One of the most persistent divides between traditional conservatives and their libertarian/anarcho-capitalist counterparts involves a fundamental philosophical disagreement about immigration. While most conservatives view immigration primarily through the lens of preserving American culture by only accepting those immigrants who are assimilable and will tangibly benefit our society in the future, a view expressed repeatedly during debates over illegal immigration in this country, many libertarians view the subject in an altogether different light. For them, the question is not so much whether a particular cohort of immigrants will be an asset to the United States but whether we have any right to prevent them from settling in this country in the first place, which many answer in the negative.

Libertarians extol the primacy of individual rights, which in this case entails the right to emigrate from your country of birth whenever you so desire-something that I don’t think any conservative would take issue with-and to immigrate to whatever country you want to live and/or work in for an extended period of time, which is where the divide between the two camps emerges. Libertarians view the issue as one of freedom of association-and by extension, contract-wherein willing employers, such as large agribusinesses and meatpacking plants, seek out willing employees coming from nations with under-performing economies that can’t meet the personal and financial needs of their citizens. They believe that the nexus between trade and unfettered migration is inextricable, if not completely self-evident, and that the two can not be severed if a nation hopes to grow its economy. While this may well be true as a matter of law, there are numerous holes in this thesis intellectually, which opponents of open borders-even anarcho-capitalists such as Hans-Hermann Hoppe-have exposed through well-researched arguments of their own.

However, underlying the debate over whether immigration and settlement is a natural right is the assumption that all libertarians/anarcho-capitalists agree on the immigration issue, which is not as much of  a given as it would seem on the surface of things. One of the things that I’ve attempted to do with American Rattlesnake is debunk commonly held assumptions about immigration issues, and the assumption that libertarians all subscribe to Gary Johnson’s point of view is one that needs to be reexamined. There are many libertarians and  anarcho-capitalists who recognize both the practical difficulties and existential problems inherent in society based upon unfettered immigration, especially one with the vast social welfare apparatus of the United States. One of the chief exponents of the view that welfare programs need to be curtailed in order to solve the immigration problem is Gary Johnson’s opponent in the Republican presidential race, Congressman Ron Paul. Paul has repeatedly emphasized the need to do away with the generous, taxpayer subsidized social welfare programs that-while not serving as the initial magnet-provide incentives for illegal aliens to extend their stay in this country indefinitely. The population density of legal immigrants is also heavily correlated with the availability of welfare benefits. Even acclaimed economist Milton Friedman, who held a rather benign view of immigration in general, emphasized the incompatibility of a welfare state with unfettered immigration.

The same opinion is held by many libertarians today, including self-professed constitutionalist Andrew Napolitano, who views Arizona’s landmark immigration law primarily through the prism of the Constitution’s supremacy clause and potential violations of the 4th Amendment via racial or ethnic profiling by law enforcement officers. I’m not sure that the Constitutional objection to statewide laws is dispositive, because-as Andrew McCarthy has pointed out repeatedly in National Review-there is no precedent for prohibiting states from enforcing laws that are consistent with federal statutes. Furthermore, if we look to the broader issue of legal immigration, there’s nothing to suggest that the men who drafted the United States Constitution supported the sort of unfettered immigration we have endured since passage of the Hart-Celler Act fundamentally altered this nation’s demographic destiny. This is a concept that is seldom grasped by arm-chair commentators on immigration these days, whose default option is to repeat the platitudinous-not to mention, factually incorrect-bromide that we are a “nation of immigrants.” What they neglect to mention is that most this nation’s founding fathers would have been implacably opposed to the present lassez-faire system of immigration, a fact that Thomas Woods-as anti-statist an individual as you’ll find among academics-expertly limns in this Human Events column published during the height of the amnesty debate in Washington D.C.

