A few thoughts on Donald Boudreaux’s recent column Libertarians & immigration. Boudreaux starts off:
One of the most bizarre developments in the past decade or so is the insistence by a small handful of people who parade under the banner “libertarian” or “advocate of free markets” that the state has both the right and the duty to limit immigration.The most popular version of the so-called libertarian case against immigration runs like this:
A couple of comments. First, he is clearly talking about Hans-Hermann Hoppe, though he never mentions him. Why not name names and provide a link, so people can read it on their own and see what he’s critiquing? (It’s pretty clear, though, that he is talking about Hoppe here.)
Second, Boudreaux implies that the only libertarian position is completely open borders, no restrictions at all on immigration. He implies that only a “small group” of libertarians believe otherwise; and that this view is only a “so-called” libertarian opinion; that the tiny number of people who oppose completely unrestricted immigration in present-day America merely “parade under the banner” of libertarianism. In other words, he implies that there is no real debate about this in libertarian circles. There is; and more than that, it is more than a “small group” of libertarians who oppose unrestricted immigration–probably at least half, if not more, of libertarians would oppose unrestricted immigration.
In fact, an entire Journal of Libertarian Studies symposium issue a few years ago (Volume 13) about immigration had only one open-borders advocate (as I recall)–Walter Block. The rest–Hoppe, Machan, Raico, Simon, Hospers, et al.–if I remember right, were all against completely open borders/unrestricted immigration.
How can anyone argue that being in favor of some restrictions on immigration is clearly unlibertarian, and held by only a tiny minority of libertarians? I myself am extremely skeptical of any state involvement in immigration policy; and I do not claim that any of these libertarian opponents of unrestricted immigration are right–I am not appealing to an argument from authority or from numbers. But I do believe it is dishonest for Boudreaux to imply that this is a settled issue among libertarians; that only a few kooks hold the “outlier” idea that we should not have open borders; that only a “handfull” of libertarians disagree with the unrestricted immigration advocates. Boudreaux may be correct in his policy views; but he should not try to bolster his argument by falsely implying that most libertarians agree with him and that most do not agree with his opponents, or that there is no real dispute here.
He continues:
Each private property owner has the moral right (and should have the legal right) to ban from his property, or to admit onto his property, anyone he chooses. In a free society, no one is coerced into unwanted associations with others.
Therefore, because in a fully free society all land would be privately owned and government would be limited (at most) to keeping the peace, immigration policy in this society would be highly decentralized, in the hands of each of the many property owners. Each property owner would choose his own “immigration policy.”
But we do not live in a fully free society. We’re stuck with a large and intrusive government, one that owns enormous tracts of land and public facilities. Given that excessive government is a reality that will not soon disappear, the best that citizens of a democratic society can hope for on the immigration front is that their overly powerful government mimics the immigration policies that a fully free society would adopt.
Because there would be no free admission in a fully free society–again, each private owner could chose to admit or not to admit anyone seeking to enter his property–there should be no free admission in today’s less-than-free society. Indeed, say these “libertarian” skeptics of immigration, open immigration today is tantamount to forced integration. Citizens who do not wish to associate with foreigners are forced to do so by a government that too freely admits foreign immigrants.
They are also forced by virtue of anti-discrimination and affirmative action laws. Why does he ignore this? As Hoppe points out here:
If a domestic resident-owner invites a person and arranges for his access onto the resident-owner’s property but the government excludes this person from the state territory, it is a case of forced exclusion (a phenomenon that does not exist in a natural order). On the other hand, if the government admits a person while there is no domestic resident-owner who has invited this person onto his property, it is a case of forced integration (also nonexistent in a natural order, where all movement is invited). … By admitting someone onto its territory, the state also permits this person to proceed on public roads and lands to every domestic resident
