Immigration / open borders debate

[LC475]

Did I mention yet that open borders liberals/libertarians are idiots?

If not, let me state for the record that open borders liberals/libertarians are idiots.

i have either. never heard a well explained well reasoned out version of libertarian open borders, or maybe it just cant be made.

It actually can be made.  This actually is an interesting issue.  It is not just a case of one side being "idiots" and the other side geniuses.  Even if it were, it is not going to generally be productive to call everyone who disagrees with you idiots and leave it at that.  That's not persuasive at all, it turns out.  Furthermore, Craig, since Harry Browne was a prominent libertarian the people who are still interested in his thoughts and philosophy today are going to be disproportionately libertarians.  So, to use your top crawlingroad.com page to be blatantly disrespectful to these people, to call them morons and idiots and such, is, well, bad marketing for one.  Also, to me, it conveys disrespect and even contempt for Harry Browne and his memory and his widow.  I am fairly confident you did not intend that.  So, I am here to help you as the Self-Awareness Fairy.  That's how it comes across.  Now you know.  I thought, actually, that you had come to this awareness earlier, when you wisely took down the immigration posts that had taken over crawlingroad.  And you have not resurrected the most disrespectful ones, so maybe you do understand and agree at least somewhat with what I'm telling you.

Here is someone who is not an "idiot" making the case for open and unrestricted immigration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eyJIbSgdSE

You would be hard-pressed to find better debater, a more well-spoken, a more brightly intelligent person than Milton.  He is not an idiot.

Here is this same position as articulated by his son, who is also no idiot.  His first two paragraphs, especially, I think you will be hard-pressed to come up with a satisfactory rebuttal to:

Until the middle of the 1920s this country followed a general policy of unrestricted immigration; except for some
exclusion of orientals, anyone who wanted to come was welcome. From 1905 to 1907, and again in 1910, 1913, and
1914, over a million immigrants a year came. They and their descendants have created a large part of our economic
and cultural wealth. It would be hard to find any major public figure willing to argue that this policy was a mistake.

It would be almost as hard to find a major public figure who would advocate a return to that policy. Recent debates
have been on how we should allocate and enforce our limited immigration quota among different nationalities, not on
whether the quota should exist.

In my opinion, the restriction on immigration is a mistake: we should abolish it tomorrow and reopen the most
successful attack on poverty the world has ever seen.

One danger in this policy is that poor immigrants might come with the intent of somehow surviving until they became
citizens, and then going on welfare. I therefore include in my proposal the condition that new immigrants should face a
fifteen year 'residency' requirement before they become eligible for welfare. I also suggest that the federal and state
minimum wage laws be altered so as not to cover new immigrants, or, better yet, be repealed.

We would receive a vast flood of immigrants, probably more than a million a year, possibly several million. Most
would come from Asian and Latin American countries. Most would be poor. Many would work as unskilled labor for
the first generation, as did most of the previous immigrants. They would bring with them levels of education, nutrition,
and health, which would appall our social workers; they would live, by our standards, very badly, but they would live
well by their former standards, and that is why they would come.

Unrestricted immigration would make us richer, as it has in the past. Our wealth is in people, not things; America is
not Kuwait. If a working wife can hire an Indian maid, who earned a few hundred dollars a year in India, to work for
her at six thousand dollars a year, and so spend her own time on a 30 thousand a year job, who is worse off?
As long as the immigrants pay for what they use, they do not make the rest of the society poorer. If increased
population makes the country more crowded, it does so only because the immigrants produce wealth which is worth
more to the owners of land than the land is worth, and the immigrants are able to use that wealth to buy the land. The
same applies to whatever the immigrants get on the free market; in order to appropriate existing resources for their own
uses, the immigrants must buy them with new goods of at least equal value.

The immigrants will get some governmental services for which they will not pay directly. They will also pay taxes.
Given present conditions, I see no reason to expect that they will cost government more than government will cost
them.

The new immigrants will drive down the wages of unskilled labor, hurting some of the present poor. At the same time,
the presence of millions of foreigners will make the most elementary acculturation, even the ability to speak English, a
marketable skill; some of the poor will be able to leave their present unskilled jobs to find employment as foremen of
'foreign' work gangs or front men for 'foreign' enterprises.

