Libertarian advocates of immigration controls always focus solely on the issue of immigration controls and never on the police state that comes with them. That’s because the police-state aspects of an immigration-control system make them extremely uncomfortable given the fact that a police state is the opposite of a libertarian society.
I believe that it’s important to constantly remind people that one of the prices that we pay for the abandonment of the libertarian principle of open borders is a police state — that is, a society in which the government wields and exercises immigration powers that destroy the principles of a libertarian society.
Before we examine the specific aspects of America’s immigration police state, however, it’s worth noting that a police state is an inevitable part of America’s immigration-control system. That’s because migrants, in an attempt to save or improve their lives by fleeing to a society that offers hope and opportunity, will inevitably circumvent the controls that have been established to prevent entry into the United States. Thus, as migrants figure out ways to avoid the existing controls, the government piles more controls onto the existing ones until the point is reached that a full-fledged police state is now in operation.
Highway checkpoints
When one leaves my hometown of Laredo, Texas, situated along the Rio Grande, which is the U.S.-Mexico border, and heads north on IH 35, one encounters a surreal site. About 40 miles north of Laredo, there is an immigration-control station at which every driver is required to stop, roll down his window, and answer questions from immigration officials. Anglos are quickly permitted to proceed onward after answering a simple question: “Are you an American citizen?” However, darker-skinned Mexican-Americans had better have their passports with them. Otherwise, they run the risk of being arrested, incarcerated, or even deported to Mexico. Drivers are also required to follow orders to exit their vehicles and open their car trunks for warrantless searches.
There is something important to note about that checkpoint: It is not located on the U.S.-Mexico border. It is located 40 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. In other words, people who have never crossed into Mexico are subjected to the same type of treatment as people who cross a bridge from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, and enter the United States.
These highway checkpoints also exist on U.S. highways that run east to west. Again, travelers are required to stop and subject themselves to questioning and a warrantless search even though they have never entered Mexico and are simply traveling inside the United States. Many years ago, this is how famed country singer Willie Nelson got caught and charged with illegally possessing marijuana.
Given that Americans have been born and raised with these highway checkpoints, they have become accustomed to them. But the fact is that they are one of the hallmarks of a police state. Many years ago, I traveled to Cuba, which most everyone recognizes as a police state. Cuban officials maintain these types of checkpoints on their highways as well.
Roving Border Patrol checkpoints
The Border Patrol stops vehicles at random on county and state roads near the border. No probable cause and no reasonable suspicion are required. Not even a broken taillight. They just pull drivers over with their flashing lights and order them to get out of their vehicle and open the trunk so they can see if any illegal immigrants are hiding there.
When I was in high school, I got stopped while traveling outside Laredo on the way to the beach in Port Aransas. The stop was entirely random. I had done nothing to justify it, but I was forced to exit my vehicle and open my trunk. Since the Border Patrol agent who stopped me didn’t find any illegal immigrants (or drugs) in my car, I was permitted to continue my trip.
Warrantless searches
U.S. Border Patrol agents wield the authority to enter onto ranches, farms, and other property within 100 miles of the border without a search warrant, with the ostensible aim of looking for illegal immigrants.
I grew up on a farm on the Rio Grande. We hired illegal immigrants, and they were the hardest working people I’ve ever seen. The Border Patrol would come onto our farm whenever it wanted and arrest, incarcerate, and deport our workers. Needless to say, those busts, which took place in the 1960s, did nothing to resolve the 80-year-old immigration “crisis.”
If we placed a lock onto our gate from the highway that adjoined our property and failed to give a key to the Border Patrol, they would simply shoot the lock off the gate and enter onto our farm without a search warrant. They would do the same with gigantic ranches miles away from the border. One of the unwritten rules of ranches is that one should always leave an internal gate inside a ranch the way one finds it — open or closed. When I was growing up, however, there were repeated instances of Border Patrol agents leaving closed gates open. They just didn’t care.
Hiring, transporting, and harboring illegal immigrants
One of the most significant police-state reforms that have been enacted to resolve the 80-year-old immigration crisis is the criminalization of hiring, transporting, or harboring of illegal immigrants. The argument went like this: If there are no jobs for illegal immigrants, if people won’t transport them, and if people won’t harbor them or take care of them, then migrants will no longer come to the United States.
Thus, overnight they converted countless American employers into criminals for simply hiring foreigners. Or let’s say that a farmer has hired illegal migrants that he transports into town on weekends. He is now a felon. Or consider a person who sees a migrant on the side of the highway who is dying of thirst or dehydration. If he gives the migrant water or shelter within his car or transports the migrant to a hospital for treatment that could save his life, he will be arrested, charged, and prosecuted for harboring.
Greyhound buses
Immigration officials board Greyhound buses without warrants to search for illegal immigrants. They go through the bus and demand to see everyone’s papers. When they encounter a dark-skinned Mexican-American who cannot speak English and who is not carrying identification papers, they remove him from the bus, take him into custody, and either charge him or deport him.
