Immigration Liberation

I've been watching this new "circus" that has recently come to town. It's center ring attraction has been the issue of illegal immigration into the United States. As a self-professed libertarian, I've been struggling with this particular issue because it is so complicated. On the one hand, you have individual rights while on the other we've charged the federal government with our border security. The majority of us, I believe, think that some level of scrutiny needs to be applied to those who come and go at our borders while at the same time agree that all have a right to pursue their dreams.

 

In my daily reading, I ran across an article written by Marcel Votlucka that has some excellent points that I wanted to share. The title of this referenced article is "Illegal" Immigration Is a Phantom Problem and is exclusively carried by Strike the Root.com. Towards the end of his article, Marcel manages to capture the gist of my feelings on immigration and individual rights in the first quoted paragraph. In the subsequent paragraphs he warns us of the political motivations of those running the afore mentioned circus. Enjoy:

[If] individual rights mean anything, they include your right to go wherever you want in order to seek better opportunities.  They include your right to buy or sell stuff with whoever will trade with you.  They include your right to seek and earn work.  They include your right to make free choices in the market.  Indeed, we all make such choices, big or small, significant or trivial, every day.  The market is made up of the aggregate whole of all these choices, all this bargaining and trading and exchange of ideas, products, services, and information.  This is not a magical process; it's simply how society operates.

 

This is in spite of efforts by economically ignorant politicians and interest groups to set up barriers to commerce and free immigration.  This is in spite of their efforts to control the market so they can make it work for their own ends.  This is in spite of their efforts to protecting and enriching themselves by robbing others of their freedom.  This is in spite of their efforts to lock out foreigners out of paranoia that American culture will somehow disappear.  That whole "borders, language, culture" nonsense, for instance.

 

Attacks on immigration, legal or otherwise, are attacks on individual rights, not to mention attacks on the market and a free society.  The only "aliens" we should be concerned about are those unsavory, ignorant, and politically-connected folks to whom freedom is an alien concept.

 

In short, "illegal aliens" arouse their ire because they represent a force the politicos cannot control--a force that undermines their own ill-gotten power and replaces it with the power of the truly democratic free market.

As a general rule, I'm in agreement with what Marcel says. However, I do want to add to his comments one I made to a post at Timothy Birdnow's BirdBlog. His post highlights possible motivations of the more nefarious actors who protest the immigration reform. Here is my comment:

I'm wondering how many of those protesting would be so energetic if we conceded to their demand to stay and work in the U.S.; but only on the condition that they were to receive absolutely no financial aid of any kind. That means no social security, no anchor baby status, no federal/state business grants--no help at all. In other words, we'll acknowledge their claim for the right to work; but we'll also acknowledge their responsibility to be independent in a foreign land. This is a tough position to take. I'm reminded of one of my first trips out of my home State. I was so worried about the car breaking down or my wife or I needing medical assistance. I made sure that I had all my ducks in a row before I left the security of my home State. I didn't want to find myself having to beg for mercy from strangers. It is not their responsibility to remedy my financial problems. Why do foreigners believe that by coming to this country they are entitled to leach off the system if things don't work out for them? More importantly, why is our system set up to allow this? Is our government meant to be a charity for the poor and downtrodden? By it's design, does our government enable those who should really return home after failing the means of staying? If that's the case, where exactly can be found the motivation to find gainful employment when one can just throw up his hands and say, "It's too hard!"

Like I said at the beginning of this post, it's a tough nut to crack! I think I'll go ponder it some more...