Advocates of the U.S. government’s war on immigrants are no doubt celebrating the 23-month sentence in a federal penitentiary that Martin de La Rosa-Loera received this week. His “crime”? As supervisor of a meat-packing plant in Postville, Iowa, he was convicted of “aiding and abetting the harboring of 389 illegal aliens.” Translation: He was a plant supervisor where illegal aliens were working.
That’s right: two years in a federal prison — you know, the place that houses murderers, terrorists, rapists, and robbers.
Who did Rosa-Loera murder, terrorize, rape, or rob? Actually, nobody. In fact, unlike murderers, terrorists, rapists, and robbers, he didn’t initiate violence against anyone. His conduct was entirely peaceful. He simply supervised people who had entered into a mutually beneficial economic arrangement with the plant owners. It was an arrangement in which we can be fairly certain both the workers and the employer were benefiting from. Otherwise, both sides would not have entered into the working relationship with one another.
It’s easy for me to understand how statists would support this type of thing, but what has always befuddled me is how any libertarian could support it. After all, limited-government libertarians believe that the state should only punish people who have committed acts of violence or fraud against others. That’s why, for example, libertarians favor drug legalization, despite the welfare-state burden that drug addicts might place on taxpayers. Yet, here a man is going to jail for doing nothing more than engaging in the entirely peaceful act of supervising people who have entered into a mutually beneficial labor arrangement with an employer.
Of course, some libertarians might exclaim, “I didn’t intend that to happen when I favored regulated or closed borders. All my intentions were good. I just wanted people to have to get permission from the government before they came to take that job.”
But aren’t good intentions what liberals always cite for their welfare-state fiascoes? And don’t libertarians take them to task by reminding them that when it comes to government policies, especially those that cause harm to others, good intentions are irrelevant?
One of the interesting things about libertarians who favor immigration controls is their failure to address the core fallacy of their position: their defense of immigration socialism, specifically the socialism of central planning, and that central planning inevitably leads to interventionism, which libertarians have also always opposed.
After all, while pro-controlled-border advocates always have a myriad of reasons for supporting immigrations controls (e.g., welfare, terrorism, public schools, diseases, stealing jobs, etc.), their solution always and inevitably is one of central planning, one in which some government body, either elected or appointed, is to be given the task of deciding the correct number of immigrants, the right mixture, the job skills, the language skills, etc.
Yet, every libertarian knows or should know that central planning does not and cannot work. It is inherently defective. The planners lack the necessary knowledge and expertise to centrally plan such a complex economic arena, especially when market conditions are changing every second. Central planning always results in “planned chaos” — that is, perversion, distortions, and the like.
What happens when the inevitable central planning crises develop in immigration, like everywhere else (the drug war being a good example)? Interventionism! When immigration central planning inevitably fails to achieve its goal (i.e., no more illegal aliens), the government begins enacting an endless series of interventions to address the ever-increasing array of problems.
The laws against harboring or hiring illegal aliens under which people like La Rosa-Loera are convicted are just logical outgrowths of the failure of central planning in immigration to work. Don’t forget that hiring illegal aliens didn’t use to be against the law. It was an intervention enacted after previous interventions failed. That’s also why they’re now building that Berlin-type fence along the border and threatening to send battle-tested U.S. troops down there to enforce it. The law against hiring illegal aliens obviously hasn’t succeeded in accomplishing its aim, and so more and more interventions are needed.
Why don’t libertarians who favor immigration controls ever confront this central fallacy in their articles and speeches? The answer is obvious: The problem creates a “felt uneasiness” within them, which causes them to simply avoid confronting it. After all, how does a libertarian explain why he is an advocate of socialism and interventionism, albeit in only one important area of life, and yet an advocate of free markets in every other arena? How does he explain why socialism should be expected to work in the area of immigration central planning and not in other areas of life? How does he show that interventionism in immigration won’t inevitably lead to omnipotent government, as he argues it will in other areas?
Consider the following hypothetical conversation:
Statist: Mr. Libertarian, why do you oppose socialism in public schooling and healthcare?
Libertarian: Because it won’t work. Both economic theory and practical experience show that central planning is inherently flawed and that the free market produces the best results in peaceful economic activities.
Statist: But Mr. Libertarian, you support socialist central planning in immigration and argue that it can work in that arena. Well, if we can make socialism work in immigration, then as a can-do people Americans should be able to make socialism work in public schooling and healthcare as well. Will you join us and help us improve public schooling and national healthcare.
Libertarian: You might have a point. I’ll get back to you on that.
The fact is that God has created a consistent universe, one in which moral means produce good results and evil means produce bad results. What better way to fulfill God’s great commandment — to love one’s self and one’s neighbor — than to engage into a mutually beneficial exchange with other people, especially one in which one side consists of the very poor whose families are oftentimes on the verge of starvation? What could be worse than to embrace socialism and interventionism, no matter how valid the excuses for doing so might seem, especially when it results in the punishment of people, including the poor, who were doing nothing more than improving their respective lots in life through voluntary contract and labor?
