Real Libertarians Want Open Immigration

How do you tell a real libertarian from the closet Busheviks who call themselves libertarians because they think it gives them more street-cred than just admitting they are GOP shills?

Here's how:

An end to immigration quotas is demanded by the principle of individual rights. Every individual has rights as an individual, not as a member of this or that nation. One has rights not by virtue of being an American, but by virtue of being human.

One doesn't have to be a resident of any particular country to have a moral entitlement to be secure from governmental coercion against one's life, liberty, and property. In the words of the Declaration of Independence, government is instituted "to secure these rights"--to protect them against their violation by force or fraud.

A foreigner has rights just as much as an American. To be a foreigner is not to be a criminal. Yet our government treats as criminals those foreigners not lucky enough to win the green-card lottery.

Seeking employment in this country is not a criminal act. It coerces no one and violates no one's rights (there is no "right" to be exempt from competition in the labor market, or in any other market).

It is not a criminal act to buy or rent a home here in which to reside. Paying for housing is not a coercive act--whether the buyer is an American or a foreigner. No one's rights are violated when a Mexican, or Canadian, or Senegalese rents an apartment from an American owner and moves into the housing he is paying for. And what about the rights of those American citizens who want to sell or rent their property to the highest bidders? Or the American businesses that want to hire the lowest cost workers? It is morally indefensible for our government to violate their right to do so, just because the person is a foreigner.

Immigration quotas forcibly exclude foreigners who want not to seize but to purchase housing here, who want not to rob Americans but to engage in productive work, raising our standard of living. To forcibly exclude those who seek peacefully to trade value for value with us is a violation of the rights of both parties to such a trade: the rights of the American seller or employer and the rights of the foreign buyer or employee.

Thus, immigration quotas treat both Americans and foreigners as if they were criminals, as if the peaceful exchange of values to mutual benefit were an act of destruction.

Oh there's more too...much, much more! The author also handles, not only the morality of immigration quotas as above, but also the practical and economic aspects from a hardline libertarain viewpoint.

And this isn't some lefty anarchist student writing this. Oh no.

The author is Harry Binswanger, writing at the Ayn Rand Institute's "Capitalism" magazine.

"Dr. Binswanger, a longtime associate of Ayn Rand, is a professor of philosophy at the Objectivist Academic Center of the Ayn Rand Institute."

(Being an immigrant myself I've kept my opinions to myself on the current debate in the U.S. - I'm here as your guest and it is not really my place to try to tell you what the house rules for admitting guests should be. I've an old-fashioned Scottish politeness that way. I will say this though - it's already a lot easier (in terms of opportunity, money, paperwork and time) to emigrate to every other Western nation than it is the U.S. if you're a Brit. Your nation likes tourists but hates people who want to come live here. That's just the way it is, folks.)

But when I read this essay I just wanted to cry out -

HAH! Indeed!