Yet, even if we were to concede that there’s no firm historical or Constitutional foundation for this nation’s current open borders policies, can it not be argued that there is a compelling moral case for the views espoused by those at the Wall Street Journal editorial board, Cato Institute, Reasonoids, and other trendy, beltway cosmotarians? You would definitely think so if you took their arguments at face value. The notion that we have no moral basis for barring certain immigrants from entry into the United States is certainly widespread in certain libertarian circles, but I don’t believe that makes the idea, ipso facto, libertarian. Julian Simon, in a 1998 essay published in the Journal of Libertarian Studies, articulated the perspective felt by many that individual autonomy takes precedence over other “public” goods, including our national borders. In an anarcho-capitalist reality, nation-states would not exist, therefore deciding who should or should not be admitted to your nation would be a moot point.

But while it might seem logical that freedom of movement, freedom of association, and freedom of contract-and at its most essential level, the individual him or herself-are all prioritized over the wishes and feelings of citizens who have a vested interested in preserving the character of their nation, there are those that don’t think these competing values are necessarily mutually exclusive. In a persuasive essay written for Lew Rockwell several years ago, N. Stephan Kinsella made a very compelling argument that while the disposition of property in our society is unjust-insofar as the state has no right to expropriate land that rightfully belongs to individuals-so long as that property is entrusted to the state it has a responsibility to act as caretaker for the rightful owners. In this case, it has the responsibility to prevent the ingress of people that citizens do not want to welcome into their country. While those who are opposed to communitarianism in even its most minimal form might reject Kinsella’s public pool analogy, I think he makes a convincing case that some prophylactic measures need to be enforced to prevent the exploitation of your property-even if it’s already been subjected to theft by the state.

There are many cogent arguments against the current trendy libertarian support for open borders, several of them outlined by the first presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party, John Hospers, in paper published by the Journal of Libertarian Studies over a decade ago entitled A Libertarian Argument Against Open Borders. The concluding paragraph of the essay is especially perceptive in its analysis of the problem:

Occasionally, we hear the phrase “limousine liberals” used to describe the members of the liberal establishment who send their children to expensive private schools while consigning all the others to the public school system, which educates these children so little that by the time they finish the eighth grade they can barely read and write or do simple arithmetic, or make correct change in a drug store. It would be equally appropriate, however, to describe some other people as ”limousine libertarians” —those who pontificate about open borders while remaining detached from the scenes that their “idealism” generates. They would do well to reflect, in their ivory towers, on whether the freedom they profess for those who are immigrants, if it occurs at all, is to be brought about at the expense of the freedom of those who are not.

This passage describes, in a nut shell, the quintessence of cosmotarianism, and why most Americans-and even some in the libertarian movement-continue to reject it. I could post the most meticulously researched George Borjas journal article, the most statistically devastating backgrounder from the Center for Immigration Studies, or the most irrefutable essay by Mahattan Institute scholar Heather Mac Donald. And although all of these sources are invaluable in the fight to define the terms of this debate, they wouldn’t hold a candle to the self-evident fact that none of the greatest exponents and defenders of open borders, be it Tamar Jacoby, or Jason Riley, or Nick Gillespie, abide by their own exhortations. None of these individuals partake of the glorious mosaic which their unyielding ideology has done so much to create.

You won’t find many Reason Magazine editors or Cato Institute scholars living in Bergenfield, New Jersey, Maywood, California, or Eagle Pass, Texas. Why, you might ask? Because they would rather pass off the tremendous costs of their bankrupt philosophy onto ordinary Americans than to admit that they might just be wrong. These people are insulated from unfettered immigration’s worst effects, including chronic unemployment, violent crime, and environmentally devasting pollution from Arizona to California and throughout the country. They have the luxury of ignoring the impact of this country’s changing demographic profile while promoting the patently absurd notion that our open borders are a boon to all but the small percentage of high school dropouts.

