Immigration

The Rule of Terror

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 1, 2000

THE HORRIFYING SEIZURE of Elián Gonzalez is one more reflection of the depths of depravity to which the U.S. government has plunged in our lifetime. The episode also reflects the extent to which all too many Americans continue to deny the reality that beneath the velvet glove of the benign welfare state lies the iron fist of a brutal, ...

America’s National Culture on the Border

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 1, 2000

People who rail that America's "national culture" is threatened by immigrants never explain which national culture they are referring to. I recently visited my hometown of Laredo, Texas, which is located on our nation's Southern border. In grocery stores and department stores half the signs are in Spanish and store ...

It Didn’t Start with Elián

by Michael A. Ledeen June 1, 2000

MOST AMERICANS probably believe that it is wrong for the U.S. to return a refugee to an evil tyranny from which he has escaped even if they question whether this principle applies to a small child like Elián Gonzalez. Most Americans probably also believe that our government has generally acted in accordance with this principle. Not so. Our history of ...

The Conservative Shame on Immigration

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 1, 2000

The moral decline of the conservative movement was recently reflected in a syndicated column entitled "Goofy may be a Libertarian" by Don Feder, one of the conservative movement's leading lights. Feder's critique, which in part took the Libertarian Party to task for its position favoring open immigration, displayed not ...

Understanding the Passion of Cuban-Americans

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 1, 2000

Last year, I spent a week in Cuba with the official permission of the U.S. Treasury Department and the Cuban Interest Section in Washington, D.C. (the diplomatic agency that is "hosting" Elian Gonzales's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez). The purpose of my trip was to conduct an informal ...

Elian’s Fate: It’s Not America’s Decision

by Sheldon Richman February 1, 2000

Imagine an American father-a widower-deciding that he wants to move himself and his 6-year-old son to Cuba. Should the U.S. government permit it? Many strong arguments could be raised against the father's decision. Cuba is a communist dictatorship where Fidel Castro's word is law. His Marxist philosophy squelches the most ...

Let’s Stick with Traditional American Values!

by Jacob G. Hornberger February 1, 2000

Upon reading Hans-Herman Hoppe’s article “On Free Immigration and Forced Integration,” I couldn’t help but wonder whether he first reached the conclusion that he wanted to reach and then constructed a set of arguments to support that conclusion. Hoppe begins his article by correctly pointing out that from a ...

Anarcho-Anti-Immigrationism?

by Jacob G. Hornberger February 1, 2000

For reasons not exactly clear, the immigration issue gives some libertarians trouble. In their efforts to grapple with the issue, it’s made needlessly complicated and some highly odd “solutions” are promulgated. We’ll look at one such solution in this article. Preliminarily, we would expect that when a libertarian examines any ...

Why Should Elián Be the Only One?

by Jacob G. Hornberger January 1, 2000

At least the case of Elián González is helping to expose the hypocrisy of U.S. immigration policy. The INS says that the boy should be returned to Cuba so that he can be with his father. Republican presidential candidates and even Al Gore are expressing outrage, suggesting that the boy would ...

Custom-Made Abuses at Customs

by James Bovard December 1, 1999

You know it is going to be a bad day when your Customs inspector starts putting on latex gloves. A rising floodtide of scandal is engulfing the Customs Service. Press reports across the nation are trumpeting cases of Customs agents taking bribes and abusing their power. A Treasury Department investigation is looking at the agency's ...

Professional Courtesy

by Jacob G. Hornberger October 1, 1999

"Cuban authorities recently sentenced a Cuban-born U.S. resident to life in prison for smuggling Cuban citizens out of Cuba. Meanwhile U.S. officials, working in cooperation with their Cuban communist counterparts, continue to attack defenseless Cuban refugees and repatriate them to Cuba. If any of the Cuban or U.S. government ...

Repatriation: The Ugly Side of Immigration Laws

by Jacob G. Hornberger September 1, 1999

Recently, off the shores of Miami, Florida, the American people were exposed to the ugly side of immigration laws-the forcible repatriation of illegal immigrants to their country of origin. Television viewers watched in horror as U.S. Coast Guard officials, using water cannons and pepper spray, attacked Cuban refugees in ...