Immigration is the new terrorism. It is the new excuse that the government uses to take away our liberty. The powers-that-be still use terrorism as an excuse, but immigration seems to be the new big issue to create fear and get people to willingly trade liberty for security (false security).
In the wake of September 11, 2001, terrorism was the go-to excuse for almost everything. As Bush said, you were either with us or with the terrorists. Terrorism was used as an excuse to execute at least two wars (Afghanistan and Iraq), spy on Americans more broadly, give us the so-called Patriot Act, give us the TSA, torture and detain people with no due process, and give us a host of other infringements on our civil liberties.
Since that excuse has worn out its welcome, now they have turned to immigration. Some of the same people who will now admit that the Bush administration used terrorism to take away our liberties will accept the Trump administration taking away our liberties in the name of fighting immigration. And apparently that doesn’t just mean illegal immigration.
Immigration and Libertarianism
Immigration has long been an uncomfortable subject for me. I have shared some of my thoughts before. It is difficult for a libertarian to take a stand on immigration when we live in such a statist world. I also pointed out many years ago that conservatives won’t stop immigration because they favor the welfare state too much.
We live in a warfare and welfare state. This makes it tough to take a position of having open borders or something similar. Allowing unchecked open immigration may lead to some bad characters entering in order to seek revenge for U.S. foreign policy. At the very least, it will lead to financial ruin by handing out massive welfare to new immigrants.
If we didn’t live in such a statist world, then it might be possible to have something closer to an open borders position. I would argue that there should still be some kind of sponsorship to take responsibility of the people coming here. That could be a family member, an employer, or just someone doing someone else a favor.
Anyway, I have never really held it against other libertarians who take different positions on the immigration issue. As long as they are seeking to dramatically reduce the welfare and warfare state, then this will help us with immigration because the people coming here will be coming here for the right reasons.
Trump and Immigration
I have never felt comfortable with Trump’s rhetoric about immigration. I can sympathize with some of his supporters. It is ridiculous what the Biden administration did. It wasn’t just that Biden and company didn’t stop illegal immigration – they actively promoted and facilitated it.
I know conservatives like to focus on particular incidents of illegal immigrants committing horrific crimes. This is in a country of 340 million people. You can always find examples of something.
This isn’t to excuse those incidents. They matter a great deal to the people who were directly impacted. The point is that these incidents are used as an insinuation that violent crime is really bad because of illegal immigration. We don’t really know that to be the case. Most violent crime in America is happening because of Americans.
Trump campaigned on deporting illegal immigrants. I wasn’t really outraged by it at the time. I also didn’t really think it was possible to deport a large number of people without significantly infringing on every American’s civil liberties.
Now that Trump has been in office for about 100 days in his second term, we have seen how bad it is to give power to people. You may have your idea of deporting the right people who crossed into this country illegally. The problem is that Trump and company have their own ideas on who to deport and how to do it.
Trump has already been going after the low-hanging fruit of people (particularly students) who are here legally. Trump and company are arresting and attempting to deport legal immigrants (including at least one green card holder) for things they say and write in support of the people in Gaza. In Trump world, apparently you aren’t allowed to say anything critical about the Israeli government.
Before we were even three months in to the new Trump term, he was already trying to destroy free speech. And they are using immigration as the excuse. Apparently, if you are an immigrant and here legally, you aren’t allowed to have a political opinion contrary to the establishment narrative or you risk being arrested with no charges and being held captive.
This is incredibly disturbing for anyone who cares about liberty.
And if that wasn’t enough, the Trump team is talking about making a criminal out of anyone who criticizes Israel. On this, we’re back to the Bush play of saying you are with the terrorists.
And if that wasn’t enough, now Trump is saying that he would like to have the option of deporting the really bad people who are American citizens. You know, it would just apply to people who hit 85-year-old women over the head with a baseball bat – that is, until they just start deporting Americans for criticizing Israel.
Dictator Syndrome
Harry Browne once wrote about dictator syndrome. You can have what you think is the best idea for a new government program. You could think that your plan would actually be efficient and help the people that are supposed to be helped. But one big problem is that you aren’t the dictator. Your plan will never come out how you thought it should. It would go through Congress (or executive order) and all kinds of changes would be made to satisfy the lobbyists. And even then, it would be interpreted differently in the future from how it may have been intended.
You can think that it is a wonderful idea to deport millions of illegal immigrants. But how is that going to work? The government can’t even get the traffic lights to time correctly. They can’t even figure out if they are sending checks to dead people. Even the government bureaucrats with the best of intentions usually end up messing up.
If you want to give the government the power to deport millions of people, then you are going to have a lot of mistakes. Does anyone get due process? What if the government just starts accidentally (or not) deporting Americans?
And how do you round up millions of people? It seems the only way to do that is to make us a total police state where you have to constantly show your papers to prove that you belong here. I don’t see any other way.
When you give the government the power to do good, you are also giving them the power to do bad. Just think about this if you are excited about Trump deporting millions of illegal immigrants. You are giving him the power to do a lot of harm.
Even if Trump were good and really smart (he isn’t), you are still giving power to the next person who steps in that office. If Trump is deporting legal immigrants for criticizing Israel, then the next president might deport people who refuse to get vaccinated or people who have made any comments that are deemed racist.
Do you get the point?
We talk about the slippery slope. But Trump’s plan to deport illegal immigrants has already morphed into Trump arresting people for writing opinion articles and talk of deporting American citizens. It barely took any time at all just to reach this point. If we don’t resist these things now, then who knows what will be next? It seems like the next logical step is to deport anyone who criticizes Israel, including Americans. Maybe it will be deporting anyone who shares a political opinion outside of the establishment narrative.
Conclusion
I am not in favor of open borders, especially in our statist system, but I am also not in favor of the federal government doing anything about it. I have not become any more pro-immigration than I already was, but I have become more anti anti-immigration than I was just a few months ago.
Trump has done a great job of showing why you can’t give power to politicians and bureaucrats. They will ultimately abuse it. In this case, it barely took any time at all.