problem letting Jose Schmoe in after he's passed a background check against, say, terrorist databases, plus convictions here or abroad for violence, theft, fraud, etc.

Now, the problem with this is that Yusuf Terrorist (Arabic for "Joe Terrorist") could get a fake passport and come in. Hmm....

Well, first of all, that problem also exists in the status quo. Second, he'll need to find a good forger. Good forgers couldn't stay in business if their only clients were terrorists. They need a broader clientele to make it worth their while to make fake ID instead of, say, working for Enron, going to law school, or running for public office.

Where do they get their broader clientele? Well, the drug trade and non-violent illegal immigrants certainly provide some of it. Hmm...

Maybe if we legalized drugs and opened immigration to non-violent people we could undermine some of the infrastructure that terrorists might use to enter the US. Or, if nothing else, we could drive up the price of that infrastructure. The biggest problem I see here is that the Saudis funding Al Qaeda could just compensate by charging more for oil ;)

Still, I can't see a substantial bump in the terrorist influx if we allowed all non-violent people who pass a background check to enter the country. Well, until Vicente Fox gives a signal for the MEChA sleeper cells to start their Reconquista....

Hydroman | September 14, 2004, 4:30pm | #

15 illegals living in a 50'x 10' trailer house sending 85 to 90% of their paycheck back to a small village in Mexico or central America does wonders for inflation in those villages , not to mention the county tax base of single family homes in this country. I read that over $4 billion was sent from Texas alone in 2003.

xray | September 14, 2004, 4:34pm | #

Fight inflation in small mexican/central American villages! Wall America!

thoreau | September 14, 2004, 4:35pm | #

Hydroman-

And, as we all know, nothing goes over better on a libertarian forum than arguments in favoring of maintaining the tax base... ;->

matt | September 14, 2004, 4:44pm | #

Good article Brian. I've read Dr. Hoppe's arguments before and they sound just as wrongheaded now as they when I read them the first time. Can't say that I by the argument that government should act like a private property owner.

matt | September 14, 2004, 4:46pm | #

Ugh...sorry for my bad grammar.

Trey | September 14, 2004, 4:54pm | #

An obvious part of a solution has to be a national ID, with biometric data. If you can't produce it when requested, BAMMO, over the border you go.

I don't see how one can really crack down on illegal immigration without it.

Trey | September 14, 2004, 4:58pm | #

Also, if I remember correctly, one of the things that caused a stir with Barbara Jordan's Commission (as well as the 911 commission) is the call for national ID.

Ronald Reagan's Ghost | September 14, 2004, 4:59pm | #

Better yet tattoo an ID Number on everyone's forearm.

Shawn Smith | September 14, 2004, 5:04pm | #

Trey's 4:54 comment reminds me of the Leno piece several years back that imagined asking people on the street questions that legal immigrants have to answer correctly to get their citizenship. Stuff like, "who was the 18th president?" and, "What are the three branches of government?" Put everyone who couldn't answer the questions in a paddy wagon for shipping off to the border. The wagon was quickly filled. Ahhh...the good old days.

Trey | September 14, 2004, 5:05pm | #

I wonder how much of our relatively low inflation these last few years has been due to Mexican labor?

I think the one of the biggest problems is bilingual education. It keeps 'em from assimilating.

thoreau | September 14, 2004, 5:18pm | #

Trey-

According to some reports, immigrants tend to oppose bilingual education, wanting their kids to learn English ASAP. The biggest proponents are supposedly 2nd and 3rd generation Americans of Latino descent who feel cheated out of their "heritage."

I guess I should be furious that the schools never taught me in Italian, German, or Gaelic. I lost out on my heritage.

thoreau | September 14, 2004, 5:20pm | #

Oh, and to be clear, most 2nd and 3rd generation Americans of Latino descent aren't big on bilingual ed, but the activists supposedly come from those sorts of backgrounds.

M1EK | September 14, 2004, 5:51pm | #

I always find it interesting how few libertarians note that it's "gaming the system" to allow virtually unfettered immigration. I guess when you're screwing with the equilibrium of the market it only is a bad thing when it's in FAVOR of labor and against capital.

fyodor | September 14, 2004, 6:03pm | #

Okay, M1EK, what the hell are you talking about? How is "virtually unfettered immigration" "gaming the system"?

And while I'm admittedly not sure what all you mean, I will point out that market "equilibrium" is not a static phenomenon but rather is fluid and thus always changing. Furthermore, such "equilibrium" is not something that can be determined in any way but to allow the market to freely operate and then see where it goes. It's for both these reasons that I use scare quotes.

I'll also say that allowing people to work where they choose seems pretty pro labor to me.

