TheAgitator.com
Immigration
Monday, January 7th, 2008Mickey Kaus asks if Ron Paul’s is the “official libertarian position” on immigration.
The answer–at least from this open-borders libertarian–is “no.” I don’t want to speak for current and former colleagues, but I suspect just about everyone at Cato and reason would say the same thing.
In fairness to Paul, even *he* does not describe his restrictionist stance as “the official libertarian position.” He has described it as *a* libertarian position on immigration, though obviously one where he’s in the tiny minority. I don’t know. Doesn’t he back a border fence? I don’t see how that’s defensible as a libertarian position.
Eh, Ron Paul’s position isn’t typical, but read into it a bit. It really isn’t horribly offensive to the open-borders types.
Ron Paul isn’t a labor protectionist at all.
Kevin: He voted for a bill that contained a border fence provision — he’s not vehemently against it, I guess.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/01/ron_paul_on_immigration.html
“You want a 700-mile fence between our border and Mexico?
Ron Paul: Not really. There was an immigration bill that had a fence (requirement) in it, but it was to attack amnesty. I don’t like amnesty. So I voted for that bill, but I didn’t like the fence. I don’t think the fence can solve a problem. I find it rather offensive.”
Radley,
No offense, but cato and reason are hardly the standard bearers for libertarianism. It’s diseased libertarianism at best. Honestly I’m not sure why they get along with you as well as they do given the positions they take on things.
That said, Brian is right. His position actually is the libertarian position. It’s not the libertarian ideal but it is the right one for where we are right now.
Ron doesn’t want to add new laws and new expenditures or fences or anything else to combat this. He wants to enforce existing laws on the books. He wants to do this so that we can have a chance to fix our country. Once we have the welfare state and the FED under control so that we won’t have any freeloaders we can relax it. He has openly stated that immigration is not the problem but rather our government policies are. As a fellow open borders libertarian I struggled with his position on immigration at first too. However, you have to dig past the soundbites he is usually allowed to give to what motivates his position and what his long-term vision is.
He does want to end birthright citizenship, which I initially opposed. However, I think I’ve come around on that point. Birthright citizenship isn’t necessary when you have relaxed or open borders anyway. If your parents are naturalized, no problem.
It is the sensible libertarian position. Milton Friedman (to quote him here again) wisely pointed out that it is insane to have a welfare state and a policy of open immigration. The position advocated most libertarian publicans and groups is suicide, but they’re too proud to admit that.
Citizenship in a free society in particular should be very hard to get. It should be something that requires you to prove that you are genuinely a (classical) liberal, and not just some hard-working statist.
MikeT: Having a welfare state and open borders may not make sense, but having a welfare state, a fortified border, and Real ID is the worst of both worlds.
Do you favor seat-belt laws and high tobacco taxes just till we get rid of government medical subsidies? This is the same thing. The fortification of the border isn’t doing anything to reduce the welfare state.
Mike T–by that standard only a tiny fraction of native-born ‘muricans would qualify for citizenship…
…maybe that’s not such a bad idea, come to think of it…
Mike T–your standard for citizenship would automatically disqualify anyone who advocates it.
Citizenship should be more restrictive–but it should be based on objective considerations and not ideological distinctions between liberal and statist. Like it or not, statists are part of the debate.
Is it the “official” libertarian position to form a mob of young angry men and threaten violence against someone because that person is a subordinate of a private party that excludes you from its property?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMrHorlOB0k&eur
Yeah – I don’t think ideology is a test for citizenship or should be.
Sydney,
Gee – I watched the video, and interestingly I never saw Ron at all. Let alone see him form a mob of any sort.
Rather, I saw a group of people who were angry about a particular news corporation’s actions generally (this forum being only the latest issue) and him specifically (his lies and distortions are well documented) follow him and tell him so.
I didn’t see or hear anyone threaten violence – but maybe I just missed that part. It sounded like maybe at some point someone was throwing snow – which while harmless was not a good idea. However I also heard other people admonishing those who were doing it to stop.
Further, once the camera got to the front we saw that they were following at a reasonable distance, on public property, expressing their opinion – which last I checked was still legal in this country, even against celebrities.
This “mob” which followed at a respectful distance then ceased following him once he entered a private building.
