The Case For Free Immigration - Part II

This is the second of a three part series. Parts I and III.

The arguments for free immigration from a liberty perspective are less empirical, but perhaps more important and with greater consequences. I will start with the most obvious example of restrictions on migration being inconsistent with liberty: emigration.

It is almost universally condemned if someone wishes to leave a country but cannot. Why then, is the inverse not true? What good would emigration be if there were no immigration? Let me paint a picture: during World War II, many Jews were the subject of unspeakable oppression. It didn’t have to be this way. It’s no secret that the Germans hated the Jews. When Hitler came to power, he first tried to force the Jews to move from Germany.

As Hitler’s influence increased, as the Nazi empire expanded, there was no place left in Europe for the Jews to go. While some were lucky enough to emigrate to North and South America, most of them simply were not wanted by any other country. Since Hitler could no longer force them out, he had to come up with another solution to the Jewish problem: the final solution.

As tragic as that story is, imagine how much more tragic it could have been if there was no immigration. Free immigration is paramount because without it, free emigration means nothing. Germany was happy to see the Jews go. It wanted them to leave. But since most other countries in the world closed their doors to the Jews, they couldn’t leave. This is just as outrageous and deserves just as much condemnation as if Germany had told the Jews they couldn’t leave and were going to be put to death.

Imagine if that were the case. Let’s pretend that every country on this planet had their doors open to the Jews but the Germans would not let them leave, despite the Jewish pleas. The outcry would have been enormous: how dare you not let them leave?! Look what will happen to them if you force them to stay! Unfortunately without free immigration the argument is exactly the same, only instead it’s directed at the countries that told the Jews “no”.

Because most countries didn’t open their doors, the Jews were not allowed to leave. They were forced to stay and we all know what happened to them. Free immigration can very well mean the difference between life and death. While that may be true only in the most extreme circumstances, liberty demands that the door be always kept open, just in case.

Furthermore, since free emigration is something most of the world’s countries can agree on, it is equally important to have free immigration for a second reason. If all the countries in the world adopted a policy of free immigration, the one country that didn’t would be very conspicuous. In a world of restricted immigration, the country that doesn’t allow its citizens to emigrate can basically go unnoticed because nobody will take its emigrants anyway, so what is the big deal if it’s illegal for them move?

Immigration must be free to put the spotlight on those countries that don’t allow emigration. Even if the entire world is free except for the population of one country, it’s just as much of an injustice as if all people of the world were not free. The liberal demands freedom for others just as much as he demands it for himself. All the freedom in the world means nothing if one can’t get to it. If there is even one country in this world that does not allow either free immigration or free emigration, liberty has not been achieved.

Let me frame the importance of free immigration in another way. Liberty says that people should be free to do as they please unless their actions cause harm to another. Similar to the argument made in part one for efficiency, who exactly is being harmed by free immigration? It is perfectly acceptable to prevent someone from coming on to your private property. If you don’t want someone on your property, and they come anyway, they are violating your liberty and can be arrested or sued, immigrant or otherwise. If the argument against free immigration is that of property and being invited, it’s already illegal to trespass; you don’t need an additional restriction on top of it.

A key function of government is to maintain and secure property rights. This entails many things, including the knowledge that I will feel secure that, if I buy something, it will be mine. If I buy a car from someone, I know the government will protect me if that person decides to take his car back. If he steals the car, he will go to jail. If he sues me for the car, there will be a justice system in place so I can argue why the car is mine and not his. In other words, contracts would be impossible to enforce if there weren’t a stable government backing up and defending property rights.

One of our key liberties is the freedom to contract. We own our bodies and, as such, can do with them what we please so long as we don’t harm another person. Since I own my body, I own my labor. If I want to sell my labor to someone who is willing to buy it, it is government’s responsibility to enforce and protect that right. Indeed it is the most important duty of government. I’ve said it before and I will continue to say it: all of our rights mean nothing if we aren’t secure in our property. All of the legitimate functions of government (that of the protective state) are for naught if we aren’t secure in our property rights. I cannot stress enough the importance of this.