All that said, feel free to enlighten me!

thoreau | September 14, 2004, 6:27pm | #

fyodor-

In all fairness, a short-term effect of immigration will surely be lower wages, which certainly doesn't benefit laborers already here.

Yes, yes, in the long-term greater prosperity for all can potentially occur, but M1EK has a point about the short-term effects. Not that the short-term effects should a priori justify restrictions on immigration, but denying economic realities won't help the case for free immigration of all non-violent people who want to come here.

fyodor | September 14, 2004, 7:27pm | #

thoreau,

I don't deny that possible* effect at all. But I'm wondering what he means by "gaming the system." Is that just a fancy way of saying he doesn't think there would be good results? If so, I think he should just come out and plain say that. Or if there's something larger that I'm missing, I'm curious for him to tell me what that is, if he can. And he's the one apparently accusing others of some sort of hyposcrisy born of anti-labor prejudice. I'm pointing out that the libertarian position isn't inherently anti-labor. I don't think it was incumbent upon me to address every possible aspect of the issue to make that point and for it to be a valid point.

*I say "possible" effect for a couple of reasons. First of all, as Doherty points out, immigration laws (as enforced, as the Lonewacko will gladly point out) have had very little effect on limiting the number of immigrants and have actually had the effect of increasing their length of stay. Plus, legal immigrants have the power to ask for more pay. That's partly because of minimum wage laws, which I don't think are a particularly good idea, but in any case, they're there; PLUS, even in lieu of minimum wage laws, legal immigrants may be able to ask for more money because they would be negotiating from a more secure position. Thus, while I don't deny for a moment that more workers equal lower pay in lieu of any other considerations (is allowing free procreation an anti-labor position because it increases the number of workers??), I think it's far from clear that allowing freer legal immigration would necessarily have that effect, even in the short run.

The Lonewacko Blog | September 14, 2004, 7:43pm | #

fyodor: First of all, as Doherty points out, immigration laws (as enforced, as the Lonewacko will gladly point out) have had very little effect on limiting the number of immigrants and have actually had the effect of increasing their length of stay.

You misunderstand. Our immigration laws are NOT being enforced. There were 1000 or so companies fined for immigration violations a decade ago. In the first five months of this year, just one company was fined. Asa Hutchinson (quoted in the Doherty piece) is in charge of those investigations, and he's not doing his job.

The Lonewacko Blog | September 14, 2004, 7:58pm | #

Let's say we do the Doherty Plan (hereinafter "OB"). We'll keep minimum wage laws and workplace safety laws in place, right? [1] Here's what a wage table would look like:

$7 busboy
$7 bagboy
$7 checker
$7 copy editor
$8 brain surgeon
$9 nuclear physicist
....

Even with those low prices, won't some illegals still come over? Like, the ones who can't get into the program for some reason, or who come from unfavored countries. And, won't some employers still hire some of those illegals? After all, they'll probably work for less than minumum wage and they won't be concerned about those nasty workplace safety laws or all that cumbersome paperwork. In fact, that's why some companies prefer illegal workers rather than going through the hoops of hiring legal workers. The ease.

So, to keep OB running steadily, aren't we going to need to enforce some form of law against illegal immigration? Otherwise, all those new illegal immigrants would undermine the OB.

So, if we're going to end up having to enforce against illegal immigration, why don't we do that now?

And, can we ever entrust an administration that flatly admits it's not enforcing the laws to ever enforce the laws under the OB or any other plan?

And, with all these low wages, will these people still get the benefit of our social services, like schools, health care, SS, etc. etc.? [2]

If so, wouldn't this end up being a massive transfer of money from the average taxpayer to those companies that hire $7/hour bagboys and such?

And, won't this mean even more remittances for Mexico? [3] And, won't that give them a greater stake in our immigration laws? And, won't they try to influence whatever laws we have even more? [4] What if we want to change the OB program in some way that's beneficial to us, but wouldn't be beneficial to Mexico? Wouldn't they use their new influence to prevent the changes we want to make? And, wouldn't this give Racial Demagogues even more power than they already have?

[1] Otherwise, we could build nice camps for our $1/hour bagboys from Bangladesh.

[2] If not, why don't we just reinstate slavery? Check that, even slaves got health care of a sort.

[3] Remittances (money sent from workers in the U.S. to family and friends in other countries) are now Mexico's #2 source of income, right behind oil. In fact, remittances are 4/5 as much as oil income.

[4] Pitching local city councils and worse. Search for maus here.

me_oh_my | September 15, 2004, 12:33am | #

Anybody who advocates open borders immigration should be forced to live in those communities destroyed by said immigrants. This is the same as the old and honorable maxim, "Those who want war should fight it."

All else is hypocrisy.