It’s patently absurd, immoral, and unjust, as some of the wonkier faux-libertarians like to do, to have the choice between a perfectly legitimate and just activity (the free movement of peoples) and a perfectly illegitimate and unjust activity (the forcible theft and redistribution of other people’s wealth — the welfare state) and then to conclude that the only “sane” or “reasonable” choice is to **unjustly restrict the legitimate activity**. It may very well be true that it’s impossible to have open immigration and a welfare state. But even if so, that’s a perfectly wonderful argument for opposing the welfare state, NOT opposing the free movement of peoples.
As for Ron Paul, he’s really more of a “Constitutionalist” than a Libertarian. http://radgeek.com/gt/2007/11/29/res_ipsa/ And that’s a damn shame.
Mark,
You didn’t see anyone threaten violence? Let me tell you something, since obviously you grew up sheltered: When angry young men are shouting and following you and begin to throw things are you, that is a serious, serious threat of violence. Frankly, if I were Sean, I’d have brandished a gun and told them to back the hell off. If they’re upset, they can peacefully hold placards in front of Fox News like any other person, instead of ambushing and outnumbering a person as he’s walking around at night.
If you’re in for more insanity, read the comments on the youtube video and you’ll see how often the Ron Paul (oh, I’m sorry. DOCTOR Ron Paul) supporters say that people like Hannity are guilty of treason. They’re judge, jury, and executioner, apparently.
@JJH2 and others:
Libertarianism is not nomadism. The people who pay for government should receive the government services. Allow unlimited immigration and what do we have — yes, still a welfare state, where the recipients of welfare and steadily degrading services are foreigners, while the citizens foot the bill.
The dissolution of all borders is anarchism. Or alternatively, global government. Which do you prefer?
Druff:
Well, anarchism, of course, since libertarianism, properly conceived and consistently executed, is necessarily opposed to all government. To the extent that government engages in coercive theft against innocent persons, it’s illegitimate, regardless of what kind of “services” it “offers” (read: compels you to receive) in return.
The distinction between “citizens” and “foreigners” is irrelevant insofar as a consistently applied and defensible libertarian ethic goes, because there’s nothing about being subject to one illegitimate system of state-authority over another that gives a person any kind of preferential moral status at all.
Druff:
If immigration were completely legal, the immigrants would pay their full taxes, same as the rest of us. They would not be receiving “services” for free. (By the way, studies have shown that many illegal immigrants do pay their share of taxes already. http://www.reason.org/commentaries/dalmia_20060501.shtml) So what is the problem?
It sounds like your problem is with “foreigners” in general, which is nothing more than xenophobia or, more likely, racism. Libertarianism requires one’s respect for everyone else’s rights, even the ones that speak Spanish or don’t look like you. You can’t tell me that you wouldn’t do the exact same thing (crossing a dangerous border into an uncertain future) if you were in their sole-less shoes.
JJH2:
In your formulation, there’s no difference between libertarianism and anarchism… I don’t think these terms are usually seen as synonymous. But this helps interpret your advocacy of the unfettered, free “movement of peoples,” which, to be actualized, requires the elimination of all national/regional sovereignty, everywhere.
At any rate, your quarrel with government in and of itself makes your criticisms of border control redundant. Which is fine, if you favor anarchism — that’s just not what most libertarians seem to stand for. As I understand it, libertarians generally recognize a very limited legitimate role for government, but a role nonetheless.
Cocker:
If there were a way to allow unlimited immigration AND expect everyone to pay their taxes, then immigration would at least have to be tracked/controlled to some extent. So be it. If everyone’s on the books, then everyone’s subject to the same laws, and wages won’t be driven down and gov’t services won’t be drained too fast, theoretically.
Education is a different matter, though, for those who don’t speak English. Also overcrowding, gridlock, increased use of public facilities and services… these will mandate a commensurate growth in government and bureaucracy. Isn’t that working against libertarianism, unless you go so far as to advocate anarchism?
But surely, unlimited legal immigration is better than unlimited illegal immigration, if it boils down to those two.
You don’t have to be a citizen to pay taxes. A lot of illeagal immigrants pay taxes too and don’t get many of the services a taxpayer is usually entitled to.
Also, I could move to another state tomorrow and start using all of their (state) taxpayer funded services, even though I have never payed taxes there. How is that so different from someone coming from Mexico and doing the same?