What’s more, they make the equally ludicrous assertion-outlined in the Caplan speech above-that importing millions of unskilled, uneducated immigrants, who will be dependent upon costly government services, from quasi-socialist nations will expand this nation’s economic liberty. Forget the fact that we now enjoy less economic freedom than our northern neighbors, a development concurrent with the greatest expansion of immigration in this country’s history, the entire premise underlying this concept is flawed. You do not build a prosperous, 21st century, post-industrial society around foreigners from countries with low human capital. And the amount of time, energy and economic resources that need to be shifted in order to improve the educational prospects and earning potential of these immigrants, e.g. the billions funneled into ESL programs each year, is so cost prohibitive that it outweighs whatever benefits can be gleaned from such an arrangement.

Another seeming inconsistency in the archetypal libertarian solution to our immigration problem is the reluctance of most libertarians to support any sort of relief for American taxpayers who are tasked with paying for millions of illegal aliens and immigrants who are dependent upon costly social services. Particularly, public schooling and emergency health care. Invoking Friedman’s argument once again, we find that while many libertarians will concede that dependency upon welfare programs is a bad thing they will do nothing to limit access to these programs by illegal aliens or permanent residents. To the contrary, if any such bill-which is immigration neutral-is proffered, they will stalwartly oppose it. Just ask new Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson, who supports the DREAM Act, despite the fact that taxpayers would be subsidizing the in-state tuition discounts of its recipients. Paleolibertarian writer Ilana Mercer deftly skewers  purported libertarians who routinely call for the abolition of the welfare state while adding a proviso that excludes immigrants and illegal aliens from the fiscal demands of their libertopia.

True believers in liberty, like Mercer and the late Murray N. Rothbard, recognize the inherent contradiction in persuading your fellow Americans to reject the embrace of the state while simultaneously welcoming millions of non-Americans into the country who prefer a larger and more intrusive government in almost every respect into our society. They realize that the banal platitudes used to support unfettered immigration are grossly inaccurate, if not transparent lies. They also realize that the interests of the National Association of Manufacturers, the Chamber of Commerce, the Farm Bureau, and the hospitality industry do not necessarily coincide with the interests of the free market, and that to a large extent our current immigration policy is another form of corporate welfare, which putative libertarians would be quick to denounce in any other context. The time-saving, productivity-increasing technological innovations that would normally be welcomed by these same individuals are rejected by those who apparently think pre-industrial stoop labor is the best method of improving  our agricultural production. Finally, they recognize that the  utopian, globalist conception of freedom-where people living in Gabon or the Hadhramaut have just as much say in how we are governed as American citizens living in New York-contravenes the distinctively American, Constitutional, federalist, representative republic designed by this nation’s founding fathers.

In short, the issue before the house is not whether it is an abandonment of principle for libertarians to embrace sensible immigration restrictions, it’s why institutional libertarians representing organizations like the Cato Institute and the Reason Foundation have stifled an honest, open intellectual debate about this subject. Even as the negative repercussions of our government’s devotion to open borders become harder to ignore for all but the most oblivious, the gatekeepers of respectable opinion on this subject continue to narrow the parameters of discussion to their own narrow, ahistorical perspective. I don’t expect that to change any time in the near future, but those of us who want an intellectually honest debate about the most important issue of our time can at least begin to clarify its terms, if for no other reason than to educate those novices interested in how mass immigration has impacted our society who are asking themselves how they should view these changes from a liberty-oriented perspective.

The assault against Secure Communities continues apace, as we learned yesterday from the Los Angeles Times. In a lopsided vote, the Los Angeles City Council decided to make participation in this successful immigration enforcement program purely voluntary; an idea that DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano has already scotched, at least rhetorically.The problem is that despite the seemingly inflexible stance of  the Obama administration, administration officials have not seen fit to punish the states and localities that are openly flouting the guidelines of his Department of Homeland Security. If even a tenth of the energy the White House has expended in order to punish Arizona for having the temerity to enact SB 1070 were directed at cracking down on sanctuary cities, the public debate about illegal immigration would be wholly different.