John S Bolton | September 15, 2004, 1:03am | #

Open Borders is morally untenable, there is no check against those who just want to work at waging war on us. Immigrants, who just want to work, are falsely being defined as incapable of doing anything of negative moral significance, which defines them outside morality, and ouside humanity, since morality doesn't apply to them. The concept of work is equivocated, one is left with the unstated assumption that all work done by immigrants has to be all to the good. In general, an openness as promiscuous as that suggested above, is sure to be biased towards favoring opennness to evils, since the manifestly valuable doesn't need any special openness from us.

carter | September 15, 2004, 1:58am | #

Libertarians oppose racial preferences and social welfare programs, yet favor immigration policies that increase the constiuency for both.

Doherty scoffs at "concern for "cultural integrity" and "national identity," as if such concern is trivial, apparently it does not occur to him that only a certain culture will produce people who find libertarian belifs appealing.

This belief that culture does not matter is why libertarians think they can persuade low skill, low wage immigrants of the benefits of not having welfare, public schools, government health care and race quotas, when they can't persuade native born Americans to elect a Libertarian candidate to any office higher than dogcatcher.

John S Bolton | September 15, 2004, 2:31am | #

A policy like free immigration, is the last, not the first, change of laws that libertarians should advocate. In order not to commit treason by officials diverting public funds to the foreigner, there must be no possibility of redistribution of income. If there were no public expenditures other than the justice system, which is over $500 per person in America today, and imagining also another $500 per capita for a minimal military, every single immigrant would have to be guaranteed to pay at least that much in revenue to the government, or a traitorous redistribution will occur. Of course, anarchists have no reason to care about that.

Douglas Fletcher | September 15, 2004, 8:32am | #

"money is the root of all evil..."

She may have been wrong, but I remember my Southern, Bible-thumping English teacher in 10th grade telling me that the actual quote from the Bible is "love of money is the root of all evil."

I don't agree with that either, but I thought I'd point out the difference.

fyodor | September 15, 2004, 10:30am | #

carter,

"Libertarians oppose racial preferences and social welfare programs, yet favor immigration policies that increase the constiuency for both."

Yeah, so?

If that's illogical, then it's also illogical for libertarians to be in favor of blacks and women having the vote since both those groups vote in a decidedly nonlibertarian manner.

To explain: a right is a right and bad policy that hurts people is bad policy that hurts people. That correcting a bad policy that interferes with people's rights and hurts them might have negative short term effects on "constituency" demographics is just one of those unfortunate side effects a principled person has to accept.

me oh my,

That's like saying that Abolitionists in the north should have been forced to live in the south where communities would be "destroyed" by abolishing slavery. Etc., etc.

And BTW, I live in Denver. A roommate once had his car smacked by this Mexican dude. The guy took off into this enclave for illegals and disappeared. No one there would cooperate with the cops. Sure, this could have happened even if the guy didn't have to worry about being deported, but when getting caught for a small crime means getting kicked out of the country, people have much greater incentive to stay outside the law. So I've already seen how futile attempts to limit immigration have already harmed my community.

fyodor | September 15, 2004, 10:35am | #

Lonewacko,

Sorry, but after seeing the "Doherty Plan" denoted as OB and nuclear physicists getting $9 an hour, I just couldn't get through anymore of your treatise! :-)

birch barlow | September 15, 2004, 10:52am | #

Ugh--yet more ideological libertarian nonsense. "Cheap labor" is not really cheap labor at all, but subsidized labor. Ideological libertarians love to pontificate about "willing employers" and "willing employees," yet they forget about the unwilling taxpayer, who is left to pay for education ($7K per kid/per year), health care ($10,000 per family), and housing assistance. This doesn't even include services generally not considered "welfare" in any way, such as police, courts, jails, roads, and public transportation...and low-skill workers put a disproportionate strain on the law enforcement system.

The bottom line is, living in a country with a well-developed infrastructure is expensive--and some jobs simply don't pay enough to cover these costs because we have an oversupply of low-skill labor.

fyodor | September 15, 2004, 11:07am | #

birch barlow,

Okay, let's deport all the people whose incomes don't cover the costs of infrastructure!

I know, that's not very serious, is it. Well then, not all of them, just enough of them so that we no longer have "an oversupply of low-skill labor," howzat?

me_oh_my | September 15, 2004, 11:43am | #

The guy took off into this enclave for illegals anddisappeared.

Thanks for making my point for me, Fyodor. Looks like Fred Reed was right.

These businessmen are saving so much money by importing a vast new underclass...and nothings better than a penny saved. But just wait until the Mexicans start voting all of that money back. (They've already started, ha, ha.) It will be the death of democracy, just as Aristotle predicted.