More important than any of these economic effects is the psychological effect on the present poor; they will no longer
be the bottom of the barrel, and as Liberals have pointed out with some justice, it is where you are, not what you have,
which defines poverty. Mobility will be restored; each generation of immigrants will be able to struggle up to a
position from which to look down on their successors.

A policy of unrestricted immigration would bring us more than cheap unskilled labor. It would bring a flood of new
skills, not least among them the entrepreneurial ability that has made Indian and Chinese emigrants the merchant
classes of Asia and Africa. Once the new citizens become familiar with the language and culture of their adopted
country, they will probably work their way into the great American middle class just as rapidly as did their
predecessors of eighty years ago.

It is a shame that the argument must be put in terms of the economic or psychological 'interest' of the present
generation of Americans. It is simpler than that. There are people, probably many millions, who would like to come
here, live here, work here, raise their children here, die here. There are people who would like to become Americans,
as our parents and grandparents did.

If we want to be honest, we can ship the Statue of Liberty back to France or replace the outdated verse with new lines,
'America the closed preserve/That dirty foreigners don't deserve.' Or we can open the gates again.

I do not know much about Libertarian666, but based on what I do know I do not think he is an "idiot".  I know even less of Stewardship, but again his writings on this forum tell me he is not an "idiot".

None of these men are idiots.  They just disagree with you.

[Mountaineer]

Did I mention yet that open borders liberals/libertarians are idiots?

If not, let me state for the record that open borders liberals/libertarians are idiots.

i have either. never heard a well explained well reasoned out version of libertarian open borders, or maybe it just cant be made.

It actually can be made.  This actually is an interesting issue.  It is not just a case of one side being "idiots" and the other side geniuses.  Even if it were, it is not going to generally be productive to call everyone who disagrees with you idiots and leave it at that.  That's not persuasive at all, it turns out.  Furthermore, Craig, since Harry Browne was a prominent libertarian the people who are still interested in his thoughts and philosophy today are going to be disproportionately libertarians.  So, to use your top crawlingroad.com page to be blatantly disrespectful to these people, to call them morons and idiots and such, is, well, bad marketing for one.  Also, to me, it conveys disrespect and even contempt for Harry Browne and his memory and his widow.  I am fairly confident you did not intend that.  So, I am here to help you as the Self-Awareness Fairy.  That's how it comes across.  Now you know.  I thought, actually, that you had come to this awareness earlier, when you wisely took down the immigration posts that had taken over crawlingroad.  And you have not resurrected the most disrespectful ones, so maybe you do understand and agree at least somewhat with what I'm telling you.

Here is someone who is not an "idiot" making the case for open and unrestricted immigration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eyJIbSgdSE

You would be hard-pressed to find better debater, a more well-spoken, a more brightly intelligent person than Milton.  He is not an idiot.

Here is this same position as articulated by his son, who is also no idiot.  His first two paragraphs, especially, I think you will be hard-pressed to come up with a satisfactory rebuttal to:

Until the middle of the 1920s this country followed a general policy of unrestricted immigration; except for some
exclusion of orientals, anyone who wanted to come was welcome. From 1905 to 1907, and again in 1910, 1913, and
1914, over a million immigrants a year came. They and their descendants have created a large part of our economic
and cultural wealth. It would be hard to find any major public figure willing to argue that this policy was a mistake.

It would be almost as hard to find a major public figure who would advocate a return to that policy. Recent debates
have been on how we should allocate and enforce our limited immigration quota among different nationalities, not on
whether the quota should exist.

In my opinion, the restriction on immigration is a mistake: we should abolish it tomorrow and reopen the most
successful attack on poverty the world has ever seen.

One danger in this policy is that poor immigrants might come with the intent of somehow surviving until they became
citizens, and then going on welfare. I therefore include in my proposal the condition that new immigrants should face a
fifteen year 'residency' requirement before they become eligible for welfare. I also suggest that the federal and state
minimum wage laws be altered so as not to cover new immigrants, or, better yet, be repealed.

We would receive a vast flood of immigrants, probably more than a million a year, possibly several million. Most
would come from Asian and Latin American countries. Most would be poor. Many would work as unskilled labor for
the first generation, as did most of the previous immigrants. They would bring with them levels of education, nutrition,
and health, which would appall our social workers; they would live, by our standards, very badly, but they would live
well by their former standards, and that is why they would come.