This is very important. It means that a buyer and a seller should be allowed to find each other and make a deal. If it weren’t in both parties’ interests, the deal would never be made anyway. Thus, by default, when a contract is agreed to, both parties are better off.

For a government to restrict this, not only is it preventing a mutually beneficial transaction, it is violating the very core of personal liberty. For a government to prevent the freedom of contract of a buyer and a seller just because one has to cross an imaginary line to do so is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.

Property rights themselves mean nothing if the freedom to contract is undermined. Indeed, you cannot separate the two. If there is no freedom to contract, there are no property rights. If the government fails to enforce the freedom to contract, it has failed in its most basic responsibility.

Some “defenders” of liberty put forth the argument that a country, just like a property owner, has the right to deny entry if it feels like it. These people say that it’s only okay for an immigrant to come to this country if invited. While at first this may sound consistent with what I have argued above, it most certainly is not. The country is not a piece of private property, therefore it cannot be owned. If it is not owned, the idea of trespassing doesn’t work.

A country is nothing more than a collection of individuals’ property with an imaginary line drawn around the whole thing. There is nothing magical that happens when one crosses that imaginary line. Who is the guardian of the line? Our government? Why would the power of an imaginary line overrule the right to freedom of contract? If I want to hire an immigrant worker if I live in Colorado, does it make any sense that I can’t because there is an imaginary line stopping him from coming?

Or, pretend you live in Texas. Your backyard backs up to a Mexican’s back yard. If you wanted to hire him to mow your grass, it would be illegal to do so. It would be illegal to walk five feet into your property and do work that you invited him to do and are willing to pay him for. This is your neighbor we’re talking about! While this example might seem a little silly, the point it illustrates is an important one. Whether a potential immigrant lives next door or a thousand miles away, the argument is exactly the same. It’s only when we boil it down to its most basic, like the example just illustrated, that the true lunacy of such a policy becomes apparent.

These same so called “defenders” of liberty say the country acts as a club. As such we can decide for ourselves what our policy of immigration can be. Just as a private club can vote on whether or not to accept new members, so should the country be able to. Again, this may sound good on the surface, but it’s just as hollow as any other excuse to deny immigration.

In a private club, members make a conscious effort to join and join because of some shared vision or goal. Who among us chose to join this country? Most people who vote to exclude outsiders are ones who never made the conscious decision to join in the first place, but rather had the good fortune to be born here. Isn’t it ironic that the only people who would make the country more like a club, thus maybe giving this argument some legitimacy, are immigrants, the very ones that are excluded!

Similarly, what is our common goal as a country? I doubt you can say we have one, for the collection of individuals here is about as heterogeneous as you can get. I suppose if we had to say what our common goal was though, it might be to live the “American dream”. The American dream is that anyone can succeed here, regardless of your background. Again do you feel the irony that we want to exclude the only people who the “American dream” might apply to?

America is very clearly not like a club, so to defend a backwards policy based on the assumption is faulty. Rather, I suspect that “defenders” of liberty are simply trying to reconcile their own personal views on immigration with the idea of liberty. Since restricting immigration is plainly and obviously inconstant with liberty, they have to come up with some creative arguments for them to avoid looking like hypocrites. But even a quick examination of those arguments shows how faulty they are.

As just mentioned, a border between one country and another is nothing more than a line drawn on a map. An imaginary line acting as a barrier to free movement is inconsistent with liberty. By crossing that imaginary line, the immigrant is simply agreeing to leave his country’s sphere of influence and enter into another country’s sphere of influence; he is agreeing to no longer be governed by the laws of his country and instead be governed by the laws of another country. Provided he does not harm anybody, liberty has nothing to say regarding his movement, anymore than it can have a say if he crosses the street.

An important aspect of liberty is freedom from government coercion. Liberty would never have government intervention trump an individual’s liberty of movement. Immigration is, in the truest sense, a victimless crime.