At least once the constitution is rescinded you libertarians will have something better to complain about.

me_oh_my | September 15, 2004, 11:50am | #

Oh, and don't forget the good people over at Vdare

fyodor | September 15, 2004, 12:13pm | #

Fear, fear, fear. But it doesn't make much sense to advocate maintaining a free society with oppressive means. That sounds awfully similar to what Putin is setting out to do....

me_oh_my | September 15, 2004, 12:26pm | #

Fear, fear, fear. But it doesn't make much sense to advocate maintaining a free society with oppressive means. That sounds awfully similar to what Putin is setting out to do....

For the record, when somebody responds in this manner, it means he doesn't have any real arguments.

thoreau | September 15, 2004, 12:58pm | #

Some of the arguments in this thread seem to boil down to "Liberty only works for affluent white people."

Also, in case you haven't noticed, white people aren't supporting libertarian policies that much either. In fact, how could it hurt to bring in a bunch of people who say "I'm going to get a job whether the government likes it or not!" Might not make things better, but probably won't make things worse either.

thoreau | September 15, 2004, 1:00pm | #

One more thought: If liberty only works for educated white professionals, how about we import a bunch of French people? :)

Bill | September 15, 2004, 1:07pm | #

Have a little foresight? What sort of government do you think uneducated low skilled illegal immigrants want? The welfare state or your libertarian utopia?

fyodor | September 15, 2004, 1:10pm | #

For the record, when somebody responds in this manner, it means he doesn't have any real arguments.

Or that he's made the relevant arguments already and finds it tiresome to repeat himself.

birch barlow | September 15, 2004, 1:21pm | #

Okay, let's deport all the people whose incomes don't cover the costs of infrastructure!

I know, that's not very serious, is it. Well then, not all of them, just enough of them so that we no longer have "an oversupply of low-skill labor," howzat?

There's a difference between saying we need to deport people and saying we shouldn't bring in more people who can't support themselves without taxpayer subsidies. BTW, I think we should try to deport illegal aliens, but mostly by indirect means, i.e. employer sanctions and stricter controls on who can receive government benefits rather than forcible deportation.

birch barlow | September 15, 2004, 2:19pm | #

Some of the arguments in this thread seem to boil down to "Liberty only works for affluent white people."

Bringing in the race and class warfare, I see. Being opposed to high levels of unskilled and illegal immigration has nothing to do with wanting to "keep America white" as the far left (and some loose borders libertarians and conservatives when it suits their argument) would have it. It has to do with wanting to bring the best and brightest from all over the world who can contribute to our high-tech economy. Right now we are bringing in anyone who decides to walk across the border, regardless of the strain they impose on our education, health care, welfare, law enforcement, and transportation systems. There are probably hundreds of millions if not billions who would come to the U.S. if they were able--shouldn't we be picking the best and the brightest, who will truly enrich our country, rather than simply strain our infrastructure so WalMart and other businesses dependent on low-skill labor can be a little more profitable (at taxpayer expense)?

birch barlow | September 15, 2004, 2:31pm | #

Also, in case you haven't noticed, white people aren't supporting libertarian policies that much either.

The fact that white people are hostile to libertarianism is not an excuse to bring in an underclass that is even more hostile to libertarianism.

Caitlin Kilkka | September 15, 2004, 11:46pm | #

Our politicians are so concerned about keeping non-Americans out. I wonder how long it will be before they start to try to keep Americans in.

John S Bolton | September 16, 2004, 2:13am | #

It is wrong for open-borders advocates to suggest that immigrants are blameless for taking net public subsidy, and thus ought not to be punished for such aggression. The illegal immigrant can be stopped from continuing his practice of aggression on the net taxpayer by deporting him, but citizens can't. If a class of people are defined as never to be blamed for acts of aggression, involving the receiving of the proceeds of aggresion which fits the definition of treason, they have been defined as existing outside morality. To do that is to classify them as subhuman.

John S Bolton | September 16, 2004, 3:47am | #

Clarification: it is the officials who channel the people's tax money, in a manner fitting the definition of treason, not the foreigners themselves. The open-borders position of such and such libertarians, is open to the charge of pacifism and refusal to support the existence of military and border defense. To define all border-crossers as non-aggressors is to embrace a traitorous pacifism. They have no argument to support such positions; which is why they are immediately reduced to such ad hominem approaches as to imply that anyone who disagrees is motivated by racial or class prejudice. They attempt also an appeal to the authority of economic theory; while conveniently leaving out of account the fact that the theories they invoke, apply to the global utility function, and not to that of the nation; or they disregard factor price equalization.

free-adult | October 26, 2004, 1:59pm | #

adult free

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