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During the past few years, a popular misconception has arisen in the libertarian movement, especially among some newly minted libertarians. This misconception applies to borders and holds: “There are now two different immigration positions in libertarianism: open borders and government-controlled borders. One can take either position and still be hewing to libertarianism.”
Of course, that’s simply not true. Libertarianism is an internally consistent philosophy. As such, it does not embrace contradictions. It’s either open borders or it’s government-controlled borders. It can’t be both.
So, how do we decide which position is the libertarian position? Simple. We apply the core principle of libertarianism to the issue. That’s the non-aggression principle. It holds that any position that involves the initiation of force or fraud cannot possibly be a libertarian position.
First of all, let’s dispel another common misconception, one that is common among statists. This misconception holds that open borders means that borders disappear. That’s not true. A border is simply a line, oftentimes unseen, that establishes different political jurisdictions. Open borders simply means the right to freely cross those political lines and enter into a different jurisdiction. It does not mean that the lines — or borders — disappear. The borders remain intact, even though people are free to cross them.
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The Potomac River forms a border between Maryland and Virginia, where I live. Every day, hundreds of thousands of people from Maryland cross the border and enter Virginia. We don’t know who they are because there are no controls or restrictions on who can cross the border and enter Virginia. They could be murderers, rapists, thieves, burglars, robbers, terrorists, illegal immigrants, Muslims, Jews, Catholics, atheists, welfare-seekers, people with Covid, and anarchists.
We don’t know who all these people are because — believe it or not — nobody is vetting who is coming into our state. That’s because there is a system of open borders between Maryland and Virginia, just as there is among all the other states in the United States. That is, when people from Maryland cross the bridge spanning the Potomac River and enter Virginia, they do not encounter a government inspection station.
It goes without saying that when all those hundreds of thousands of unknown people enter my state — every day! — the Potomac River does not disappear. It remains the border between Maryland and Virginia. People are simply free to cross it. Are any of those people violating the rights of the people of Virginia when they cross the bridge and enter our state? Of course not. They might violate rights after they get here, like robbing or murdering someone or even going on welfare, but they are not violating anyone’s rights by simply traveling across the bridge and entering Virginia. Crossing the border constitutes a purely peaceful act — that is, it does not involve the initiation of force against anyone.
That’s how we know that open borders is the true and genuine libertarian position. Open borders is consistent with the non-aggression principle, which is the core, defining principle of libertarianism.
Let’s assume that Virginia officials suddenly decide that this daily invasion of hundreds of thousands of unknown Marylanders into Virginia is unsafe for the people of Virginia. They establish border stations at every road or bridge that crosses into Virginia. They use these stations simply to stop people and vet them, to ensure that any criminal, robber, burglar, terrorist, invader, Muslim, anarchist, welfare-seeker, poor people with school-aged children, or any similar type of person is not permitted to enter our state and do us harm.
There is one big problem with that vetting station: It involves the initiation of force against everyone crossing the border from Maryland into Virginia. Remember: Crossing a border does not violate anyone’s rights. It’s an entirely peaceful act. Thus, it is the government that is initiating force against peaceful people when it stops them and vets them and uses force to prevent some of them from entering Virginia. That’s how we know that a system of government-controlled borders is not the true libertarian position, no matter how much any newly minted libertarian convinces himself that it is.
Libertarian principles apply equally to other borders, including international borders. The Rio Grande is a border between Mexico and the United States, just as the Potomac River is the border between Maryland and Virginia. Libertarian principles don’t change simply because the political line is establishing political jurisdictions of nations rather than political jurisdictions of states (or counties, cities, etc.). Given that crossing a political border does not involve the initiation of force, people have the right, under libertarian principles, to freely cross international borders as much as they have the same right to cross state (or county or city) borders. It is the government, with its system of immigration controls and the massive police state that enforces it, that initiates force and, therefore, violates the core principle of libertarianism.
In fact, the massive immigration police that has come into existence to enforce the government’s vetting stations at international borders makes it even clearer that government-controlled borders cannot possibly be the true and genuine libertarian position. I’m referring to such things as highway checkpoints, roving Border Patrol checkpoints, warrantless searches, the criminalization of hiring, transporting, harboring, or caring for illegal immigrants, the boarding of Greyhound buses by government officials demanding to see people’s papers, a Berlin Wall that depends on eminent domain stealing of people’s property, and much more. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, there is no way that a massive immigration police state that is based on the initiation of force against countless peaceful people, including American citizens, can possibly be reconciled with the libertarian non-aggression principle, the core principle of the libertarian philosophy.
Libertarianism is the greatest philosophy that mankind has ever discovered. It brings liberty, prosperity, peace, and harmony to mankind. Open borders, not government-controlled borders, is part and parcel of this fantastic philosophy. As we have been steadfastly maintaining for the past 35 years here at The Future of Freedom Foundation, the libertarian principle of open borders is the only solution to the decades-old, ongoing, never-ending, perpetual, deadly and destructive morass that the statist policy of government-controlled borders has foisted upon our land.