A lot of states (maybe all?) withhold certain benefits from you until you’ve lived there for a number of years.
Aside from the difference between switching states in the same country (as people move between states, there will be some losses and some gains, plus everyone still pays their federal taxes) and switching countries, the difference would probably be the fact that there aren’t millions of you jumping from state A to state B every year. And nobody leaves state B to go to state A.
It seems obvious to me why a mass influx of people without a comparable increase in tax receipts and necessary bureaucracy could lead to an overall deterioration of everyone’s condition. I don’t think the globalization of povery is what we need.
Sydney,
I wasn’t aware that a “mob of angry young men” has anything to do with Dr. Paul’s positions. Every time I’ve seen Ron Paul speak, he rejects violence, and respects property rights.
Perhaps you’d like to talk about Dr. Paul’s positions rather than a red herring?
Zeb,
The main difference is that it is LEGAL for you to be here in the first place.
Ron Paul’s position is that our economy is faltering and that the immigration “problem” is really a result of that fact. Rather than understanding the problems with our economy, many people would rather blame immigrants for our problems. His take on immigration is that we should fix our economy (get rid of the welfare state, cut government spending, etc…) and then immigrants wouldn’t pose the problem they do.
He also believes that those people who do come here should do so properly. Those who don’t are criminals and should not be granted amnesty.
While I don’t have any numbers to back this up, anecdotal evidence as well as some of my own empirical evidence tells me that illegals take up quite a bit more of our tax dollars than they contribute. That’s my opinion, so no sense in arguing it with me.
“Perhaps you’d like to talk about Dr. Paul’s positions rather than a red herring?”
I would talk about DOCTOR Paul’s positions, if perhaps I wasn’t concerned that a mob would lynch me for disagreeing with any of them.
Druff:
To the extent that libertarians support using violence against innocent persons for choosing to move, live, work, rent, or hire people without the appropriate, state-sanctioned papers, they’re taking a fundamentally illibertarian position. I am aware that, unfortunately, many of the people who profess to be libertarians are not anarchists, but minarchists. To the extent that those minarchist libertarians are libertarians because of the fundamental moral axioms of principled libertarianism — the Non-Aggression Principle + the homestead principle or some other theory of libertarian property rights, they’re just wrong. There’s no way to move from those first principles to minarchism; and to their credit, they mostly do not attempt to.
To be clear, I do not think that libertarianism is synonymous with anarchism. My position is that libertarianism, correctly understood and consistently implied, necessarily entails anarchism. But judging by the dozen and a half varieties of anarchism out there, I don’t think that anarchism necessarily entails libertarianism (although it should!).
Sorry, that should be “consistently applied” – not “consistently implied.”
You’re absolutely right, it won’t reduce the welfare state; it will keep it from growing. At a bare minimum, a large number of illegals already consume at least $5,000-$7,000 per child in public school dollars. In some states, that’s as high as $11,000/child. That doesn’t even count the full array of welfare services, such as “free” emergency room healthcare. If you ever want to be able to fight the welfare state effectively, the first order of business is to not allow the United States to be flooded by millions of people who are candidates for using it. Every barely educated or uneducated, low or no skill worker from south of the border is precisely that, a good candidate for welfare in the future.
This is not hard. Just figure out how many children an illegal immigrant has in the public schools. In Virginia, an illegal immigrant family with 3 children in our public schools would be consuming around $22,500 in public funds. It would take at least two minimum wage jobs to contribute that much money back into the economy.
Just as a conservative estimate, if there were 100,000 children of illegal immigrants in Virginia, you’d be looking at at least $750,000,000 in tax dollars being spent on them, not counting any other social programs. I’d hazard to guess that we have at least half that number in just Fairfax County.
The vast majority of children that “illegal” immigrants have in the public schools have birthright citizenship. Money being spent on birthright citizens is not money being spent on “illegal” immigrants. QED.
Additionally, those who have half a brain and a rudimentary concern for factual accuracy, and who are tax experts and who have studied the contributions and liabilities of illegal immigrants in the US have concluded that illegals ultimately pay more into “the system” – often into programs that they will never receive a dime from (Social Security, state unemployment insurance programs), than they take out. See the following link to a peer reviewed article dealing with the issue: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=881584
There are good arguments for more immigrants to meet labor needs, but the open borders libertarians are revealing their urban bias in how they make them. Anyone who regularly goes to rural areas knows how utterly asinine it is to say that many of these jobs like working fast food and construction positions are jobs Americans won’t do, or even won’t do at a reasonably low wage. They may not do them in urban areas for certain rates, but they do them all the time in rural areas. The illegal immigrants are a competitor there for those low-paying jobs. The federal government has to do a balancing act between helping businesses meet reasonable labor needs, and not allowing businesses to mass import cheap labor to displace Americans.