As Doug McIntyre, the incomparable host of Red Eye Radio, pointed out in his opening monologue today, the craven politicians who enact bills such as the one passed by the L.A. City Council are driven by one thing: votes! They see the masses of illegal aliens and their supporters as a future, inexhaustible supply of votes in future elections, and will do anything it takes, including eroding American sovereignty, imperiling our national security, and harming American citizens, in order to tap into that rich vein of political power. Unfortunately, it seems like Los Angeles-and on a broader scale, the state of California-might be too overwhelmed by the sheer numbers  of aliens to stem this tide.

The good news is that there is still time for those of us living in states like New York, Illinois, and Massachusetts-whose governors have all recently prevented Secure Communities from being implemented-to fight back. I’ll suggest some practical ways to do so in the coming days underneath the activism column of this website.

In news that should come as no surprise to people who are acquainted with our current governor’s history of making decisions that result in disastrous consequences for the American public, Andrew Cuomo has decided to withdraw from Secure Communities.

And contrary to his specious reasoning, this decision has nothing to do with “protecting” anyone other than the criminal aliens specifically targeted by the federal government through this innovative program. 

To minimize the crimes committed by these aliens by referring to them as “petty” is simply another example of the the degree to which de facto-if not de jure-amnesty has been accepted by public officials who are pandering for support-in this case, from those who they believe will be given citizenship in a second Obama term, or the broader Hispanic community they believe supports people who break the law while residing in this country illegally. And while I would like to believe ICE’s assurances that individual states will eventually be compelled to adopt Secure Communities, that is no consolation to the 30 counties in this state that will now be forced to abandon a relationship with federal authorities that results in the deportation of unwanted aliens who pose a threat to our security.

And the idea that opposition to immigration enforcement among states controlled by the anti-American lobby will abate, especially after the decisions made by California and Illinois, is foolhardy. These are the states with hundreds of thousands, or in the case of California millions, of illegal aliens residing within their boundaries, which is why the demand for ending programs like Secure Communities and 287(g) is so great to begin with, at least among special interests that stand to benefit from non-enforcement. The only way this situation is going to change is by refusing to elect the political hacks that currently populate governor’s mansions and statehouses throughout the country, a task made all the more difficult by our government’s  laissez- faire attitude towards breaking the law.

We learned recently, courtesy of The Stein Report, that Alabama has finally adopted the Secure Communities initiative. Despite coming very, very late to the game,  this development is welcome news.

Although not as stringent or effective as 287 (g), Secure Communities is still an improvement upon the de facto sanctuary given to criminal aliens throughout much of the country. It keeps our streets safe for law-abiding American citizens, and exerts pressure upon those illegal aliens currently living here to reconsider their poor decisions.

The specious argument that enforcing immigration law will deter illegal aliens who are the victims of crime from cooperating with law enforcement agencies is preposterous on its face. Secure Communities is designed specifically to identify, apprehend, and eventually deport those illegal aliens who are career criminals. Imagine the absurdity of arguing that an anti-racketeering task force will simply allow racketeering to proliferate and you’ll have arrived at the patently absurd conclusions of the amnesty lobby. And while some public officials are more than happy to countenance law-breaking, the good news is that they are increasingly in the minority, and that their stance does not represent the views of the vast majority of the American public.

So kudos to Alabama for finally coming around! Better late than never.

Courtesy of the great conservative website Fleming & Hayes, I bring you a fascinating series of exchanges during a public debate about Secure Communities, the identification system used by local authorities, in concert with ICE, to identify and eventually deport selected criminal aliens.

Although not nearly as stringent as 287(g), the law that municipal and state law enforcement should be using in prosecuting the war against recidivist, criminal illegal aliens, it is still an improvement upon the sanctuary city policies pursued by so many radical, open-borders mayors throughout the country. 

This particular town hall-style meeting is an example of the obstacles ordinary Americans face in attempting to get our elected officials-but more importantly, the bureaucrats they invest with so much power-to enforce the law. Not only must we refute the timeworn cliches and discredited notions posited by members of the Socialist Workers’ Party (!), but we must also confront women like Mary Heffernan, Governor Deval Patrick’s factotum, who took questions from the audience in Lawrence about her boss’s lax policy of immigration enforcement. 