Unrestricted immigration would make us richer, as it has in the past. Our wealth is in people, not things; America is
not Kuwait. If a working wife can hire an Indian maid, who earned a few hundred dollars a year in India, to work for
her at six thousand dollars a year, and so spend her own time on a 30 thousand a year job, who is worse off?
As long as the immigrants pay for what they use, they do not make the rest of the society poorer. If increased
population makes the country more crowded, it does so only because the immigrants produce wealth which is worth
more to the owners of land than the land is worth, and the immigrants are able to use that wealth to buy the land. The
same applies to whatever the immigrants get on the free market; in order to appropriate existing resources for their own
uses, the immigrants must buy them with new goods of at least equal value.

The immigrants will get some governmental services for which they will not pay directly. They will also pay taxes.
Given present conditions, I see no reason to expect that they will cost government more than government will cost
them.

The new immigrants will drive down the wages of unskilled labor, hurting some of the present poor. At the same time,
the presence of millions of foreigners will make the most elementary acculturation, even the ability to speak English, a
marketable skill; some of the poor will be able to leave their present unskilled jobs to find employment as foremen of
'foreign' work gangs or front men for 'foreign' enterprises.

More important than any of these economic effects is the psychological effect on the present poor; they will no longer
be the bottom of the barrel, and as Liberals have pointed out with some justice, it is where you are, not what you have,
which defines poverty. Mobility will be restored; each generation of immigrants will be able to struggle up to a
position from which to look down on their successors.

A policy of unrestricted immigration would bring us more than cheap unskilled labor. It would bring a flood of new
skills, not least among them the entrepreneurial ability that has made Indian and Chinese emigrants the merchant
classes of Asia and Africa. Once the new citizens become familiar with the language and culture of their adopted
country, they will probably work their way into the great American middle class just as rapidly as did their
predecessors of eighty years ago.

It is a shame that the argument must be put in terms of the economic or psychological 'interest' of the present
generation of Americans. It is simpler than that. There are people, probably many millions, who would like to come
here, live here, work here, raise their children here, die here. There are people who would like to become Americans,
as our parents and grandparents did.

If we want to be honest, we can ship the Statue of Liberty back to France or replace the outdated verse with new lines,
'America the closed preserve/That dirty foreigners don't deserve.' Or we can open the gates again.

I do not know much about Libertarian666, but based on what I do know I do not think he is an "idiot".  I know even less of Stewardship, but again his writings on this forum tell me he is not an "idiot".

None of these men are idiots.  They just disagree with you.

OK, let's assume we go the open border route.  Would you impose ANY boundary conditions?  Examples:

* Must learn written and spoken English and become proficient within 5 years
* Must become a citizen within 10 years
* Must have a US citizen as a sponsor
* Must have the promise of a job, co-signed by sponsor, before arriving here
* Must have or obtain within 10 years an education equivalent to a GED
* Must be willing to be tested on the above and pass or face deportation

If not these, what would you propose?

... M

[Pointedstick]

Milton Friedman is basically making the point that unrestricted immigration is economically positive as long as the new immigrants can't sponge off the wealth of others via welfare and are expected to produce more than they consume just like everyone else. I think everyone agrees about that. Unfortunately, it's also not the way things are set up. In a society where people were largely expected to take care of themselves and their families, it could work. But we don't live in that society because that's not how the culture of Americans has evolved. For better or worse, we live in a nanny busybody state where the state is ostensively responsible for everyone and provides a wide and growing variety of free or tax subsidized services, many of which can be legally availed by illegal immigrants and their children (legal or illegal), such as public schooling and in-state college tuition rates.

This is completely ignoring the cultural change angle, as well. Like it or not, people from different cultures chafe against each other uncomfortably when they live alongside one another.

[Pointedstick]

I find it interesting that on the subject of immigration, libertarians who favor open borders usually do so on the grounds of economics and abstract theory rather than by demonstrating the actual success of liberal border policy, especially in modern times when most of the people who are entering are not from western Europe. Areas of the USA with the most immigration and the politicians who are the most in favor of it are becoming economically and culturally polarized, and are places that libertarians generally don't want to live. New Hampshire, the "Live Free Or Die" state, which was chosen as the site for the Free State Project, is 94% white with only a 6% foreign-born population, compared to 13% nationally and 27% in California. Hmmm...