MikeT:
The federal government doesn’t “have” to do anything. The libertarian position is that the federal government should led individual persons do _whatever the hell they want_ in the job market. How can you make a principled argument for the legitimacy of the government’s use of violence against innocent persons for living or working without the appropriate government paper and then turn around and make a principled argument for the illegitimacy of the government’s use of violence against innocent persons for other reasons (like the forcible redistribution of wealth). Either you oppose ALL illegitimate violence by the government against peaceful persons, or you’re not a libertarian (or at least a bad, inconsistent one). The only way to selectively justify illegitimate government violence is to be a hypocrite.
Funny thing is, when I worked at a nearly minimum wage job in high school about a decade ago, I never had that much money taken out for social security or other programs. My taxes weren’t high at all.
Illegal immigrants also don’t tend to pay any property tax, which means that they don’t contribute a dime toward the education of their children, citizen or not. The burden of the children on society was brought by the illegal immigrant parents, therefore it is a legitimate target when discussing how much of a tax burden illegal immigrants really are.
No, that is your position, and it is an anarchist position. Most libertarians are sensible enough to realize that no man is an island, and that the consequences of his actions may be sufficiently damaging to others’ rights that some non-violent actions must be regulated. I ask you, do you believe it is the libertarian position to allow a repeat, unrepentant child molester to be hired, knowingly, by a daycare center? I don’t care if they wouldn’t, I am asking you, do you think it is the moral right of a daycare center to hire someone they know for a fact is likely to victimize their customers’ children? If not, then you have just negated your own principle. If yes, you have just argued that it is morally acceptable to allow people to knowingly hire employees they know will inflict harm on their other employees or customers.
The whole point of having a paper trail in the first place, is to ensure that people are not exercising their rights by importing workers who shouldn’t be here based on such criteria as:
1) They have a serious communicable disease that cannot be easily cured.
2) They have a well-established criminal record. You may be cool with this, but personally I don’t think it’s a wise policy for advancing and protecting limited government to allow employers to hire hardened criminals from abroad and bring them to the United States. Such people tend to make it easier for the police to stay militarized and large.
As I said, you may not see how it is a violation of anyone’s rights to allow people who suffer from tuberculosis or leprosy to live here, nor see any cause to deny people with a chain of felony convictions from immigrating, but most sensible people would.
MikeT:
An illegal immigrant who works on the books at a minimum wage job (and many have reappropriated social security numbers) pays just as much in Social Security as a citizen who works at a minimum wage job — and will never get anything from Social Security in return, unlike a citizen. Paying into a system they will never receive a dime from.
Additionally, an illegal immigrant will pay for property taxes (directly) if they own a piece of property. If they don’t own a piece of property, as many Americans don’t, they pay for property taxes indirectly via the price of the apartment or house they’re renting. Duh.
Mike, I can’t help but notice that you either don’t have, or don’t care to articulate, exactly what values you think underlie a libertarian conception of justice. Rather, you merely assert that your particularly favored violations of individual liberty are justified, for reasons unstated, while implicitly disapproving of other violations of individual liberty (as a libertarian must) — and offering no _principle_ to distinguish between them.
Nobody has any _legitimate_ rights that an “illegal immigrant” violates _by virtue of_ their illegal status. It may be that the government forces you to subsidize them (although as the article I linked to you argues, in fact they are subsidizing you), but that’s the _government’s fault_ not yours. Just like it’s no argument to engage in violence against someone on TANF or food stamps just because they’re receiving stolen wealth. They’re not holding you up at gunpoint – that’s the government.
If I want to rent one of the rooms in my house out to a tuberculosis patient, or a leprosy patient, or a patient who committed a serious crime somewhere else on god’s green earth — that’s my business, not yours. If you want to come knocking on my door with a torch and a pitchfork to violate MY property rights. Well good luck. I’ll be waiting.