Although promising to participate in Secure Communities, the flaccid response of his deputy, as well as the intensifying pressure from advocates for illegal aliens in Massachusetts, makes the stand taken by Tea Party activists in this town hall all the more vital to the debate going forward. Although often stereotyped as monolithic in their approach to issues, and mischaracterized as laissez-faire libertarians-a label that interlopers like Dick Armey and open borders Republicans have tried to affix to them-the bold citizens at this Lawrence, Massachusetts forum have proven that Tea Partiers, like most Americans, want their federal government to enforce immigration laws and secure the border, one of its foremost responsibilities. 

I’ve seen their commitment up close-as the photo that illustrates this story demonstrates-and can attest to their belief that border security does matter, and that it should matter to our elected officials, as well as the unelected underlings who ostensibly follow their orders.

Some bad news from the state of Rhode Island, courtesy of The Boston Globe. One of the worst outcomes of this past election cycle was the replacement of outgoing Governor Donald Carcieri, who had been a stalwart supporter of state-federal cooperation on immigration enforcement, with hapless open borders panderer Lincoln Chafee.

Having attained high office based solely upon his last name, Chafee hasn’t disappointed those of us who had little to no faith in his capacities as a public official, as his recent decision to scrap Rhode Island’s participation in 287(g) demonstrates once again that he is not fit to sit in the governor’s mansion.

While there’s no opportunity to rectify this until the next time Chafee stands for re-election, it is heartening to know that the law enforcement officers in the state of Rhode Island continue to attack the problem at its source. Criminal aliens should be brought to justice, regardless of the despicable political posturing of people seeking their votes in future elections.

It was only a matter of time before the contentious issue of border security made its way into the public debate between two contenders for the governorship of one of this nation’s largest border states. And as The Dallas Morning News reports, it’s gotten rather ugly between Governor Rick Perry and Houston mayor Bill White. Now, when asserting that your opponent’s negligence in office led indirectly to another person’s death-as the ad in question implies-the burden of proof rests squarely on the shoulders of the accuser, which in this case is Governor Perry. What has to be taken into consideration, of course, is whether Houston-at the time of Mr. White’s mayoralty-was indeed a “sanctuary city,” a designation that has indeed led to the deaths of innocent Americans in other cities, such as San Francisco.

On this matter, the evidence is, at best, mixed. While Houston was publicly chided for its sanctuary city policy by one of the members of the September 11th Commission, this chastisement occurred during the first few months of Mayor White’s administration, which presumably means that the policy had been in place well before he was sworn into office. That being said, White didn’t exactly crown himself with valor on this issue while in office. After first embracing the most effective immigration enforcement tool used by local authorities, i.e. 287 (g), he quickly backed off, as this article in the Houston Chronicle explains. Plus, during his gubernatorial campaign, he’s issued all of the standard platitudes of status quo politicians, including a pro forma denunciation of SB 1070.

Then again, so has Governor Perry, which makes his hysterical attacks on Mayor White’s record-which, as I’ve pointed out, is far from exemplary-all the more hypocritical. In fact, Rick Perry’s chief accomplishment with regard to border security and immigration matters as governor of the state has been to demagogue the issue at every opportunity, as pointed out in this clever Bill White ad-while doing virtually nothing to ensure that the flow of illegal aliens into Texas decreases. That is because Rick Perry is, in every sense of the phrase, a George Bush Republican. This edifying post at 24Ahead from several years ago gives us some clues as to how Perry gets away with his immigration double speak.

Unfortunately, his opponent-as I’ve outlined in the post above-isn’t all that much better. So what should Texas voters concerned about the horrific violence spilling over their border do when confronted with this unpalatable choice between the evil of two lessers? I don’t have any good recommendations, other than to maintain your vigilance on this issue, and hold politicians-of both parties-to account for their abysmal leadership on immigration and border security matters. Perhaps next time Texans of all political stripes will have a real choice.