It's a marked contrast from, say, the issue of guns, where one can point to decades of improvement in all the measures that people care about that accompany a vast increase in the number of guns and the liberalization of gun laws. If you can't do the same with immigration, maybe it's time to rethink things.

[Libertarian666]

I was hoping you'd chime in, Libertarian666 

You're welcome!

In the absence of perfect solutions, do you guys ever think perhaps there are better solutions? 

Perhaps you don't like the fact that government runs the transportation system, but once the roads are built, do you advocate that the government not paint lines and post signs so they spend less money?

The answer to that question is that the government should sell off the roads to private enterprises, which will then be subject to the laws of the market in deciding how to operate them.

You're welcome!

[Libertarian666]

I find it interesting that on the subject of immigration, libertarians who favor open borders usually do so on the grounds of economics and abstract theory rather than by demonstrating the actual success of liberal border policy, especially in modern times when most of the people who are entering are not from western Europe. Areas of the USA with the most immigration and the politicians who are the most in favor of it are becoming economically and culturally polarized, and are places that libertarians generally don't want to live. New Hampshire, the "Live Free Or Die" state, which was chosen as the site for the Free State Project, is 94% white with only a 6% foreign-born population, compared to 13% nationally and 27% in California. Hmmm...

It's a marked contrast from, say, the issue of guns, where one can point to decades of improvement in all the measures that people care about that accompany a vast increase in the number of guns and the liberalization of gun laws. If you can't do the same with immigration, maybe it's time to rethink things.

Over 25% of the inhabitants of Switzerland are immigrants.
You're welcome.

[Libertarian666]

One last point here because I've said all I can on the issue at this time.

On the libertarian idea of shutting down welfare would allow open borders to work.

First, if the people of a country or state want some kind of welfare program it's their right to have it. They shouldn't have to give it up simply because foreigners are pouring in and are likely to abuse it. That shouldn't be made the citizens' problem and responsibility to give up nice things they want just because other people can't be trusted to take care of them.

Secondly, California tried once to deny welfare to illegals at the state level and it didn't work:

http://ballotpedia.org/California_Propo ... its_(1994)

Voters overwhelmingly passed legislation prohibiting illegals from accessing welfare. But within days leftist groups worked to get injunctions passed to stop it and eventually the governor of the state simply refused to fight it in court or enforce it. As a result, illegals could gain access to welfare despite the wishes of the citizens.

This was backroom politics that did this, not some libertarian debate about the benefits of mass immigration to the economy. The politicians and leftists stabbed the voters in the back.

So saying that letting in more people without regard to the U.S. national interest is OK because welfare is going to be eliminated is just not going to fly. There needs to be a national push and a Federal government that wants to get control of the problem. Without that, there will be no solution.

Libertarians are trying to be nice and rational with leftist groups that hate their guts and do not want to be nice and rational. I figure there is a reason the radical left loves mass immigration and helping them with that goal can't possibly be good for libertarian leaning people.

I don't care what leftist groups think, although I'm sure many of them hate people who think the way I do.
I also don't believe in letting others control my behavior by doing the "opposite" of whatever I think they want me to do.

And again, if there is a problem with a government program such as welfare, the answer is to get rid of that program, not introduce further programs to solve the problem with the first program. The latter never has worked, and never can work, because of the same fundamental fact that caused the problem with the first program, which is that it is based on coercion.

[Pointedstick]

Over 25% of the inhabitants of Switzerland are immigrants.
You're welcome.

…Of whom 85% come from somewhere else in Europe (according to Wikipedia, at least). Regardless of what any European will tell you, there is deep cultural similarity and compatibility between a Swiss and a Swede, a Portuguese, an Italian, or a German. It's not really comparable to widespread immigration from parts of the world with a vastly different culture and political history, and extensive poverty.

[Pointedstick]

A related point, also per Wikipedia:

The admission of people from non-EU/EFTA countries is regulated by the Foreign Nationals Act, and is limited to skilled workers who are urgently required and are likely to integrate successfully in the long term. There are quotas established yearly: in 2012 it was 3,500 residency permits and 5,000 short-term permits.

There ya go. In other words, Switzerland's immigration system is highly selective of people who are truly culturally and economically different--which is exactly what the sanest voices in the USA are proposing. However, it is absolutely a big government statist contraption, replete with walls and guards and guns and police officers willing to point them at families and children.

