Every day, millions of Americans cross state borders without encountering border-control stations, where they would otherwise have to show some sort of identification and have their vehicles inspected for contraband or dangerous people. There is total, unrestricted, free movements of goods, services, and people across state borders.
Most everyone likes this open-border system. Sure, it means that murderers, rapists, thieves, drug dealers, communists, terrorists, and illegal immigrants are free to cross state borders and enter different states, where they are able to inflict mayhem. Nonetheless, most Americans are willing to take their chances rather than ostensibly be kept “safe” by an extensive state border-control system, state border patrols, border walls, and an ever-growing series of border police-state measures that destroy liberty and privacy.
Notice something important about our domestic system of open borders: There is no border chaos or border crises between the states. There are no deaths and injuries of people trying to illegally cross a state border. There are no tariffs between the states. Why, no one even loses a bit of sleep over the trade deficits that exist between the states.
The problem is that these same advocates of open borders domestically simply cannot envision that the same principles of liberty and harmony that undergird our domestic open-border system apply to international borders as well. They are unable to see that adopting an open-border system on our southern border would produce the same harmony that we see within the United States — people simply crossing back and forth, just as they do with state borders.
A few days ago, the Washington Post published a long article entitled “Glitz and History at the Border: Laredo Throws George Washington a Party.” The article was about my hometown of Laredo, Texas, where I was born and raised and where I lived for more than 30 years of my life. The article revolved around Laredo’s annual big celebration of George Washington’s birthday.
I could be wrong but I think that Laredo is the only city in the United States that celebrates Washington’s birthday in a big way. When I lived in Laredo, there was a big downtown parade featuring floats with the city’s debutants on them wearing their huge and expensive colonial dresses. The parade was led by Pocahontas riding a horse. A big debutant’s ball. A Jalapeño Festival that would have been George Washington proud. A downtown plaza featuring mariachi bands. A carnival. A Noche Mexicana. And much more.
Now consider this sentence from the Post’s article: “From 1957 to 1976, Mexican citizens could come over without documentation to attend, an era known as ‘paso libre.’”
What did “paso libre” mean? It meant open borders. Yes, for almost 20 years Laredo had the same open-border system that the United States has domestically. Granted, it was only for four or five days a year. Nonetheless, it was an open-border system.
The federal border-control station at the international bridge would stand down. So would the Border Patrol. Everyone from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico — and, for that matter, anyone from Mexico or anywhere else — was free to cross the international bridge and enter Laredo.
Naturally, there were no deaths from drowning in the Rio Grande or from asphyxiation in the back of a tractor trailer during the period of “paso libre.” That’s because people were free to cross into the United States like regular human beings. There was no reason to try to enter Laredo by swimming across the river or by being secretly transported in the back of a tractor trailer.
There is something important to note about Laredo’s open-border phenomenon: The United States did not fall into Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, or the Gulf of Mexico, and Laredo did not fall into the Rio Grande. Moreover, the entire world did not come into Laredo. I imagine that there might have been some violent people from Mexico who crossed into Laredo, but I imagine that the same thing applied to Americans coming from the north down to Laredo to participate in the festivities. Nobody worried about it.
An interesting aspect of “paso libre” was that once Mexicans were free to cross into Laredo, one could not distinguish them from Laredoans. That’s because around 95 percent of Laredoans were Mexican-Americans. Many, if not most, of the daily conversations in Laredo were in Spanish. So, as thousands of people were in San Agustin Plaza listening to mariachi bands or watching the downtown parade, which, by the way, included participants from Mexico, one couldn’t tell whether a particular person was a Mexican citizen or an American citizen. No one cared. It just didn’t make any difference. Everyone was simply having a good time.
According to Chatgbt, “paso libre” was “eventually discontinued due to concerns over illegal immigration and national security.” According to the Washington Post article, “Border security has intensified steadily since.”
And why is that? Because of the federal government’s system of border controls as well as the much-vaunted federal “war on drugs” and, later, the much-vaunted federal “war on terrorism,” all of which succeeded in destroying Laredo’s heritage of “paso libre.” In fact, the federal government destroyed the much larger heritage of open borders that once existed between Mexico and the United States, after the United States stole the northern half of Mexico in the Mexican War.
It’s because of the federals that Laredoans and everyone else along the U.S.-Mexico Border now live under a militarized police state — one consisting of highway checkpoints, roving Border Patrol checkpoints, DEA agents, Border Patrol agents, FBI agents, Homeland Security agents, trespasses onto privately owned farms and ranches where warrantless searches are conducted, boarding of Greyhound buses to check people’s papers, massive surveillance, a Berlin Wall based on eminent domain stealing of people’s property, violent raids on private businesses, forced deportations, snitches, and countless officials preening about how they are keeping us “safe” with their destruction of our liberty, privacy, and well-being.