The linked article doesn’t do much more than restate what you already said JJH2. Whether or not illegals utilize more than they contribute (I would propose that they do, and most likely so do any other minimum wage earning families) is beside the point. The fact is, they are here illegally. They didn’t follow the rules, so they should be kicked out and those that follow the proper procedures let in.
Strengthening the economy and removing the welfare state I believe is the true solution to the problem. I have a feeling that if those things happened, not many people would raise much of a stink about illegal aliens. It might not matter much in a few years if our government continues to spend (and in turn debase our currency) the way it does. I think the US will begin to look less attractive to immigrants in the future. Ironically that would be another solution to the problem, make conditions here so bad, no one would want to move in.
As a side note, people making minimum wage pay very little, if any federal income taxes. Of course illegals that had money taken from their checks would want to file their taxes. That way they get most of their money back.
Robert:
2 things.
First, I would suggest you actually _read the article_, which can be downloaded from the site I directed you to, as opposed to just reading the summary.
Second, what’s the moral importance of the fact that “illegal” aliens are breaking unjust laws? If a law is unjust, it _deserves_ to be broken, because unjust laws carry no moral duty of obedience. By enforcing unjust restrictions on the free movement and consensual contract of human beings, the US government is engaging in tyranny, and “illegal” aliens are not only acting morally and justly in violating such laws, but heroically!
It only takes about two seconds of searching on the Internet to find a study that says exactly the opposite of the study you linked. Which one is right? I’m guessing that the one saying illegals cost us more than they contribute. It also says that allowing the illegals full citizenship (amnesty) would triple the costs.
That’s not to say that uneducated low wage citizens that were born here aren’t costing us the same amount as the illegals would if they were allowed citizenship. This is why my argument is more against the welfare state than it is against illegal immigrants.
I have a feeling that we’ll just have to agree to disagree on the morality of citizenship laws. In a society in which the government uses violence to take from some and give to others, I hardly think it is moral, or just, to come here in order to “get your fair share”. Blaming it on the government doesn’t absolve them (the illegals) of moral responsibility. If I rob a store then give the money to someone else, that person doesn’t have a right to that money just because it was me that took it in the first place.
In any event, those who wish to engage in civil disobedience should be prepared to face the consequences, regardless of their “rightness”.
Robert:
Er, well, yeah. A lot of groups peddle ignorant misinformation. I’m more concerned with evaluating the trustworthiness of a source. When the issue revolves around the taxation of “illegal” immigrants, I’m going to look at a tax specialist in a peer reviewed tax policy journal over, well, I’m not even sure who you’re citing to, since you don’t actually bother to.
It’s true that, as a practical matter, if you break the law you should be ‘prepared’ for the consequences – but this isn’t a moral argument, just a simple recognition of who holds and enforces a local monopoly on the use of force. There’s no moral imperative to willingly subject yourself to punishment, nor does having a practical understanding of the likely consequences of illegitimate State violence and retaliation somehow justify those illegitimate activities. Nobody has a moral duty to subject themselves to the violence of the government, even if they know that such violence is likely to result from their action. People engaged in righteous civil disobedience, which flouting unjust and immoral immigration laws undoubtedly is, have no moral obligation to “suffer” the “consequences” of the State when those consequences are themselves unjust.
My point in citing another study wasn’t to change your mind, but rather to point out that either position is going to be backed up by lots of studies with experts and peer review… etc. There is no doubt in my mind that the paper you cited was written by people with an agenda. To be fair, the other studies I found were also written by people with their own agenda. That is why I choose to look at the world around me and make my own decision. That’s not to say I totally ignore papers written by “experts”, but I certainly don’t take them for gospel. The long and short of it is that I don’t trust your peddlers of ignorant misinformation anymore than I do the other peddlers of ignorant misinformation I found.
My position is that poor, uneducated people are a burden to, as well as a result of a welfare state, regardless of their place of origin. That is why I advocate fixing the root of the problem, rather than slapping bandaids on it. In the meantime, I see no need, nor moral responsibility, to add to the problem by importing more poor uneducated people.
I’m pretty sure I said “should be prepared to face the consequences”, not “should have a moral duty to face the consequences”, so I’m not sure where your rant about the morality comes from. That is unless, of course, you are arguing with my statement that the immigration laws are moral. I realize you disagree with that, but your argument hasn’t convinced me.