[Libertarian666]

Over 25% of the inhabitants of Switzerland are immigrants.
You're welcome.

…Of whom 85% come from somewhere else in Europe (according to Wikipedia, at least). Regardless of what any European will tell you, there is deep cultural similarity and compatibility between a Swiss and a Swede, a Portuguese, an Italian, or a German. It's not really comparable to widespread immigration from parts of the world with a vastly different culture and political history, and extensive poverty.

A related point, also per Wikipedia:

The admission of people from non-EU/EFTA countries is regulated by the Foreign Nationals Act, and is limited to skilled workers who are urgently required and are likely to integrate successfully in the long term. There are quotas established yearly: in 2012 it was 3,500 residency permits and 5,000 short-term permits.

My understanding is that anyone who has sufficient resources to support himself without working at a level that would not entitle him to public assistance if he were Swiss is also welcome.

However, you are right that they take in mostly other Europeans, so they aren't an exception to that rule (of taking in mostly Europeans). I missed that in the original comment.

Again, however, the solution is not to "build a wall", nor forcing everyone to show papers all the time, as neither of these proposals will solve the problem of immigration. But these "solutions" will get us even closer to a total police state.

The only actual solution is to dismantle the welfare state. If someone claims that is impossible, then they are admitting defeat.

[Fred]

The only actual solution is to dismantle the welfare state. If someone claims that is impossible, then they are admitting defeat.

I guess I have to admit to defeat then, because I see little prospect in the foreseeable future of dismantling what you are calling the "welfare state", from a pragmatic point of view. That there should be some kind of decent provision to help the poor and give them equal opportunity to the "American Dream" in a rich society like ours seems to be a given nowadays and I think you would find few people who disagree, whether liberal or conservative. So I think it all boils down to how many of the world's poor we can absorb given that this is the kind of society we are trying to build.

[Libertarian666]

What's this? More calls for police state expansion thanks to open borders immigration policies that imports millions of people that aren't compatible with your way of life? I'm shocked!

http://news.yahoo.com/france-train-atta ... NlYwNzcg--

Paris (AFP) - Since 9/11, airports around the world have implemented tougher security checks for travellers, but the foiled attack on a packed high-speed train in Europe raises questions whether railway stations should also follow suit.

Open borders is anti-libertarian. No small irony either as so many libertarians think it's a great idea. The evidence that open borders results in less freedom is overwhelming at this point.

There is a reason why the radical left thinks open borders is a good idea, and it isn't because it's going to make government smaller!

Does the radical left think that having a nuclear war is a bad idea?
If so, then you must think it is a good idea!

It's too bad so few people understand Harry Browne's point that being against something because someone you don't like is in favor of it means that they control you.

[Libertarian666]

California is doing very poorly because they have completely out-of-control government.
Texas, which also has a lot of immigrants pouring across the border, is doing far better. Why? Because the government isn't nearly as ravenous and idiotic.

And as for the notion that government action to fix the immigration situation is going to work, if that happened it would be the first time that a government program ever accomplished what it promised. But on the other hand, it would be certain to have many very bad effects, including much more intrusion on the lives of people who have nothing to do with immigration, legal or otherwise.

See Harry Browne's "Why Government Doesn't Work" for details.

So you'll have to excuse my wacko libertarian notion that tightening the screws on everyone in the USA, which is the only thing that would be sure to result from such a program, would be a very bad idea.

[dualstow]

Hungary to send more police to secure borders from migrants

Justice Minister Laszlo Trocsanyi told Hungarian media Tuesday (August 25) that the influx of migrants "has created an emergency situation in the region" and that "having 1,500 people entering the country illegally on a daily basis is unacceptable," according to the government's website.

http://cnnphilippines.com/world/2015/08 ... rants.html

Hungary scrambles to confront migrant influx, Merkel heckled

A record 2,533 mainly Syrians, Afghans and Pakistanis crossed from Serbia into EU member Hungary on Tuesday, climbing over or squirreling under a razor-wire barrier into the hands of an over-stretched police force that struggled to fingerprint and process them. Authorities said over 140,000 had been caught entering so far this year.

http://www.thestar.com.my/News/World/20 ... nt-influx/