When I was practicing law in Laredo in the 1970s and 1980s, the jury panels always consisted of around 20 percent of people who could not read or write English. No one, including the judge and the attorneys, cared. They would simply be excused from jury service. But if those people traveled to San Antonio or elsewhere on the bus, they had to be certain to take their passports. For example, we had a nanny growing up who was a Mexican-American U.S. citizen. Until she died at the age of 91, she never learned English. Who cares? My family certainly didn’t care. But whenever she traveled north on the bus to visit my siblings in San Antonio or Dallas, she had to remember to take her passport or else she would not be permitted to proceed on.
At the risk of belaboring the obvious, requiring people to carry passports while traveling domestically is a hallmark of a police state.
Border checkpoints
When Americans and others cross the international border or fly into the United States from a foreign country, they are required to stop and subject themselves to the possibility of a full-fledged warrantless search of their body, their vehicle, and their personal belongings. Among the newest features of this police-state measure is the search that U.S. officials conduct of people’s cell phones and laptops. People are even required to deliver their passwords to the searchers.
Since we have all been born and raised under this system, hardly anyone questions it. It’s just become a normal part of traveling outside the country. But in fact it is anything but normal. It is highly aberrant. Why should the mere fact that someone has traveled outside the country require him to forfeit his natural, God-given rights of liberty and privacy on his return to the United States?
Some years ago, I flew into a foreign country — I can’t recall which one it was — and, for some reason, there were no border officials working that day. Maybe it was a national holiday. I cannot begin to tell you what a pleasant experience it was to simply grab my suitcase and walk out of the airport without being stopped and questioned by a government functionary. As far as I know, the country did not disintegrate with its open border that day.
Airport checkpoints
If one flies out of my hometown of Laredo, Texas, he or she is required to stop, not only to be subjected to questioning and search by TSA officials but also by immigration officials. This airport checkpoint is the same as the highway checkpoint 40 miles north of Laredo, except it’s one that’s located at the airport rather than on the highway. I once was sitting next to a darker-skinned Mexican-American on a flight from Laredo to Dallas. I asked him how he felt about that airport checkpoint. He told me that when he travels on that flight, he always makes it a point to dress nicely so that he isn’t suspected of being an illegal immigrant. He said he also always makes it a point to carry his passport with him. Of course, Anglos flying out of Laredo never have to carry their passports because immigration officials always quickly waive them through.
Parents and children
Among recent police-state measures to resolve the decades-long immigration “crisis” is the separation of parents from their children. The idea is that if parents learn that they could lose their children, they might be dissuaded from coming to the United States with their families. It’s difficult to conceive of a more pathetic police-state measure than that.
Refugee camps
To dissuade migrants from entering the United States and claiming refugee status, U.S. and Mexican officials struck a deal requiring refugees to remain in refugee camps on the Mexican side of the border. Mexico, of course, is a very poor country, at least compared to the United States Therefore, those refugee camps are models of squalor, misery, and suffering. The idea though is that if enough pain can be inflicted on them, they will abandon their application for refugee status and return to their country of origin, where they will be subjected to death by murder or starvation.
The Berlin Wall
Among the most significant police-state reforms that have been enacted in recent years is the Berlin Wall along the border. Instead of declaring, “Tear down this wall!” I sometimes wonder if President Reagan would have been better off declaring, “Move this wall to the southern border of the United States!”
Of course, like all other police-state measures, the wall was supposed to be the cure-all for America’s 80-year-old immigration “crisis.” Not surprisingly, the immigration “crisis” has only gotten worse, notwithstanding the wall. Moreover, doctors are now dealing with severe injuries suffered by migrants trying to traverse the wall. Finally, it’s worth mentioning that the wall has been built on land that the feds stole from people through the power of eminent domain.
Surveillance
Modern-day technology has enabled government officials to turn the borderlands into models of police-state surveillance measures, including tall towers with surveillance equipment and drones that monitor people’s activities along the border.
But the newest police-state measure designed to deter migrants from coming to the United States is the placement of concertina wire, either on the U.S. shore of the Rio Grande or under water in the river so that migrants can’t see it. The idea is that by cutting up and even killing some migrants, others will be dissuaded from attempting to illegally enter the United States by swimming across the Rio Grande.
Needless to say, none of these police-state measures has succeeded in resolving America’s perpetual immigration crisis. That’s because the perpetual crisis is rooted in the immigration-control system itself. Piling more and more police-state measures onto previous police-state measures only makes the situation worse from the standpoint of liberty and privacy. As I have maintained for more than 30 years, there is one — and only one — solution to America’s never-ending immigration crisis — open borders — that is, the same system we have domestically with state borders. With open borders, the perpetual immigration crisis disappears, along with the police state that comes with it.
This article was originally published in the May 2024 edition of Future of Freedom.