According to the New York Times, “On Wednesday morning, hours after a man drove a pickup truck into New Year’s Eve revelers in New Orleans, killing 10 people, President-elect Donald J. Trump falsely suggested on social media that his condemnations of undocumented immigrants had been validated.”
There was one big problem, however: The killer was a U.S. born-citizen from Texas. Another noteworthy factor was that the killer was a U.S. military veteran, just as the recent killer in Las Vegas was, but let’s leave that discomforting fact aside.
Let’s examine the implications of Trump’s obviously hasty conclusion that the accused killer was an illegal immigrant. If that had been the case, there is no doubt that Trump would have cited that fact as a justification for his support of America’s decades-old immigration control system and his upcoming mass deportation scheme.
Here is the argument that Trump and his army of Trumpsters use: Even though the vast number of immigrants do not commit violent crimes, a small percentage does. Therefore, to protect Americans from the small percentage of illegal immigrants who commit crimes, they say that it is necessary to have a strict system of immigration controls that vets all immigrants, so that the only the peaceful, law-abiding ones are permitted to enter the United States.
Never mind that that has been the system for some 100 years — one that is supposed to vet people before they enter the United States and one in which a massive immigration police state has been implemented to enforce that vetting system. Let’s set aside the fact that this decades-old immigration-control system and the police state to enforce it have been a manifest failure, as everyone has to acknowledge.
Let’s stick with Trump’s reasoning in order to show how ludicrous it is and now destructive of liberty it is.
There is a system of open borders between Louisiana and Texas — genuine open borders. There are no border stations. No border guards. No border wall. No vetting of people crossing back and forth between the two states. There is complete freedom to cross the border from Texas and enter Louisiana (and vice versa).
The New Orleans killer is only one person. But the fact is that there are other killers in Texas. If you don’t believe me, check out the series on Netflix called The Texas Killing Fields or read this entry on Wikipedia. The Netflix series and the Wikipedia entry document beyond a reasonable doubt that there is at least one serial killer in Texas on the loose and quite possibly more than one.
Under Trump’s rationale, why shouldn’t the people of Louisiana be free to impose a system of border controls against the people of Texas? Sure, most people in Texas are not killers, but the fact is that a small percentage of them are killers, just like a small percentage of Mexicans are killers. Under Trump’s mindset, why shouldn’t the people of Louisiana have the same right to protect themselves with border controls from the Texas killers that the people of Texas have to protect themselves with border controls from Mexican killers?
Just think: To enforce its system of border controls, Louisiana could build its own Berlin Wall along its entire border with Texas, modeled after Trump’s Berlin Wall along the Texas-Mexico border. Louisiana could have its own state border patrol patrolling the roads and highways along the Texas border. It could make it a felony offense for anyone to hire, transport, harbor, or give food or water to an illegal Texan. It could establish highway checkpoints within the state where officials could demand to see people’s travel documents. State officials would be authorized to conduct warrantless searches of farms and ranches along the border. Louisiana could implement a massive deportation plan to get rid of illegal Texans. The Louisiana National Guard could be deployed to enforce the system.
Wouldn’t all these measures constitute massive infringements on individual liberty? Of course, but who cares about liberty? If liberty has to be sacrificed so that people can be kept safe, who cares? After all, who (besides libertarians) cares about the massive destruction of liberty that comes with America’s system of immigration controls and the immigration police state that comes with it?
There is one potential problem, however: Texans could still travel to Arkansas and then cross the Arkansas-Louisiana border to enter Louisiana. Yikes! I guess we’ll need border controls all around Louisiana. For that matter, wouldn’t it only be fair for every other state to protect its citizenry from the killers of Texas with their own state border controls? Wouldn’t this massive destruction of liberty be worth it in order to keep us “safe”?
